O.A.S. Investigation into Shooting of B.D.F. Staff Sergeant Still Hasn’t Concluded

But back to Brigadier General David Jones…he said today that the investigation into the shooting of Staff Sergeant Richard Lambey remains ongoing, but unofficially, he’s been told that Lambey would have been ambushed by the Guatemalans. As to the shooting last Wednesday in the Chiquibul Forest which left thirteen-year-old Julio Alvarado Ruano dead, Guatemala was first to break the news.  The proximity from where the armed encounter transpired to the closest community just across the Adjacency Zone gives the Guatemalan media a clear advantage in churning out their stories, though fraught with conjecture says Commander Jones.  On the other hand, it took the B.D.F. patrol on duty approximately ten to twelve hours to extract from the dense forest before a full situational report could have been provided.  It is a fact that Commander Jones readily accepts.  However, he maintains that the facts of what took place that evening in Cebada are far more important to their investigation than the half-truths published in the Guatemalan press.

David Jones

Brig. Gen. David Jones, Commander, B.D.F.

“I wouldn’t try to be going back and forth with what the Guatemalans say.  Bear in mind they have the advantage of getting information out first.  The area where that incident happened is just a few minutes away from the border, it’s just about a minute walk and you’re already in Guatemala.  It was over a ten to twelve hour hike for our soldiers to get out of that area to come out here, so they will have the advantage in that particular incident or incidences along that border because they can quickly just dash across and start to put their stories across.  Now, the conclusion of the investigation hasn’t even been done yet and they’ve passed their information.  Information is not necessarily facts.  It’s best to [deal with] information until you ascertain from different sides of the story and do a thorough investigation before you gather the facts, before you put out information.  So I’m not too bothered that we took sometime after them because they had the advantage of time and space.”

Reporter

“Sir, speaking of the O.A.S. investigation, we know that the O.A.S. has been asked to investigate from the Lambey shooting.  Have they even concluded [the investigation into] that shooting which happened in let’s say March?”

Brig. Gen. David Jones

“Well, preliminarily we have been given brief information.  We have not gotten an official report from the O.A.S. in regards to Richard Lambey’s shooting incident yet.  What they have confirmed preliminarily and we’ve heard preliminarily, it’s not official, that it was a deliberate ambush.  They intended to kill him.  They wanted to kill one of our members of our patrol.  The detailed report has not been forthcoming and we are still waiting for that.”