American soldier crosses into North Korea

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
301

You advocate violence between inmates in our prison systems. This is not justice, and it is also a TERRIBLE thing for all those employed by the prison system that work with inmates in that setting. It makes our work conditions far more dangerous and raises the risk of inmate on staff violence too.

302

Yes I think there is a very good chance that was the plan. They probably thought the threat of a court martial was enough to get him on a plane and cooperate with the easier route they were giving him. Bad call in retrospect.

303

Never underestimate how shortsighted a stupid & delinquent 19yo can be.

When my late first wife was a JAG she came home a time or two shaking her head. “I had a guy today parlay a parking ticket into Murder One”. It was hyperbole of course, but she did see some really Einstein maneuvers by some of these kids.

When she left USAF for civilian practice she got totally away from criminal law. But dipshits on the outside are as bad or worse, and far more numerous, than dipshits in the service.

304

Monty and Qadgop_the_Mercotan, both of you are two of my favorite posters on these boards, so I am not going to speak of this issue further, so we can agree to disagree. Both of you take care.

305

As promised, here is more information on the charges against PV2 King.

  1. Possession of child porn:

    • King’s charge sheet, which was reviewed by Military.com, alleges that, in the days before the private dashed across one of the most heavily guarded borders in the world, he solicited nude images from an underage Snapchat user and possessed a video of a minor engaged in sexual activity.

  1. Insubordination

    • The charges also allege that King was insubordinate toward his superiors in the fall of 2022, during a period in which he faced separate legal troubles in Seoul for allegedly assaulting locals and vandalizing a police car.

  1. Assaulting a superior officer (See below.)

    • He’s also accused of assaulting an officer

  1. False official statement

    • lying to superiors.

  1. Violation of lawful order

    • Between Sept. 30, 2022, and Oct. 8, 2022, an Army captain repeatedly ordered King not to leave the pair of Army bases that are situated between Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone that borders North Korea; to be escorted when he was outside his barracks; and not to drink alcohol. The charging documents allege that he violated all those orders.

  1. & 7. Assaulting a superior non-commissioned officer, assaulting a superior commissioned officer.

    • The charges claim that three soldiers – a staff sergeant and two sergeants – were sent to “apprehend” King. King, in turn, attempted to escape from them and, in the process, kicked the staff sergeant in the head.
      A separate assault charge alleges King also struck a second lieutenant in the head that day.

So that’s eight counting the previously announced charge of desertion, for which there’s no more information.

A charge of desertion may be brought (1) after someone subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice has been absent without authorization in excess of 30 days, or (2) when they are absent for less than 30 days and (2a) have manifested their intent to not return, or (2b) are facing disciplinary action at the time they go absent.

The child porn charge is one which relates to his actions after release from Confinement Civil Authorities and prior to his flight to North Korea.

p.s. I really wish the news outfits would get someone knowledgeable in military matters, especially military justice matters, when said outfits report on those matters.

p.p.s. Discource’s nested list rots.

306

Seems like that would be the relevant provision. 2a at the very least. For 2b, it’s still not clear to me if the child pornography charges were levied/filed/made/whatever on July 8, or if that’s the date the offense occurred and the army didn’t even know about it until they were prompted to search his various electronic devices (whatever he left behind) and/or social media accounts after the incident (the whole running into North Korea thing).

Of course he certainly was heading back to Fort Bliss for something that sure sounds like disciplinary action, but everything prior to these new charges and the ambiguous wording around the child pornography charge in particular had lead me to believe that would be an administrative discharge and associated paperwork (which one could argue is not per se a disciplinary action, but rather a merely administrative action).

Anyway, it’s largely moot because he definitely manifested his intent not to return to the US pretty much from the moment he ran into North Korea.

307

I’m back to thinking that could be his girlfriend. Or, it could be something much worse. I think our current child porn laws are very poorly written.

308

He’s 23. Regardless of whether it’s his “girlfriend,” this isn’t a “Romeo and Juliet” exception kind of situation. Soliciting nude images from a teenager at least five years his junior is gross and rightfully illegal.

309

He looks younger.

Also, gross and illegal, sure, but not nearly as despicable as people who blackmail teens (which he might be doing, the charges aren’t clear) or abuse children.

310

Huh? How does that help the point you’re trying to make?

311

It’s weird that you have to come up with “but at least it’s not as bad as . . .” scenarios to compare to soliciting nude images from a minor.

312

I thought he was younger. I really don’t think a 19 year old dating a 17 year old is a horrible thing, it just happens to be illegal. Let’s just say i have a lot of friends who engaged in illegal activities when they were 16 or 17, and never did regret it.

And i think the current “child porn” laws are toxic, and actually make it easier to blackmail kids. So that’s a sore spot with me.

Anyway, the dude has a lot of other things going against him. He’s clearly trouble.

313

I may or may not be, depending on the jurisdiction. (assuming “dating” = sex) But, more to your point, it could be legal for them to have sex, but still illegal child porn for him to have a photo them doing it.

314

You’re assuming that the laws are used in a draconian manner to lock up a bunch of kids. That is not my experience. When I was involved in these types of cases both us and the prosecutor were not interested in pursuing anyone just for having pictures of their peers. Even if we wanted to it’s just too prevalent. Most of the high school would have to be locked up if we did. If someone was charged with having pics of their underage girlfriend it was part of a much bigger case with worse charges. The threat of legal action was not blackmail material. Threatening to post embarrassing material publicly was.

315

You guys are going in the direction of the closed and locked thread from last year:

[ I had remembered @puzzlegal participating in that thread, and had made similar points about how someone in their late teens with a fellow late teen who is a legal adult isn’t quite the same as a 16 year old and a 40 year old, so I dug up the thread. No attack intended, just pointing out. ]

Which is fine, but the issue is such a minor point for Mr. Travis King that it seems to be a distraction. Instead, looking at the chare information shared by @Monty (and additional thanks for the effort!) it looks likely that it’s two separate violations. The second -could- (giving the largest possible benefit of the doubt) a video of himself, pre-enlistment, with his girlfriend of the time, giving us @puzzlegal’s 19 and 17 scenario. But the first? Based on the date, yeah, he’s 23 and soliciting nudes directly online, and whether or not he knew or cared about their age is a lot less defensible.

And that’s all we know for now. I’m reasonably certain that we’ll have all the details: defensible or not, in the future, as we aren’t probably looking at the extreme delays of a civilian trial, and don’t want to see us attacking each other ahead of the facts.

'Cause I love you guys, and assume we’re all over the age of consent. :slight_smile:

316

And there are a lot of other charges. And he ran to North Korea!

317

He also struck a second lieutenant in the head, which is especially heinous. Like kicking a puppy dog.

318

Isn’t there some US federal law regarding having sex with someone under 18 overseas regardless of the age of consent in that jurisdiction.

As for South Korea, apparently in 2020, their government raised the age of consent first from 13 (WTF?) to 16, then from 16 to 20. Additionally, accompanying military family members in South Korea are subject to both US and South Korean law. Of course, PV2 King is subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) in addition to being subject to US federal law and, while in Korea, subject to Korean law.

I’m assuming that the individual he solicited was either (a) in the United States, or (b) a military family member on-base in Korea. That’s because SnapChat is not a popular app in South Korea and I doubt PV2 King is conversant enough in Korean to solicit a minor for sexual photos and videos.

From the information in the article I linked above, ISTM the child porn was obtained after his release from South Korean custody.

Additionally, according to Legal Match, the UCMJ prohibits carnal knowledge with anyone under the age of 16.

@ParallelLines Thanks!

319

Indented outline format works pretty well once you figure out how to do it. Here’s a numbered example:

  1. blah blah
    1. blah blah
      1. blah blah long paragraph of blah blah long paragraph of blah blah long paragraph of blah blah long paragraph of blah blah long paragraph of blah blah long paragraph of blah blah
      2. blah blah
    2. blah blah
  2. blah blah
    1. blah blah
    2. blah blah
    3. blah blah
      1. blah blah
        1. blah blah
        2. blah blah
          1. blah blah
            1. blah blah
            2. blah blah
  3. blah blah

The trick is to start each sub-item with 3 spaces. Each additional 3 spaces gets you an additional sub-level. I don’t know the limit for how deep, but it’s at least 7 levels.

The unnumbered format is similar, but needs only 2 leading spaces to trigger an additional level of indentation. Unfortunately you only get 3 dingbats: solid circle, open square, solid square. Everything at level 3 and below gets the solid square.

  • blah blah
    • blah blah
    • blah blah
      • blah blah
      • blah blah
      • blah blah
        • blah blah
          • blah blah
            • blah blah
              • blah blah

If you want the format you used, of a numbered heading, then a separate indented body paragraph below, that takes a smidgen more work but can be done by (ab?)using the <ul> HTML tag. Insert paragraph breaks within an indented section using <br/> tags.

You can almost get the [quote] feature too so the parts that you snipped from the article would be in a shaded box. The text is properly indented, but the shaded box starts at the left margin which detracts from the visual structure of the indentation. And it kills the auto-numbering. The trick is to put the <ul></ul> tags inside the [quote][/quote] tags or inside the leading > marker. I did that on number 6 below.

Here’s your content done that way with automatically numbered section heads.

  1. Possession of child porn:

      King’s charge sheet, which was reviewed by Military.com, alleges that, in the days before the private dashed across one of the most heavily guarded borders in the world, he solicited nude images from an underage Snapchat user and possessed a video of a minor engaged in sexual activity.

  2. Insubordination

      The charges also allege that King was insubordinate toward his superiors in the fall of 2022, during a period in which he faced separate legal troubles in Seoul for allegedly assaulting locals and vandalizing a police car.

  3. Assaulting a superior officer (See below.)

      He’s also accused of assaulting an officer

  4. False official statement

      lying to superiors.

  5. Violation of lawful order

      Between Sept. 30, 2022, and Oct. 8, 2022, an Army captain repeatedly ordered King not to leave the pair of Army bases that are situated between Seoul and the Demilitarized Zone that borders North Korea; to be escorted when he was outside his barracks; and not to drink alcohol. The charging documents allege that he violated all those orders.

  6. Assaulting a superior non-commissioned officer, assaulting a superior commissioned officer.

    The charges claim that three soldiers – a staff sergeant and two sergeants – were sent to “apprehend” King. King, in turn, attempted to escape from them and, in the process, kicked the staff sergeant in the head.

    A separate assault charge alleges King also struck a second lieutenant in the head that day.
  1. And here’s what ought to be item 7, but the auto-numbering was broken by the quote tags. Oops; can’t have everything.

So like anything computerized, overall not too difficult once you know how. But friggin’ frustrating until you do.

320

Wonderful. Thanks!