2 Canadian soldiers charged in death of corporal

pretty serious charges. Don't they have criminal negligence in the forces?

There ya go Andy.

that's not the same. Criminal negligence in civil law has the same penalties as manslaughter, except it makes clear that there was no intent. When we hear about manslaughter we usually hear about somebody who attacked another but had not intent to kill them.

Anyway, if these charges are proven, it sounds like those two guys really screwed up. Wonder what they were thinking. It's not like they can claim they didn't know better.

This doesn't tell me enough to form an opinion.

Were I charged with being the investigating officer I'd be asking about who ordered or authorized the training and why that officer allowed improperly trained or ill-suited non-coms to carry out the exercise.

Whenever I see charges laid in a 'training accident' and they're only laid against non-coms then I immediately wonder 1) where the hell was their officer? and 2) is that officer covering something by charging non-coms and 3) what kind of officer throws his men under the bus?

Maj. is the abbreviation for Major and the last paragraph explains that Watts is a Reserve Officer from Calgary.




So given the fact they both got charged in this case the shit didn't just run downhill.

Good. Fair enough, then.

Gawd these stories are awful. The friendly fire cases are the saddest stories. How do these things happen?

I think you mean criminal law.

Quite often it's complacency.

When you carry out a dangerous function over and over and over you can become quite complacent and forget that just because something didn't happen last time, doesn't mean it won't happen this time.

The procedures for Live-fire excerises are very formal and spelled out in black and white in minute detailfor this very reason and they're typically not subject to interpretation. It's also something the Range Safety Officer (probably the Warrant Officer charged) would have comitted to memory. While there are few details in thestory, it sounds like they were found to have deliberately violated key procedures and either:

a) did not follow established procedures to ensure against unauthorized arming and/or firing of the weapon, or;
b)authorized the arming/firing of the weapon without first ensuring that the range was clear.

Based on the fact that a Warrant Officer and a Major appear to be the only individuals charged, my guess is the latter.