Posted at 12:47 p.m., Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Hickam airman gets 10 years in shooting of roommate
Associated Press
HAMPTON, Va. — A Hawai'i-based Air Force enlisted man was sentenced today to 10 years in prison for killing a fellow airman in their living quarters in Iraq by shooting him in the chest with a 9 mm pistol.Kyle J. Dalton also was given a dishonorable charge and a reduction in rank from senior airman to airman basic and ordered to forfeit all pay and allowances, said Maj. John Elolf, an Air Force spokesman.
Dalton pleaded guilty Monday to involuntary manslaughter and violating a lawful general regulation by drawing or aiming a firearm when deadly force was unnecessary. He faced up to 12 years in prison.
In exchange for the plea, Air Force prosecutors dropped charges of murder, which carried a maximum punishment of life in prison, and assault.
Dalton told the judge at his court-martial that he thought his service pistol was unloaded when he pointed it, playfully, at 22-year-old Senior Airman Carl J. Ware of Glassboro, N.J., on July 1, 2006, and pulled the trigger.
Ware and Dalton were stationed at Hickam Air Force Base in Hawai'i and were part of the 886th Expeditionary Security Forces Squadron at Camp Bucca, where they guarded detainees.
The Air Force held the court-martial at Langley Air Force Base in Hampton to make travel easier for witnesses.
The service declined to release Dalton's age and hometown, citing privacy regulations.
