Suspected 'American Sniper' Killer Eddie Ray Routh to Go to Trial

[Reter]

Source: abc News

The murder trial of the man accused of killing the real-life "American Sniper" is scheduled to begin next month.

Marine Corps veteran Eddie Ray Routh is accused of killing Chris Kyle in February 2013, four years after Kyle was honorably discharged from the Navy. Kyle is the inspiration behind the box-office hit "American Sniper."

Routh's trial is scheduled to start on Feb. 11, pending jury selection in the days prior, according to the clerk for Erath County District Court in Texas.

In the years leading up to his death, Kyle had begun working with wounded veterans and, in some cases, he spent time with them on the shooting range. One particular session turned deadly.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/US/suspected-american-sniper-killer-eddie-ray-routh-trial/story?id=28411163

[Aristus]

1. He rid us of a dangerous psychopath, but he did it in a way Kyle might have approved of.

So try this guy and put him away. PTSD didn't make him do it.

I grew up with those "Vietnam Veteran goes crazy and embarks on shooting rampage" news stories. Probably very few people stopped to think that it wasn't PTSD so much as the guy was a bloodthirsty monster.

"Vietnam Veteran has frequent panic attacks and difficulty staying married" is much more of an accurate summation of the effects of PTSD. But it doesn't make for riveting news stories and/or convenient defenses for murder.

[mountain grammy]

3. I would prefer to wait for the trial and the facts to come out..

This vet may be just as wounded and damaged as the damage he did. I, for one, want to hear his side. He's the only one who really knows what happened out there. The others are dead.

[Reter]

8. I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say

You said "He rid us of a dangerous psychopath." Are you talking about Kyle? Are you glad this happened to him? Then you talk about "the guy was a bloodthirsty monster." It appears you are talking about the shooter who's on trial, but your other statement seems to praise what he did.

[Aristus]

9. I'm not glad it happened to Kyle. Celebrating a death at the hands of a morally suspect gunman would

make me like Chris Kyle.

As for the "bloodthirsty monster" part, I was referring to the spate of shootings in the 70's and 80's by Vietnam veterans who were either blamed by the media for flashbacks that led them to the crime, or who straight up said "It was 'cause of the Nam, man." My father, a Vietnam veteran himself who suffered terribly from PTSD, had nothing but contempt for people who caused atrocities and then fell back on mental illness to explain it. He was a strong advocate for the many, many people who came home from Vietnam and made highly successful lives for themselves, PTSD or not.

I'm not glad Chris Kyle was shot to death. But he was a morally repugnant, bloodthirsty, bigoted monster. I'm not sorry he's gone...

[Demit]

10. If you read the New Yorker piece on him, you'd see Routh was exhibiting psychological

problems. His mother was frantic. She had met Kyle & thought he would help. Yeah, right. I hope it comes out at trial what happened that day on the range.

[Hoyt]

2. Kyle took a wounded vet with PTSD to a gun range for "therapy." What the heck?

[freshwest]

4. He was trying a crude form of 'de-sensitivity training,' IIRC.

The idea behind it is repetition of the sounds imprinted at times of high stress/ fear/ etc. will lessen the response when out of the warzone.

Since the PTSD sufferer doesn't leave behind the warzone, but carries it inside, it's never over as one might think. In time, it can be put in perspective, but it can be triggered again.

The limbic highjacking occuring with PTSD is not cognitive, or so I've been told. It's hard wired. It's not relieved by such techniques unless under monitored conditions.

The brain is changed, and won't return to a pre-PTSD state, it's a life changing brain event(s). Going to the range was a self-help method, if one wants to be generous.

PTSD works in different ways in different people. The shooting at the range was at first thought to be an accident but the narrative appears to be that the man killed him for some reason, not yet stated.

At least that's what it seems like, I don't really know as I haven't kept up with the story and had no interest in the film, either...

[Hoyt]

5. I don't think his training qualified him for that call. Did he even graduate from High School?

[Reter]

7. To joint any military unit these days requires a HS diploma or GED

It's been like that since at least when I was a late teen in the early 90's. Wasn't so in my parent's time.

[Schema Thing]

12. It was never suspected to be an accident. He shot and killed two people.

It would be interesting to interview fans of the movie and Kyle, and find a way to ask them the gist of what happened on the range that day. I bet the vast majority have completely forgotten there was another man killed alongside Kyle.

[Skittles]

23. gun humper logic

[Tom Ripley]

6. Defense should be able strike every potential juror who has been exposed to commercials...

for that jingoistic gun-worshiping hagiography

[starroute]

11. Especially since the movie apparently ends with Kyle's murder and funeral

(At least according to the Rude Pundit account in the post I read just before this one.)

Given al the controversy over the film and how much it's been in the news, I don't believe the guy could get an unbiased jury anywhere in the country at this point.

[Blue_Tires]

14. I also saw the defense is trying unsuccessfully to get the trial moved

[JI7]

13. doesn't he belong in a hospital getting care for mental illness

[Reter]

19. Not sure I'd ever trust him again

He allegedly killed two people who were befriending him.

[JohninPA]

15. Disgusting

I am utterly disgusted by posters pissing on the graves of American service members here. Didn't get enough spitting in on us in the 60's?

[Darb]

16. OOOh, the old "spitting on the soldiers" canard.

This "American Sniper" was not a hero. He relished in killing from afar in an unjust war. He did not have to do what he did in that war, but he not only did, he did it really well. The fact that he died the way he did doesn't seem all that strange to me. Something about karma.

[JohninPA]

17. Canard would imply "untrue"

However, these events did indeed happen. I personally had garbage thrown at me by anti war protestors during a parade in Harrisburg, PA at the capitol after the first gulf war. Members of my family who served in Vietnam have had similar experiences. Face it, some on the extreme left hate not only the war but the warrior and freely express it (this thread for example). I am thankful we have people like Chief Kyle doing their best to protect my fellow soldiers from harm. He was right to have been proud of the lives he saved by his actions. You may not like my opinion, but I gave several years of my life and most of my right leg to pay for it.

Yes, I am little sensitive when people from my party disrespect my brothers and sisters in arms.

[BlueStater]

18. Kyle was a murderous douchebag who, in his own words, took pleasure in killing people.

He was also a liar who slandered a man (Jesse Ventura) with a bullshit story about him badmouthing soldiers in a bar and Kyle punching him in retaliation. Then he got killed because of his own stupidity.

I'm sorry if you think that the lack of respect shown for this one deeply flawed individual is somehow "pissing on the graves of American service members" but you're wrong.

[Bandit]

21. I enjoy pissing on the graves of monsters.

And it seems there are more monsters in the Armed Forces than anywhere on earth. If you defend this Kyle creature then I suspect you are in the same ball park.

[JohninPA]

22. And Liberals Don't Spit on Soldiers?

I guess sometimes stereotypes are accurate. I am done with this forum. If this is a place where people may attack servicemembers with impunity, I want no parts of it. Damn coward without honor living in your mother's basement I assume.

[Tom Ripley]

24. Adios!

[Bandit]

25. I'll put my service record up against yours any day of the week.

I have witnessed American military personnel at their very worst. I have seen atrocities no human should ever have to witness. I did not volunteer though. I was drafted and would never volunteer myself to be in a situation where I had to do harm to other humans or animals. People that volunteer for that shit have a type of mentality I do not possess.

[jwirr]

28. Bye bye. You should go somewhere they like to ignore things in order to create a perfect world.

We will not be missing you.

[FiveGoodMen]

26. You are being ignored now

As you should.

[Sunlei]

20. He was discharged from a mental hospital for major ptsd treatment a week before he killed.

He will get off on insanity.

It is also crazy to even think a shooting range is a place for anyone to "work with wounded Vets".

Guns, ex. sniper 'heros' and people on heavy duty-psy. drugs do not mix!!