The platoon sergeant outlined a plan to move Block to a different squad and should Norris have any business with her, he should consult his chain of command. Block are having an inappropriate relationship, then you are.” You’re a noncommissioned officer, you know as well as I do that perception is reality and if it is perceived that you and Spc. The perception is that you are having an inappropriate relationship with her. “Staff sergeants don’t hang out with specialists. Block have been seen by senior leaders in the company late at night talking alone,” wrote the platoon sergeant, whose name has been redacted from the report. “It has been brought to my attention that you and Spc. It was three days later when it happened,” he said.Ī partially redacted document in the criminal investigation report obtained by the Block family states Norris was counseled in July by his platoon sergeant about the perception among members of the unit that there was a relationship between he and Block. “I was told he didn’t know anything about it, but he would look into it. Rattigan said he mentioned the volatile situation to Block’s platoon sergeant. “I didn’t know it was at the level of him murdering her, but I was worried he was going to snap one day and hit her,” he said. Rattigan had known Block from their time serving in Korea, and he always felt a need to look out for her. At night, Rattigan and Block would hang out with other soldiers, but “when we got to that subject, she didn’t want to talk about it because she felt like she was trapped.” “She said he never beat her per se, but he was physical,” said James Rattigan, a friend of Block’s deployed to the same Iraq base as a sergeant with the 57th Military Police Company. Some soldiers and family members close to Block continue to re-examine the days leading up to her death and search for any warning signs that they might have missed. Over time, he looped Block and Norris’s deaths in with the unit’s combat deaths, he said. Womack said there was “an uncomfortable comfortability” with all of it. The unit was in Iraq for another year, and more soldiers died. “Looking back, it’s eerie how little it was discussed.” “There was no more mention of it,” said David Womack, a now retired sergeant who served in Block’s platoon during that deployment. He’d already shot Block five times in the head and chest, the report stated.Ī written statement from a medic on the scene describes the lifesaving measures performed on Block, but that Norris was immediately presumed dead.Īfterward, Block’s photo was placed on a memorial wall on base and a service was held. Norris pointed his pistol at Jennings, but then turned his gun and shot himself in the head. She left, but opened the door when she heard gunshots. The roommate’s name was redacted from the report summarizing the shooting, but she was identified in a 2009 article in Maxim magazine as Spc. The day of the murder, Norris entered into Block’s housing unit and ordered her roommate to leave, according to a law enforcement report. But once they arrived in Iraq, the relationship became volatile and Block wanted out, Shonta Block said. Nonetheless, their relationship blossomed at Fort Hood. Because of his higher rank and because Norris was separated, but still married, a relationship between the two was outlawed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Kamisha Block and Norris were members of the 401st Military Police Company, deployed to Iraq from Fort Hood, Texas. “I said, ‘Oh my God, thank you.’ I couldn’t stop saying it. “I was on a job painting a door,” Shonta Block said about the call. In August, Shonta Block, who works with a remodeling company, said they finally got a glimmer of hope when a phone call from the Inspector General of the Army Criminal Investigation Command informed her that the investigation into her sister’s death was reopened. She’s called the Department of Justice and taken the family’s only copy of the heavily redacted report to the FBI in hope that someone will help her. In the nearly 12 years since Kamisha Block’s death, the family has worked with their elected officials to get more information and met with Army officials, but none of it, so far, has led to holding anyone accountable, she said. The rest of it stunk,” said Shonta Block, 30. “I think the only part that is right in the report is the killing part. Paul Brandon Norris, who then turned his weapon on himself. The family learned while she was deployed at Camp Liberty, Iraq, the 20-year-old soldier was shot to death by her 30-year-old boyfriend, Staff Sgt. Shonta Block said family members have questioned the Army about her sister, waiting six months to get the report on her Aug. “It’s just lie after lie after lie after lie,” said Shonta Block, Kamisha’s sister.
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