A man who said he was an Air Force veteran upset with the Department of Veterans Affairs set himself on fire outside the state Capitol in Atlanta on Tuesday morning.
Capt. Mark Perry of the Georgia State Patrol said that the man parked a passenger vehicle around 10:45 a.m. and began walking toward the Capitol.
“He was strapped with some homemade incendiary devices, some firecrackers and doused himself with some kind of flammable liquid and attempted to set himself on fire,” Captain Perry told reporters.
A Georgia State Patrol trooper rushed toward the man with a fire extinguisher “and was able to douse him pretty quickly,” he said. In a phone interview, Captain Perry said that trooper was not on duty at the time — he was driving by, and jumped out of his patrol car when he saw the flames.
The Georgia Bureau of Investigation identified the man as John Michael Watts, 58, and said he had no current address. He was taken in critical condition to Grady Memorial Hospital with burns on 85 to 90 percent of his body.
Captain Perry said he was able to speak after the fire was extinguished.
“He did indicate that he is disgruntled with the V.A. system and was seeking attention for that,” he said.
The authorities shut down the area around the Capitol and called the bomb squad to assure the man’s vehicle did not contain explosives. Nearby buildings were evacuated. No other injuries were reported.
The incident unfolded during a news conference about a new state law on hands-free driving. A series of loud bangs and then sirens could be heard in video of the event.
Natalie Dale, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation who was speaking at the time, said she assumed at first that the sounds were fireworks. But as they continued, the Georgia State Patrol officers behind her started to peel off.
“They were really calm, so I stayed really calm,” she said. “I was with trained professionals.”
The Department of Veterans Affairs is a sprawling agency that includes more than 1,700 clinics and hospitals and has been plagued by scandal.
In March 2016, a 51-year-old veteran died after setting himself on fire outside of a Veterans Affairs clinic in northern New Jersey. An investigation found that the staff at the clinic repeatedly failed to ensure that he had received adequate mental health care.
Critics of the agency have long voiced frustrations. Michael Owens, a Marine Corps veteran from Mableton, Ga., and state leader with the Truman National Security Project, said many veterans say it is not responsive to their needs.
“Being a disgruntled veteran is something that I hear a lot throughout our veteran community here in Atlanta,” he said.
Mr. Owens added that the agency needed to do a better job of flagging indicators that a veteran might be in trouble. “We’ve got to do better,” he said.
Filed under: General Problems
I do understand this may not have been about pain meds and could of only been about them not taking care of his mental health in a timely manner but it just makes me think of the veterans that can’t even get pain medications anymore let alone mental health care and it all makes me furious. Not even just furious but seriously dumbfounded. It shouldn’t even be a conversation, it should be obvious..
How can we send someone to fight for our freedoms, our lives, our country and then have them return with diminished health, pain and precious time lost from their families, they miss births of their children, thier first steps, loads of major life events, they sacrifice their very life for us and we can’t make them comfortable upon return and help them health wise or help them anyway we can actually. If they could decide to fight for thier country and possibly die or be maimed and DECIDE to sacrifice so much how come they can’t DECIDE to have some control over their own health care and sign something saying I know the risks that are associated with opioid medication use but I DECIDE I will take that risk to have some semblance of a normal life because I can DECIDE because I fought to be free to decide!!! MAKES ME SO MAD. I’m mad for all of us because I am a pain patient that would like to sign a paper saying I get the risks but I want to take the risk instead of live in this pain and so I release you from being liable for my decision to take that risk and leave it at that. But when it comes to veterans it downright blows my mind we don’t take great measures to honor them and help them to the greater extent possible.
Jennifer; I hear you. I’ve been a pain patient for decades, & in the last year I’ve had an intensive course in how the VA abandons its vets. I have an elderly neighbor, Navy vet, who’s been very ill. Can’t stand up or walk, has to wear diapers, etc. The VA declares him only 60% disabled, will allow him only 9 hours assistance a week…he needs at least 9 hours a day. I’ve made my own health worse trying to fill in, trying to get the VA to do something, trying everything I can think of. The VA remains determinedly (mostly) AWOL.
It’s criminal. It’s sinful…& I’m not even religious.
There was another poor soul a couple years back that did this,,,he died,,,and now we hear their hiding suicides,,,THEE ENTIRE SYSTEM IS CORRUPT,, u watch,,their goona blame a opiate for this,,,Not the truth of course,,,but anything and everyting is now a inanimate objects fault,,a pill,,,next we are gonna hear its opiates fault for global warming,,U know,, Hope this man gets the help or medicine he needs,,,but sadly,,,I too believe it will not happen in America’s corrupted V.A..and for profits government!!maryw
omg, what horror. What compounds the horror is that the good old compassionate VA will probably deny the poor man any pain relief to keep him from getting ‘addicted.’ god help him, because i’m sure the va won’t.