By GENE JOHNSON By GENE JOHNSON ADVERTISING Associated Press LAKE TAPPS, Wash. — Neighbors of a Washington state man accused of gunning down 16 Afghan women and children in a nighttime rampage describe him as a family man who was
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
LAKE TAPPS, Wash. — Neighbors of a Washington state man accused of gunning down 16 Afghan women and children in a nighttime rampage describe him as a family man who was “just one of the guys.”
Reporters swarmed a neighborhood in a rural, wooded community about 35 miles south of Seattle, as attorney John Henry Browne confirmed the suspect, his client, was Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales from Lake Tapps, Wash.
“I just can’t believe Bob’s the guy who did this,” said Paul Wohlberg, a next-door neighbor who said his family was friendly with the Bales family. “A good guy got put in the wrong place at the wrong time. … I never thought something like this would happen to him.”
Wohlberg described Bales as a “good guy just one of the guys.”
Five days after the shooting, a senior U.S. official first confirmed Friday it was Bales, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation into an incident that has roiled relations with Afghanistan. Military officials had said throughout the week that it was policy not to release the name until charges were filed.
Kassie Holland, who lives next door, said she would often see Bales playing with his two kids and the family together at the modern split-level home.
“My reaction is that I’m shocked,” Holland said. “I can’t believe it was him. There were no signs. It’s really sad. I don’t want to believe that he did it.
“He always had a good attitude about being in the service. He was never really angry about it,” she said. “When I heard him talk, he said, it seemed like, ‘Yeah, that’s my job. That’s what I do.’ He never expressed a lot of emotion toward it.”
