Coroner ruled Death of Navy SEAL Trainee a Homicide

The Navy SEALs basic training is created to be a hard selection process to find the USA military’s strongest fighters.

Seaman James Derek Lovelace died May 6 after participating in a pool exercise in Coronado, California, and the Navy said his death was the result of a training mishap, but multiple sources said Lovelace died because an instructor went too far, The Virginia-Pilot reported. That harassment included dunking his head underwater at least twice – an action prohibited during this training evolution, the report said.

The initial reports of the death of Lovelace were attributed to drowning alone but medical examiners in San Diego County found evidence that the death was a homicide. According to the report from the medical examiner, over the course of about five minutes, the Navy instructor follows Lovelace around the pool and splashes water on him.

In a video, another student can be seen trying to help him keep above water.

Lovelace, who suffered from asthma and an abnormal enlargement of the heart, was reportedly not a strong swimmer, according to the medical examiner. In this case, as Lovelace struggles he is initially splashed with water by instructors.

Though the drowning death of Lovelace during a training exercise in San Diego has been officially ruled as a “homicide”, that term means, technically, “a death at the hands of another”. Lovelace joined the Navy and graduated basic training on January 28, 2016, in Great Lakes, Illinois.

Investigators from the medical examiner’s office and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) watched a surveillance video of the May 6 rigorous training exercise in which Lovelace was seen struggling in the swimming pool.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service spokesman Ed Buice said an investigation is ongoing and no “conclusions have been reached regarding criminal culpability”, according to The Pilot.

Davids also noted that the Navy had taken “immediate actions” to assess its safety, training, instructors and procedures following Lovelace’s death.

He added that it was his opinion, however, that because “the actions, and inactions, of the instructors and other individuals involved were excessive and directly contributed to the death”, the “manner”, as he put it, of Lovelace’s death “is best classified as homicide”.

“Despite a successful track record, any loss of life drives us to ensure we are doing everything possible to make training safe and effective”, Hennessey said then in a statement.

“These are high-risk trainings so if they are done enough times, they’re going to have a death”, he said. The highly unusual decision is serious and could affect the SEALs’ basic training practices, said former Navy Capt. Lawrence Brennan, an adjunct professor at Fordham Law School who served as a Navy judge advocate. One individual considered calling a “timeout” to stop the exercise. No reason for the reassignment was given, nor was it clear whether the instructor was still involved with SEAL units. He was reportedly pulled from the water approximately 25 minutes after the training exercise had begun.

The training included being handcuffed while treading water – after he lost consciousness he was taken to a hospital where he died.

The Navy briefly paused its training to review safety standards, such as how to recognize when someone is in trouble, but it has not changed its pool exercises, Navy spokesman Lt. Trevor Davids said.