Court agrees to treatment for Iraq war veteran Brock Savelkoul before legal proceedings

By LAUREN DONOVAN Bismarck Tribune

Posted: Thursday, October 7, 2010 2:10 am
 
WATFORD CITY — Brock Savelkoul didn’t look like a free man when he got into the pickup with his sister out in the McKenzie County jail parking lot Wednesday afternoon. This was no rejoicing “yeehaw!” moment.
 
He looked like a man leaving with the most serious orders he’d ever been given: to save a life.

His own.

Seventeen days ago, he faced deadly force in a two-hour standoff between a raving, suicidal Iraq war veteran and police trying to stop the craziness.

On Wednesday, the law put its long arm firmly around his shoulder and sent him from the McKenzie County jail directly to a Veterans Administration treatment center in Fargo.

This is no get-out-of-jail-free card.

If he leaves treatment, he returns to jail.

Savelkoul, 28, will be back in court in December to face felony and misdemeanor charges for his alcohol-fueled rampage through the county Sept. 21. He doesn’t remember writing a suicide note for his family in Minot that day, his wild sunset ride into Watford City, or taking two guns into a convenience store and pointing them at clerks and customers. He doesn’t remember speeding away from town with police in pursuit and the long, cold standoff on a dark stretch of U.S. Highway 85 when he fired his guns twice and begged cops to kill him.

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/article_f79b84c2-d1c7-11df-9d12-001cc4c03286.html?mode=story

'THE COUNTRY HE FOUGHT FOR HAS FAILED HIM'

 Iraq war veteran in jail two years after Pahrump shootout

WIFE WAITS FOR ANSWERS

My husband, who is a VETERAN, and proudly served this country - has been in the Nye County Detention Center for TWO YEARS without a trial - and the Sheriff of Nye County had this comment to the Las Vegas Review Journal:

“I’m sure the deputies involved can’t wait to get this behind them,” DeMeo said.

To anyone living in Nye County, remember DeMeo is running for re-election. 

Kirk Vitto, Bob Beckett and Tony DeMeo could have made a difference in my husband's life.  They made the decision not to do so.

There are better answers for our Veterans than incarceration.

I hope that everyone that has followed this story gets really upset - all 17,840 of you that have touched this blog, making you a part of my husband's life. 

Here is the latest story from the Las Vegas Review Journal.
(click below for complete story)
http://www.lvrj.com/news/iraq-war-veteran-in-jail-two-years-after-pahrump-shootout-104261574.html

Iraqi vet asks for treatment, not jail after armed standoff

September 29, 2010
By LAUREN DONOVAN
Bismarck Tribune


Brock Savelkoul in a family photo with
his sister, Angie Savelkoul Heinze.

WATFORD CITY — A nightmare video of bombs, dead bodies and screams in blinding sunlight won’t stop playing in Brock Savelkoul’s mind.

He takes his guns and his Purple Heart and drives down North Dakota highways like a crazy man — at that moment he is a crazy man — until he runs out of gas hundreds of miles away. Police cars surround him.

He grabs his gun and yells into the strobe of flashing lights and the dusky light at the end of day, “Kill me! I want to go out in a blaze of glory!”

He fires, once into the ground, once into his pickup. “I want to die!” he screams.

He has never been so lost. Or so far from home.

He’s a hero, a decorated U.S. Army Field Artillery Infantryman with three tours of duty in Iraq, only 28 years old, never in serious trouble his whole life.

(click below for complete story)
http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_8425df6c-cc48-11df-be46-001cc4c03286.html