Read this and this and tell me that Gotwalt isn't guilty as charged by the family of the man he shot and killed. The guy destroyed almost all of the evidence of his involvement, hid the weapon, lied his butt off to the police when they initially asked him what his involvement was, and... no investigation into whether or not he is a cold-blooded killer.
His behavior is not that of an innocent man. Innocent men do not cover up the evidence of their actions the way that Gotwalt did. It's just that simple. Maybe he actually is innocent, but his behavior should have sent off a red flag to the police investigator that there was more to this story than what he was telling them. To me, that lends credibility to the claim that the Fairfax PD and the prosecutor, Robert Horan, known for his weak treatment of government agents who use excessive force and hurt "mere civilians," were trying to protect the guy. Either that, or they're just flat out dumb as hell.
What I want to know is why the police did not treat the shooting as a homocide when it was obvious that Cornejo was shot in the back. That is pretty much always a homocide, and the sort of shooting that should make them beat the bushes for corroborating witnesses. Seems to me they didn't look too hard to find contradicting witnesses, now did they?
The lesson here is: destroy the evidence. If they can't prove it was ever there, they can't charge you with destroying it.
I don't get the "military connection". Law enforcement does not have a reputation of protecting ex- military guys or DoD contractors.
Who knows what his connection is. I doubt it's the military factor that matters. There really only seem to be two possibilities here. For some reason, they're protecting him, or they're just too stupid to question why he shot a man in the back and killed him. Horan has a reputation for allowing government employees to get away with just about anything. That's what's leaving people scratching their head about this case. Horan's behavior, knowing his reputation for basically all but destroying "mere civilians" for improper use of force, doesn't jive with his past actions or the facts of the case as they are revealed.
There's also the fact that it took a year or so to even get the shooter's name. Why on Earth would they withhold the name of the shooter for no good reason?
Since the shooter was never charged with a crime, it would have been negligent to release his name to the victim's family. They may as well paint a target on his chest before driving him home.