I am Surprised

The sailor accused of setting the fire that destroyed the Bonhomme Richard has been acquitted.

The convening authority (what the military calls the court) has been suggesting that the case is beyond thin for a while, but the Navy continued its prosecution, because otherwise they might have to prosecute officers up and down the chain of command for incompetence and dereliction of duty:

A military judge found Seaman Recruit Ryan Mays not guilty on Friday of setting fire to a $1.2 billion Navy ship.

Mays, 21, had stood trial on charges of aggravated arson and willfully hazarding a vessel for the four-day blaze that destroyed the USS Bonhomme Richard, an amphibious assault ship, in 2020.

The acquittal marks the end of a two-year ordeal for Mays, who spent 55 days in the brig after he was arrested.

“I can’t get everything I’ve lost back, but today is the start of my new life,” Mays told ProPublica in a statement. “I am grateful that the military judge saw me for who I am: an innocent man who wanted to serve his country. This fire was traumatic for me and a lot of other sailors. This court-martial is an added layer of trauma.”

On July 12, 2020, the Bonhomme Richard was moored at a San Diego Navy base and undergoing a major overhaul. That morning, an area of the ship known as the “lower V” caught fire, and the blaze quickly spread throughout the vessel. The warship was lost and had to be decommissioned.

A ProPublica investigation into Mays’ case found there was little to connect him to the fire. There was no physical evidence that Mays — or anyone — purposefully set the fire. The Navy had one witness who placed Mays at the scene shortly before the fire but whose story changed over time.

The criminal investigation into Mays also stood at odds with another Navy inquiry into the fire, which found that 34 people, including five admirals, either directly led to the loss of the ship or contributed to it. That investigation uncovered a litany of failures that put the ship at risk for a catastrophic fire, including poor training, insufficient oversight and dangerous storage of hazardous materials. Additionally, 87% of the ship’s fire stations were out of order.

The Navy continued to pursue Mays even after a military judge recommended this year that the case be dropped for lack of evidence after a probable cause hearing.

They had to continue to prosecute Mays, because otherwise, there would have to be consequences for the, "34 people, including five admirals," whose actions, "Either directly led to the loss of the ship or contributed to it."

If there is anything that can be learned from US navy investigations of accidents, the USS Iowa turret explosion, where they concocted a false gay relationship for one of the dead sailors in order to divert attention from systemic problems, comes to mind.

There are a lot of senior Naval personnel who should have had their careers ended over this, and it will never happen.