Suicide of Danny Chen

All the defendants belonged to C Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division.

They faced various charges, including assault, hate crime, name calling, bullying, dereliction of duty, involuntary manslaughter, maltreatment, making false statements, negligent homicide, and reckless endangerment.

Danny Chen (May 26, 1992 – October 3, 2011) was an American U.S. Army soldier who served during the War in Afghanistan.

His suicide resulted in a military investigation and charges against eight US soldiers, ultimately with four being court martialed.

First Lieutenant Daniel Schwartz of Maryland, a 2009 graduate of West Point, was Chen's platoon leader.

Chen attended P.S. 130 M, graduated from Pace University High School in Manhattan in 2010, and received a full scholarship offer to Baruch College, City University of New York in Manhattan.

The investigation found that Chen had been "racially harassed, teased, bullied, and mercilessly beaten" by his fellow soldiers before he committed suicide on October 3, 2011.

Chen was born and raised in Chinatown, Manhattan, New York City, to parents who had immigrated from Sunning, Canton Province, South China.

His father worked as a chef, his mother worked as a seamstress.

However, Chen had other ambitions and joined the Army in January 2011.

He planned after his military service to return to New York City to serve with the New York City Police Department.

After completing basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia, in April 2011, Pvt. Chen was assigned to C Company, 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, which is based in Fort Wainwright, Alaska.

In August, he was deployed with his unit to Kandahar Province in Afghanistan.

Chen was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his living quarters at the base in Kandahar province, Afghanistan.

The official investigation revealed that Private Chen “had been subjected to physical abuse and ethnic slurs, taunts, and insults by superiors, who one night dragged him out of bed and across the floor like a ragdoll when he failed to turn off a water heater after showering.” The military did not provide much information to the parents while they were conducting their investigation.

Military investigators found that Chen was “the target of ethnic slurs, taunts, and insults, and endured physical attacks at the hands of his fellow soldiers before his death”.

Chen was found to have been physically and verbally mistreated and abused by his superiors, who appeared to single him out for being Chinese-American.

This abuse and bullying occurred on a daily basis for six weeks before his death.

As the first and only American soldier with Chinese ancestry in the unit, he was singled out, endured taunts including racial slurs and insults such as "gook", "chink", "Jackie Chan", "Soy Sauce", and "dragon lady"; assigned excessive guard duty to the point of exhaustion, made to do push-ups while holding water in his mouth, and put in a "simulated sitting position" and mercilessly kicked by other soldiers using their knees, among other abuses, bullying, or violent tactics.

He was allegedly pelted with rocks and stones by fellow soldiers and forced to crawl across gravel shortly before his death.

On September 27, 2011, a sergeant dragged Chen out of bed and over 15 m of gravel, leaving visible bruises and cuts on Chen's back.

Although the incident was reported to Chen's platoon sergeant and squad leader, it was not reported to superior officers.

On October 3, 2011, the day he died, other soldiers forced him to crawl on gravel for over 100 m while carrying equipment, as his comrades “mercilessly threw rocks and stones at him without showing any remorse”.

Chen received a military funeral at a cemetery in Valhalla, New York, on October 13, 2011.

On December 21, 2011, the US Army charged eight soldiers with various crimes relating to Chen's death:

Following a series of Article 32 hearings on March 5, 2012, investigators dropped the most serious charge, involuntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison.

Four of the eight soldiers were recommended for court-martial on the remaining charges, such as negligent homicide, which carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

Subsequent trials were held at Fort Bragg in North Carolina.

Following a pretrial hearing at Kandahar Air Field, he was recommended for court-martial on February 12, 2012.

He faced eight counts of dereliction of duty, including failure to promote "a climate in which everyone is treated with dignity and respect, regardless of race" and "to prevent his subordinates from maltreating and engaging in racially abusive language."

Furthermore, he stood "accused of failing to report two soldiers for consuming alcohol in violation of military rules and failing to report one of those soldiers for 'recklessly' detonating a hand grenade near their base."

Schwartz reached a plea deal with prosecutors in December 2012, after they consulted with Chen's parents about the issues.

Schwartz did not face trial and charges against him were dropped, but he was dismissed from the Army following a nonpublic Article 15 proceeding.

Specifics regarding his punishment were not disclosed.

The court-martial of 30-year-old Sgt. Adam Michael Holcomb of Youngstown, Ohio, one of the four charged in Chen's death, began in July 2012.

He faced charges including negligent homicide, reckless endangerment, communicating a threat, assault, maltreatment of a subordinate, dereliction of duty, and violating a lawful general regulation, which combined carried a maximum prison sentence of up to 17 years and 9 months.

He pleaded not guilty.

The trial was conducted at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Private Degan Berhe testified that Chen had discussed suicide because of being harassed by Holcomb: "He told me to my face, sir, that he wanted to commit suicide because he was mistreated like a dog."

Holcomb was acquitted of being a cause of Chen's death and most of the other charges, but was convicted of assault.