As a result of a tragic accident that took place in northern Moore County Saturday, the U.S. Army has ordered an end to role-playing by law officers and allowing soldiers to wear civilian clothing during training exercises.
Butler shot and killed Lt. Tallas Tomeny and severely wounded Sgt. Stephen Phelps during a traffic stop on Acorn Ridge Road just north of Robbins Saturday afternoon. Phelps is listed in fair condition at FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital in Pinehurst.
Col. Charles A. King, commander of the 1st Special Warfare Training Group (Airborne), said the Army will no longer ask police officers, sheriff’s deputies and members of other civilian law-enforcement agencies to play roles in the exercises.
The Army will improve notification procedures as well, King said during a press conference Tuesday morning at Fort Bragg. Local officials will no longer be told about training simply by telephone calls, King said. From now on, Army officials will meet face to face to coordinate activities with civilian agencies.
He said soldiers will no longer wear civilian clothes during exercises. Other changes are expected to result from a continuing Army investigation.
Butler did not know Tomeny and Phelps were soldiers on a training mission, and they mistakenly thought the Moore County deputy was taking part in the exercise when he stopped their green Ford Ranger pickup about 2:30 p.m. Saturday in front of Acorn Ridge Baptist Church.
In a subsequent struggle, Butler shot both soldiers, killing Tomeny on the spot. The driver, Charles Leiber of Seagrove, was sitting in Butler’s patrol car where the deputy had placed him before returning to question Tomeny and Phelps.
‘I’ve Got Two Down’
Disk recordings of Butler’s radio calls for backup show increasing tension during the stop, culminating with his urgent request for help including two ambulances.
“I’ve got two down. Send me one, possibly two EMS units, ASAP,” he told his dispatcher, using codes 10-52 for the ambulances, and the seldom-heard urgent call for help, 10-18.
District Attorney Garland Yates says no laws were broken.
He found that the use of deadly force by Butler was lawful and justified under North Carolina law. The deputy, he said, reasonably believed he was facing an imminent threat of serious bodily injury or death.
Butler had no way of knowing the two soldiers were a part of a training exercise, Yates said. He also released a finding that the soldiers committed no violation, as they believed the deputy was taking part in the exercise.
It is not known why Leiber, who was driving his own truck with Tomeny in the passenger seat and Phelps riding in the open bed, did not tell Butler they were on an exercise. Sheriff’s Capt. Tommy Lucas told The Pilot Monday afternoon that that was the big question.
It remained a question Tuesday, even after the press conference at Fort Bragg.
SBI agent Neil Godfrey said his agency would not release any statements Leiber or anybody else made to investigators, even though the case is closed except for some paperwork.
“Our conversations with (Leiber) are part of our ongoing investigation, clearly,” Godfrey said, adding that the content of the conversations would not be made public at this time.
Leiber himself has steadfastly refused to speak with any member of the media about the event. His wife, Phyllis, told The Pilot he spent Sunday at the NASCAR races in Rockingham.
“He wasn’t sure he would go,” she said. “But he had the tickets, so he went on.”
Leiber said he had nothing to say when he spoke with The Pilot briefly by telephone.
Army officials said they did not know whether Leiber took part in exercises in any other county. The Army has more than 600 contracts with civilians for use of private land, and many civilians volunteer to play roles. Army officials say these people act from patriotism and are unpaid.
Law-enforcement agencies sometimes have played parts in the exercises, which have been conducted since the 1950s. In the past, sheriffs’ deputies in other counties have played roles. This has never been the case in Moore County.
Chief Deputy Lane Carter said that, while his department does everything it can to support and coordinate with military exercises, its members have not played roles and will not do so.
Neither will any other law-enforcement agencies from now on, according to the Army’s recently announced decision.
And from now on, King said, there will be much closer sharing of information with police agencies.
King said this realistic training in parts of 10 central North Carolina counties is essential to the success of continuing missions like the anti-terrorist campaign in Afghanistan. Asked whether the training couldn’t be moved to controlled areas on Fort Bragg, where Special Forces are based, King said it can’t be conducted properly there.
The nature of this training, he said, requires that it take place out in the countryside in areas like those in which Special Forces may have to deploy.
“It is a decision-making exercise,” he said.
Students have wide latitude to respond as situations demand, and that is what makes the exercise uniquely valuable. It is what they will face when actually in harm’s way, King said.
The training event takes place four times a year. While it had other names in the early days, it has been known for a long time as “Robin Sage.”
Robin Sage is the 19-day final exam for the Special Forces Qualification Course. It uses realistic interaction with civilians in populated areas of central North Carolina to test students’ skills in survival, tactics, judgment and dealing with people.
Robin Sage now includes members of the media, and that gives student soldiers experience dealing with the press as they will have to do in a real engagement.
Local residents play citizens of an imaginary People’s Republic of Pineland. They represent people who would be helping a guerilla force retake their homeland from its captors. The Army’s term for them is auxiliary.
“They are members of a civilian populace who support the guerrillas and do not take an active combat role,” King said. “The active auxiliary in Robin Sage numbers around 100 for any given exercise, and all are local residents. Some of these auxiliary have been working for us for many years, and there are some who are on their second or even third generation.”
Some are police officers.
“I’ll say right now that some local police departments in the 10-county area have, in the past, participated as role players in Robin Sage,” King said. “But to the best of our knowledge, as far back as our knowledge reaches, the Moore County Sheriff’s Department has never done so.”
Some Moore County agencies have taken other parts, and sometimes come upon what appeared to be suspicious activity that turned out to be part of Robin Sage.
Earlier this month Robbins police officer J. D. Garner stopped a pickup truck with a trailer and found uniformed soldiers in the trailer. Blanks were fired by soldiers on that occasion, but only after Garner determined them to be involved in training and that there was no threat to public safety.
‘Training Is Crucial’
In neighboring Randolph County, however, the Sheriff’s Department has taken part by playing roles. That will not happen any more, King said.
The Army’s own investigation now focuses on improving future procedures to increase safety while maintaining the valuable training this exercise has provided for almost half a century.
Maj. Rick Patterson told The Pilot that reports from Special Forces returning from Afghanistan testify to the value of Robin Sage.
“They tell us Robin Sage is ‘almost an exact mirror’ of what they have had to do assisting guerilla forces like the Northern Alliance,” he said. “They help them take back their own country.”
Retired Special Forces officers say that North Carolina was considered an impossible target to take in the event of invasion during the Cold War, precisely because the training that took place here with such widespread civilian support.
“I am sure that I speak for all ex-Special Forces soldiers when I say the incident was a tragedy,” one retiree, Kevin McMahan, told The Pilot. “But the training is essentially crucial to the success of the Special Forces Mission.”
McMahan himself served with the 1st Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. He said that when he was doing instruction, students were well aware of the possibility of meeting real law officers while engaged in activities that could look suspicious.
“When lurking through the woods, you were always hesitant of running up on law enforcement, because you knew they would report you to cadre,” he said.
But McMahan said this very same training has roots going back to World War II and is of vital importance in military training.
“The situations these students will experience during Robin Sage will become the base that nearly everything else throughout their Special Forces Career will build upon,” he said.
The military is continuing its investigation of last weekend’s shootings, and the current Robin Sage operation will continue through Saturday. A new one will begin in April.
