(C) El Paso Matters.org
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Vanished Fort Bliss soldier legally bought firearms in El Paso after Army took away his duty weapon following suicide attempt [1]
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Date: 2024-12-29
This story discusses suicide. If you are in crisis, please call, text or chat with the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, or contact the Crisis Text Line by texting TALK to 741741.
After a suicide attempt in March 2020, Army Pvt. Richard Halliday of Fort Bliss was committed to a psychiatric center for 72 hours and declared unfit to carry a weapon on duty. But he was able to legally purchase a semiautomatic rifle at an El Paso gun store two weeks later.
Halliday drove to the border with the gun and ammunition and briefly went into Mexico, Army records show. He was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers when he drove northbound at the Bridge of the Americas and back into El Paso. He was turned over to Military Police, and the Army took custody of the rifle and soon began the process of separating him from the service.
Despite being restricted to the post and subject to round-the-clock monitoring by his Fort Bliss unit because the Army considered him a danger to himself, Halliday was able to return to the El Paso gun store in mid-June and legally buy a 9 mm pistol, Army investigators later discovered.
At 9:29 p.m. on July 23, 2020, Halliday sent a Facebook message to a friend. “I just wanted to say goodbye, finna end things don’t forget bout my request sorry n bye.” His device’s connection to the Fort Bliss barracks Wi-Fi ended 11 minutes later, and no trace of Halliday has been found since.
A search of his barracks after he disappeared turned up the box for his SCCY CPX-1 handgun, but the 9 mm weapon vanished with him.
After being listed as missing for almost four years, Halliday was formally declared dead by the Army earlier this year, though his remains have not been found.
Federal firearms laws require that the National Instant Criminal Background Check System be notified when someone is committed involuntarily to a mental health facility, or is “adjudicated as a mental defective.” Such a notification would alert a federally licensed firearms dealer not to sell a gun to such a person.
The background check system was created in 1993 in an effort to keep guns away from people with criminal records or mental health conditions that create a danger to themselves or others.
But Halliday’s case points to a “loophole” in the background check system that largely exempts the military from reporting mental health commitments, a gun safety advocate said. Mental health commitments of service members usually are made without due process protections available to civilians, and the lack of due process means the military doesn’t have to report mental health commitments of soldiers to its facilities.
“When someone signs up for the military, they give up some of their rights to due process. They are under an obligation to do what their commanding officer says, and therefore, they have to go into a mental facility if the commanding officer says, go into a mental facility,” said Lindsay Nichols, the policy director of Giffords Law Center, which advocates for gun safety policies.
A Justice Department report showed that the Department of Defense made only one referral to the federal background check system for mental health reasons in 2019, 29 referrals in 2020, and 33 in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available.
The Army did not respond to repeated inquiries from El Paso Matters about Halliday’s disappearance or its policies on reporting to the federal firearms background check system.
The Department of Defense in September 2020 issued guidance to commanders that emphasized efforts to get soldiers to voluntarily surrender their private weapons when they may be at increased risk of harming themselves or others. The guidance stresses increasing safety for service members while avoiding the risk of creating a stigma that might prevent service members from seeking needed mental health care.
“Commanding officers and consulting health professionals should work to reduce access to personally owned firearms when they have a reasonable belief that a service member is at risk for harm to self or others … as a temporary and entirely voluntary option for the service member” and “ending when the service member requests return of the firearm,” the guidance said.
The guidance instructs commanders not to “order service members to turn over privately owned firearms” or “attempt to confiscate privately owned firearms.” Commanders also should not “Increase stigma by calling attention to a service member who has been placed on firearms restriction.”
The Army board of inquiry that declared Halliday deceased made no determination on the manner or cause of death. But the board found no evidence of foul play or someone staging a disappearance.
“There are no indications or evidence that PVT Halliday left against his will, no evidence of any border crossings, or that he had taken any action to stockpile funds. When PVT Halliday left his barracks on or about 23JUL20, he left behind his US passport, bank cards and an empty pistol box,” said the board of inquiry report filed by seven Army officers, whose names were redacted before the report was released by the Army.
A February 2021 report from the Army Criminal Investigation Division said Halliday likely committed suicide. A major whose name was redacted in a CID report said the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit reviewed investigative records and “were in agreement (with Army officials) that the most likely outcome is that PVT Halliday took his own life.”
In 2020 – a year when the COVID-19 pandemic increased mental health strains around the world – the Army reported that 175 soldiers committed suicide, a 20% increase over the prior year. The Department of Defense said firearms were used in two-thirds of suicides of active-duty service members in 2020.
The Army also reported 451 suicide attempts in 2020 by active duty soldiers that were survived.
A soldier disappears from Fort Bliss
Army and El Paso police records obtained by El Paso Matters show Halliday as a young soldier spiralling into trouble after returning from a deployment, including a suicide attempt less than five months before he vanished on July 23, 2020. Investigators later found he was facing financial and relationship problems, and members of his unit reported that he was using alcohol and illegal drugs, Army records show.
His disappearance triggered a high-profile search effort in the summer and fall of 2020, but no sign of Halliday has ever been found.
Richard Halliday enlisted in the Army in 2018 and disappeared from Fort Bliss in 2020. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Army)
Halliday, who grew up in Germany and Ireland, enlisted in the Army in April 2018 while visiting his sister in South Korea, according to Army records. His job was operator on Patriot missile launchers. He was assigned to Fort Bliss in September 2018, and deployed to the Middle East nation of Qatar a month later.
“PVT Halliday had been a high performing soldier and personable and outgoing but became troubled and withdrawn after returning from deployment” in July 2019, the board of inquiry said in its report.
Halliday was arrested by the El Paso Police Department in the early hours of Jan. 25, 2020, on a charge of driving while intoxicated. He was 20 at the time and not legally allowed to consume alcohol in Texas.
Police video and reports obtained by El Paso Matters under the Texas Public Information Act show that Halliday was stopped in the 6400 block of Airport Road while driving without his headlights from one parking lot to another, crossing Boeing Drive in the process. The video showed Halliday cooperative with responding officers but struggling with field sobriety tests. He appears to have fallen asleep in the back of a patrol car taking him for testing for the presence of alcohol.
He submitted to a breath test after being taken into custody, and the test showed a blood alcohol content of 0.115 to 0.116, above the legal limit of 0.08, according to the police report.
Richard Halliday answered questions from an El Paso police officer after he was stopped on suspicion of drunk driving in January 2020. (Screenshot from El Paso Police Department body camera)
A judge eventually placed Halliday in a pretrial diversion program, a common practice for first-time offenders. The program allows for charges to be dropped if the accused completes several courses and avoids other legal entanglements, but Halliday disappeared before completing the program and the charge was dropped in 2021.
On March 2, 2020, Halliday “was admitted to the emergency room for a self harm incident and admitted to having suicidal thoughts and attempting to take his own life,” a CID report stated. Investigative reports said he cut his arms and was admitted as an inpatient to William Beaumont Army Medical Center’s behavioral unit March 2-5.
“PVT Halliday was deemed unfit for performing (military occupational specialty) duties and carrying a weapon from a Behavioral Health standpoint,” a CID agent wrote in a report after interviewing an official in Beaumont’s mental health clinic.
Halliday cut himself on his arms as his unit prepared to go for training at McGregor Range, a sprawling area of Fort Bliss in southern New Mexico, according to a member of his unit who spoke with El Paso Matters on the condition he not be identified.
When he asked Halliday why he cut himself, “he just kind of was just like, you know, I liked living in Ireland more when I was young,” and acknowledged he was trying to take his own life, the soldier said.
The unit’s leadership decided to bring Halliday to the training at McGregor Range when he was released from the hospital after 72 hours.
“We’re not gonna give him a weapon, we’re not gonna make him pull guard or anything, but he’ll be around his friends,” the soldier from his unit said.
On March 17, 2020 – 15 days after his suicide attempt – Halliday purchased a GTO Core AR-15 style semiautomatic rifle from Gun Central in East-Central El Paso for $618, according to Army investigative reports. He was 20, above the legal age of 18 for buying a rifle in Texas.
On March 27, while Fort Bliss soldiers were under orders not to leave the post because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Halliday returned to Gun Central to pick up the rifle he purchased 10 days earlier, the board of inquiry said.
On the afternoon of March 28, Halliday was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the Bridge of the Americas after briefly driving into Juárez, CID reports said. Traffic was extraordinarily light on the bridge at the time because pandemic restrictions prohibited most border crossings.
CBP officers found his rifle in the vehicle, along with 19 rounds of live ammunition, 20 blank rounds and two empty 30-round magazines, CID records state. CBP officials notified Fort Bliss and released Halliday to Military Police. He was not charged with any criminal violations.
Richard Halliday was found with a semi-automatic rifle by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Bridge of the Americas in March 2020. This picture was taken about six months later, when cross-border traffic was limited by COVID-19 restrictions. (Corrie Boudreaux/El Paso Matters)
Army investigative reports say Halliday told Military Police that he had intended to go to the Red Sands area in far East El Paso but made a wrong turn because of a GPS error and accidentally went into Mexico. The bridge is about 7 miles southwest of Fort Bliss, while Red Sands is about 20 miles east of the post.
CID records show that Halliday headed southbound on the bridge toward Mexico at 3:07 p.m. in a Toyota Camry he had recently purchased, and was stopped at the northbound CBP inspection station 14 minutes later.
As a result of the suicide attempt, the DWI arrest and the incident at the international bridge, Halliday was placed under restrictions on March 31 that prohibited him from leaving FortBliss post or consuming alcohol, and required soldiers in his unit to escort him 24 hours a day. Those restrictions remained in place until Halliday disappeared in July, although investigators later found he repeatedly evaded his escorts, Army records show.
Halliday faced a nonjudicial process known as an Article 15 for underage drinking and the border incident, and was reduced in rank from private first class to private, the Army’s lowest enlisted rank. He also forfeited half his pay for two months, and was given 45 days of extra duty, and 45 days of restriction to post.
On April 21, the Army notified Halliday that it would begin the process of an administrative separation from the service. The process formally commenced on June 17, with his battery and battalion commanders recommending he be removed from the Army.
Halliday seemed almost relieved that the Army was removing him from the service, the soldier in his unit said.
“He almost seemed a little happier because he knew he was separating,” he said, adding that Halliday was unclear on his post-Army plans. “He was always like, I don’t know, I’ll figure it out, maybe go back to Ireland. That was always his thing, was Ireland, Ireland, Ireland.”
Halliday disappeared before the separation process was completed.
“To be really honest, I don’t know what happened to the kid. I really hope he didn’t hurt himself, but I don’t know,” the soldier in his unit said, then began crying.
What happened to Richard Halliday?
The board of inquiry report – which El Paso Matters obtained under the Freedom of Information Act – relied heavily on an investigation by the Army Criminal Investigation Division in the two years after Halliday’s disappearance. The Army made the investigation report public earlier this year after receiving multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.
Investigators said a corporal from Halliday’s unit was supposed to report to escort duty at 6 p.m. on July 23, but admitted he didn’t show up until 4 a.m. the following day, when he found Halliday missing. The soldier assigned as his escort up until 6 p.m. returned to his own barracks.
Halliday also had evaded his escort on July 17, when he took a Lyft from Fort Bliss to Gun Central, at 6010 Gateway East, according to Army records. He used a credit card to buy an SCCY CPX-1 9 mm handgun for $323.67, investigators later reported. He had turned 21, the legal age to buy a handgun from a federally licensed firearms dealer, on June 24.
Richard Halliday purchased an SCCY CPX-1 9 mm handgun, similar to the weapon in this image, six days before he disappeared. (Photo courtesy of YvesHoebeke via Wikimedia)
“While under unit watch, PVT Halliday demonstrated an ability to exploit lapses in escort coverage. He frequently left post to purchase things without an escort and subsequently disappeared during one of these lapses on 23JUL20,” the board of inquiry report said.
The CID reports indicated Halliday wasn’t able to buy a box of ammunition for the handgun, but later told a friend he had purchased a single 9 mm bullet for $40.
After Halliday’s disappearance, his unit initiated a search and he was declared absent without leave. His family was not notified that he was missing until Aug. 28, and the Army CID didn’t begin an investigation until Sept. 1.
On Nov. 25, 2020, Halliday’s status was changed to “duty status – whereabouts unknown,” in accordance with a new Army directive on missing persons. The classification was changed to “missing” on Dec. 5, retroactive to July 24.
The CID investigation continued until November 2021, and Halliday’s case was assigned to CID’s Cold Case Unit in June 2022. The investigation remains open, although it has produced no evidence of his whereabouts.
“The investigation examined every aspect of PVT Halliday’s life prior to the Army and as a Soldier. In addition to area canvasses and physical searches, the investigation accounted for all of PVT Halliday’s movements leading up to his absence, his social encounters, personal and professional relationships, and financial activity,” the board of inquiry report said. “CID and the FBI even investigated the tips and leads provided by PVT Halliday’s family, who were also conducting their own independent investigation. Throughout the course of the investigation, not one anonymous tip, investigative lead, or physical search yielded any positive contact or results.”
Even though investigators were unable to track Halliday’s movements after he disappeared, and his remains have not been found, the board of inquiry found that the preponderance of evidence pointed to Halliday dying shortly after he disappeared.
“All of PVT Halliday’s regular patterns of life effectively ceased after 23JUL20. PVT Halliday had a very large digital footprint, and he typically made dozens of transactions per day across multiple platforms. In three and a half years, there has not been a single digital indicator of PVT Halliday’s presence,” the board report said.
The board said evidence indicates Halliday’s remains are within a 50 mile radius of Fort Bliss, and in the United States. Halliday did not own a car at the time of his disappearance, and investigators found no evidence that he left Fort Bliss through the post’s gates.
The family’s response
Halliday’s parents, Patricia and Robert, lived in Florida at the time of his disappearance and now live in South Carolina. They have led a high-profile effort to find him, including spending several months in El Paso in 2020, after the Army waited more than a month to notify them he was missing.
His parents did not respond to repeated requests for comment from El Paso Matters on the board of inquiry report on their son.
Fort Bliss officials said in 2021 that the Army didn’t have correct contact information on file for the Halliday family. Maj. Gen. Sean Bernabe, the Fort Bliss commander from September 2020 to July 2022, said in a January 2021 media briefing that post officials made mistakes by not timely connecting with the family and not immediately beginning a missing persons investigation when Richard Halliday disappeared.
An investigation of Richard Halliday’s unit ordered by Bernabe found that repeated deployments and training had created stress for the soldiers, but found no evidence of toxic leadership.
Video of Richard Halliday’s parents and Army general asking for information on his disappearance
Since 2020, Patricia Halliday has conducted nightly livestreams on Facebook and YouTube about her son’s disappearance. She regularly criticizes the Army’s investigation. She also has said repeatedly that she believes her son was murdered, sometimes saying without providing evidence that the Army has confirmed that he was murdered.
Patricia Halliday sought public assistance in helping find her son, Richard, in October 2020. (Photo courtesy El Paso Times)
In her livestreams, she identifies numerous people from Fort Bliss as suspects of killing her son, though CID and board of inquiry reports say information provided by the Halliday family yielded no investigative results.
CID reports said that several people named in the livestreams have been harassed by followers of the broadcasts.
An officer frequently named by Patricia Halliday as a “prime suspect” and “Richard’s platoon leader” told CID investigators that he never was in the same unit as Halliday and was deployed to Iraq from February 2020 to February 2021. The soldier in Halliday’s unit who spoke with El Paso Matters also said the officer was never in the unit.
Patricia Halliday also has claimed, without citing evidence, that the Aug. 3, 2019, mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart was an attempt by various people to distract attention from “whistleblower” claims her son made about wrongdoing at Fort Bliss. Army investigative records released under the Freedom of Information Act contain no information that Richard Halliday — who returned from deployment a few weeks before the Walmart shooting — was a whistleblower.
She has claimed that two assassination attempts against former President Donald Trump this year might be connected to her son’s disappearance.
In her livestreams, Patricia Halliday also regularly accuses people from Fort Bliss, El Paso and the media – including El Paso Matters – of “interfering” with the investigation into her son’s death.
The Army’s Casualty and Mortuary Affairs Branch formally notified the Halliday family that Richard was classified as deceased on April 24, 2024.
“On behalf of the Secretary of the Army and the entire Army Family, please accept my deepest condolences on the death of (name redacted). I realize that words are inadequate at a time such as this. I hope, however, that you will find comfort in knowing your loss is shared by all the men and women who wear the military uniform,” said the letter, which El Paso Matters obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.
The military and the gun background check system
On Nov. 5, 2017, a gunman opened fire on First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, killing 26 people and wounding 22 others.
The gunman, who later killed himself, used a Ruger AR-556 semiautomatic rifle that he purchased in 2016 at a San Antonio sporting goods store.
An investigation determined that the gunman should not have been able to purchase the weapon because he had been convicted of domestic violence in a 2012 Air Force court martial. But the Air Force never reported the conviction to the background check system as required by federal law.
Congress passed a bill in 2018, which was signed by President Donald Trump, that required the military and other federal agencies to improve reporting to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, and to provide regular reports on the number of cases reported to the criminal background check system.
Nichols, the policy director for Giffords Law Center, said Congress has shown a willingness to tweak the background check system, except for proposals to expand it to private gun sales and at gun shows.
Lindsay Nichols
“This is an area where members of Congress on both sides of the issue have been able, repeatedly, in both 2007 and 2018, to get together and agree and do something,” she said.
Nichols said a law could be drafted to increase the number of military mental health commitments being reported to the background check system while also protecting the rights of service members.
“We could create some sort of adjudication or due process where the person is told, OK, we’re going to commit you to the mental institution no matter what because you have to follow your superior officer’s commands,” she said. “But also, we don’t think you should have a gun in civilian life during this time period. And if you want to oppose that, here’s going to be a notice in a hearing, court procedure to make that determination.”
“If the judicial officer, after looking at evidence from both sides, says no, this person shouldn’t have a gun for the next year or five years or however long, then that person’s name can be entered into the background check system,” Nichols said.
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