WAR: Marine of The Year Arrested For Shooting at Nightclub Revellers

Daniel Cotnoir who was named as marine of the year last month has been arrested and held on US$100,000 bail after opening fire and shooting at a group of revellers outside his apartment, injuring two people. Cotnoir called the police to complain about the noise minutes before the shooting and told police he feared for his families life after an empty juice bottle was thrown into his window. Cotnoir has called police on a number of occasions in the past year regarding noise outside his apartment block from the Puno Finale nightclub. Cotnoir has been charged with attempted murder.



This serves as a sad reminder to the damage psychologically to war verterans. We saw it after Vietnam and other wars including the gulf conflict of the early 90's and movies like Rambo bought the issue into our lives in a stunning way. I feel that as time goes on, there may well be more incidents like this one as returning soldiers come to terms with the psychological damage caused by seeing things that no man or woman should have to live through.

Things that happen in a war zone shouldn't happen to party goers leaving a licensed club and although it may be ok to discharge a firearm in a war conflict, a suburban street is not the place to be shooting guns. A 15 year old child was treated in hospital for gunshot wounds.

Related News Links:
news.ninemsn.com.au
www.boston.com
www.washingtonpost.com


[edit on 14-8-2005 by Mayet]

I voted yes on this article. I feel like we need to bring more attention to the various things that are beginning to go wrong and just plain suck in our country. The sad plight of soldiers returning from war has been a sad thing here for years. Soldiers returning from Europe in WWI and WWII had problems and that seemed to only be dealt with when they became noticeable. Same happened in every war up to and including today.

It's very sad that a soldier of high status can suddenly fall to a low. Makes me wonder if there is any real substance to things like "soldier of the year"... Seems like, to me, that when a military begins to become bureacratic, then medals, awards, and such become much more prevalent and less meaningful. Look at the French Army....

But, at any rate... We need to have some real changes happening and soon, and this is just an indicator. So... Bring it to everyone's attention.

Two people, age 15 and 20, were hit by bullet fragments and suffered minor injuries.

Daniel Cotnoir, 33, had called police minutes earlier to complain about the noise coming from the street shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday.

Why are a 15 & 20 y/o kid doing partying at a nightclub around 3am???
a.) Isn't 2am the cutoff time for places like that or is that not the law there???
b.) Isn't 21 the legal drinking age there also???

You know thats one part of the story I didn't even contemplate. Would be interesting to find out the answers to those questions mojom.

Hopefully then the 15 year old will be charged for being on licensed premises illegally. She should have been home in bed. At 15 my kids were.

Originally posted by Mayet
You know thats one part of the story I didn't even contemplate. Would be interesting to find out the answers to those questions mojom.

Hopefully then the 15 year old will be charged for being on licensed premises illegally. She should have been home in bed. At 15 my kids were.

I think that the true problem with the article was the fact that they recieved injuries from bullet fragments. If not them,it would have probably been someone else standing there. I too agree with the first post that more action needs to take place to seek help for soliders that have just come out of the battle. Its sad to hear about all the stories where incidents like this and worse occur.

This is a problem which we should be prepared for. I know a psychiatrist who counsels vets, and is also a vet himself, and he says the numbers of returning vets with mental problems are higher than he's ever seen since vietnam (when he was a soldier, not a psychiatrist).

I'm making it a key point come next elections to pay close attention to which candidate(s) will provide most for the mental health care of returning vets, (above what they already have).

-koji K.

Originally posted by koji_K
I'm making it a key point come next elections to pay close attention to which candidate(s) will provide most for the mental health care of returning vets, (above what they already have).

-koji K.

I have not thought about this idea, since I feel that we will have our troops well past our next presidential election. What is the current status of the system that
desensitizes our troops? This should be the major debate that is brought out of this topic, whether we are bringing home service men and women or soliders ready for combat.

Originally posted by mOjOm
Two people, age 15 and 20, were hit by bullet fragments and suffered minor injuries.

Daniel Cotnoir, 33, had called police minutes earlier to complain about the noise coming from the street shortly before 3 a.m. Saturday.

Why are a 15 & 20 y/o kid doing partying at a nightclub around 3am???
a.) Isn't 2am the cutoff time for places like that or is that not the law there???
b.) Isn't 21 the legal drinking age there also???

A) That's the time you tend to cut off the alcohol. Many clubs still go much later and just do not serve alcohol. It's fairly common.

B) Some can get a special licenece allowing under 18's in as long as they give them a wrist band and do not serve them alcohol.

Originally posted by Odium
A) That's the time you tend to cut off the alcohol. Many clubs still go much later and just do not serve alcohol. It's fairly common.

B) Some can get a special licenece allowing under 18's in as long as they give them a wrist band and do not serve them alcohol.

I thought about that too. It also seems like that might explain it for the 20 y/o, but what about the 15 y/o?? Isn't there curfew laws for anyone under 18 there???

Aside from the issue about soldiers coming back with mental damage, which is a bad thing IMO. I think something needs to be addressed about the business practices of this nightclub as well. Let's just assume for now that the 15 and 20 y/o were actually there legally and not under the influence of anything. It still doesn't explain why at 3am they were "outside of the club" making enough noise to wake up people across the street and throwing bottles through this guys window.

I'm the last guy who you'll hear sticking up for any kind of legal B.S. or curfew law.
But I'll also be the first guy to admit that some stupid jackass or group of them who can't be just a bit more considerate of others, do in fact need something or someone to put them in check if they can't do it themselves.

Sometimes that comes in the form of bullet fragments from the guy's house who you just scared the piss out of at 3am by breaking his bedroom window and screaming outside his families home.

I don't mean to say that his reaction is justified either. But under the conditions I'm smart enough to realize that a reaction of a serious magnitude is likely going to happen. So while I don't support shooting up the damn street full of people, that in no way means I support a pack of kids out in the street at 3am being a bunch of rude A-holes and throwing stuff through the windows of someone's house.

IMO, they got minor injuries which is probably less than they actually should have got for their actions. The soldier is a bit more complicated though. I don't think he should have Attempted Murder hanging over his head. More like Assalt with a Firearm or something since that what it was.

Although instead of jail time, the guy obviously needs some mental help. I mean, if you train some kid right out of high school how to play in war games and kill as an instinct, then have him practice it for a while in Iraq, I'm guessing that what you get as a reaction out of him is exactly what you trained him to do. Which is exactly what you see here.

mOjOm, no such things as curfew laws if you are with a "guardian" or "adult" and it's "O.Ked" by the parents.

We also have the problem of not knowing if these people were in fact the ones who threw the bottle or if this is assumed at the moment. I am sure the investigation is still on going.

As for sound? Well I don't think clubs/pubs, etc, should be near anywhere with housing for a number of reasons and this is one of those. (Drugs, being another but I have many.)

.
By denying the brutal truth of what American is doing there in Iraq,

& The daily horrors that have been unleashed there and are sometime commited by Americans themselves we have become a desensitized monster.

The war to most Americans is VERY abstract.
Like a violent schizophrenic choking and killing its little sister with one hand while having no consious awareness of what it is doing.

We don't see the dismembered bloody bodies with bones sticking out where machine gun fire has shreaded and torn them apart.
The stench of the burning flesh as smoke rises from it.
Or as they decay to putrifaction in the scortching heat of the desert sun.

The ability to comit horrible acts and have no sensitivity and regard for you have done is the definition of being psychotic.

America has become psychotic

A monster that commits acts of unimaginable horror on a daily basis with no good reason, remorse or sensitivity about it then eats drinks and parties on like nothing has happened.

America acts like the most polite serial killer around.

This young man has seen with his own two eyes the horrible things America is doing.

He reflects the reality of what is happening in Iraq.

In a war that was started on lies and for corporate greed by men most of whom avoided military service because they didn't want to get hurt.

America is a psychotic schizophrenic monster.

America is sick.

The question isn't what's wrong with this young man,
The question is What the Hell is Wrong with America?
.

Yeah this is shame. PTSD or not, the Marine still should have controlled himself. I do feel for him....he's probably seen more guts and gore than most Marines in Iraq, being a mortician in combat has to be a hard thing, especially on the mind.

Hopefully his combat induced stress and other factors will give him a little slack when it comes time for court.....he deserves to be punished, but that still should be a factor.

The qualities that made him Marine of the Year are the same ones that got him in trouble here. He responded with too much force to the threat presented by opening fire. Its a shame he couldn't keep it in check and let the cops handle the crowd.

Sounds like he had tried to no avail to get a response before, and was dealing with an ongoing problem. Frustration and the stress of his work in Iraq must have overwhelmed him, and he made a bad choice to fire his weapon. I'm sure if he had wanted to hit someone directly, he could have, and maybe he didn't count on fragments causing collateral damage.

It does point out the war stress these guys are under and the need for a full-scale de-briefing process for them directed at re-integration with society after serving in Iraq or other war zones. Whatever process they have in place is obviously inadequate. I just posted a story the other day about the VA reviewing 72,000 PTSD claims for validity. If this incident is any indication, they better be very careful how they go about it.

Semper Fi, and Godspeed to this young Marine, that he find the help he needs to get through this problem and move on.

You have voted Icarus Rising for the Way Above Top Secret award. You have two more votes this month.

Very well said. Unfortunately, I can only give you one WATS...If I had more, you would have them.

Yeah this PTSD thing is a REAL problem that exist with our soldiers and Marines coming home from Iraq and A-stan.....obviously the system they have in place now to comfort this is not working. A few Marines I know have PTSD problems.....it took them awhile to realize it, they probably knew it but did not want to admit it. Now they are getting help.....PROPER treatment for this needs to start early, the sooner the better, IMO.

Slank you got my way Above.

Reality sucks!

Marines teach you to be a killer. I made my husband get rid of his rifle when he left the Marine corps.
If these men had counseling when they returned home maybe these incidents wouldnt happen.

God knows he would have shot me by now...

Sad thing is this is the tip of the iceberg, and actually this guy whilst might of acted improperly, did at least fire in the air it appears. The number of veterans that are coming back and commiting heinous crimes is steadily rising, even suicides are up, this seems to be a candy coated story that at leasst covers this base.

I am reminded of a old George Carlin Skit where he talks about how the USA is becoming a nation of P***ies. He then goes on to describe how during WWI, &II soldiers cam back from war with manly diseases such as "Shell-shock", now it has been turned into "post taumatic stress disorder". I believe this definitely has something to do with it.

One thing no one mentions though is the fact of the matter that the American people do not have a firsthand account or idea of war. Most truly do not know what it is like to be invaded and have our families friends and neighbors dead bodies litter the streets, while foreign soldiers casually step over them. The children going off to war right now know violence mainly through video games, T.V, and movies. They have been fooled into believing that they have been "desensitized" due to media exposure or whatever. Incidents like this prove time and time again how false that is.

Couple all this with the fact that soldiers are basically guniea pigs for new vaccines and medications and you get a very good chance that some things are going to go wrong along the way.

It's sad that these soldiers returning are having soo many difficulties, but perhaps that will make them think twice before they send their sons off to war, perhaps if some of this generations parents had known the face of war themselves they would not of been soo quick to send their own children off .

www.veteransforcommonsense.org...
www.wsws.org...
www.veteransforcommonsense.org...

He obviously intended to miss, with his skills if he wanted to get them then he would have. It even says the ones who were injured were hit by fragments. If the police did their job and these morons were kept off the street then there wouldn't problem. Maybe if they thought there was a sniper at every window they'd think twice before behaving like this.

You know, for some, no amount of counselling is ever going to help get over the tragic realities of war. To go back to "normal Life" would be impossible after what some of these people have seen.

Quick Question:

Do we know if the kids are guilty or are you all just assuming they are?