Concerned about inadequacies in Military Criminal Investigative Organizations (MCIOs), a group of 18 Congress members recently issued a letter calling for adequate, stable funding and resources to aid investigations as part of the fiscal year 2024 Defense Appropriations funding bill.
“The challenges faced by the MCIOs are complex,” the lawmakers wrote. “Over the past decade, the volume of investigations has increased significantly, with sexual assault investigations roughly doubling. The complexity of investigations has also increased, with many depending on digital forensics or novel DNA analysis that require specialized tools, training, and experience. Funding for the MCIOs has not kept pace with the need.”
U.S. Reps. Norma Torres (D-CA) and Andy Kim (D-NJ) led a group of 16 colleagues to reverse this. As justification, Torres pointed to the high-profile cases of Spc. Enrique Roman-Martinez and Spc. Vanessa Guillén, of Fort Bragg and Fort Hood, respectively, who were both murdered in 2020.
In the case of Roman-Martinez, the soldier disappeared in May 2020, only for his head to wash up six days later. His fate was deemed a cold case, despite a $25,000 reward offered for tips leading to arrests and convictions in the case. Guillén’s murder took place inside Fort Hood, at an armory, where she was bludgeoned to death by another soldier. Despite this, she was missing for more than two months before some of her remains were found, and her killer ultimately committed suicide as authorities sought to arrest him.
This highlighted the inadequacies in MCIO investigations, according to Torres and her fellow lawmakers.
“The Army CID has recently remedied its lack of dedicated cold case specialists by setting up a much-needed Cold Case Unit at Quantico, which requires robust funding to allow previously unsolved cases to be successfully solved, often with innovative technology,” the lawmakers said “As CID staffs up, we remain concerned that CID remains a selective service, unlike its competitor agencies, and urge the Committee to consider encouraging DOD to transition CID to a competitive service in keeping with the needs of the organization. We recognize that funding is not the only problem facing the MCIOs, but without adequate and stable funding, the MCIOs will continue to struggle to achieve their critical mission.”
Among other requests, the lawmakers pushed for those overseeing the appropriations bill to include predictable funding for all MCIOs, funds to hire civilian special investigators, starting a new pilot program for training and transitioning of investigators, and moving the CID to a competitive service for personnel acquisition.