"Friendly Fire" death in Iraq was Murder

Greg Mitch of Editor and Publisher, has authored the book, So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits --and the President -- Failed on Iraq, which includes several chapters on non-combat deaths in Iraq. He recently followed up on this tragic story, originally said by the army to involve two non-combat deaths, but which was later revealed to be a murder-suicide in which the victim had reported harrassment to superior officers.

[L]ast August I briefly described yet another case [of "non-combat" deaths in Iraq], involving a 20-year-old Texas woman named Kamisha Block, who apparently was much loved in her Vidor hometown. It was said to be death by “friendly fire,” which officially is fairly rare in Iraq, so I kept an eye on it for days, in case of an update.

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Forget friendly fire. It turns out that Spc. Block was actually murdered, and the killer, another soldier, Staff Sgt. Brandon Norris, then turned the gun on himself.


And more: Her parents were misled at the start, and only after the mother noticed a suspicious head wound at the funeral (it turns out she was shot five times) and asked why, were they informed a few days later about the murder angle.

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The [Beaumount] Enterprise in an editorial today charges: "There is no excuse for the U.S. Army's shabby treatment of Kamisha Block's parents and others who cared for her. Her commanders knew right away that she had been killed by a fellow soldier in Iraq, who had been harassing her. It was a standard murder-suicide. Incredibly, the Army first told her parents that it was an accidental death due to friendly fire."

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Even after the family was informed about the murder – the two soldiers had some sort of “relationship” in the past -- no other details were released, and it took six months, and the help of a local congressman, for the family to finally get the 1200-page military report. It revealed that their daughter had been abused by the killer several times shortly before she died, and the Army seemingly did not do enough to protect her. The Blocks say that a military official told them that the chain of command should have taken the abuse more seriously and done more.


Now they are asking why it took so long for the truth to emerge, and why no one has been punished for the failure to save their daughter.