>> all right. we now welcome our second panel, major general donna martin, commanding general of the u.s. army investigator command. brigadier general bullard, and mr. omar lopez, director of naval criminal investigative services. we welcome you all. you'll each have an opportunity to provide a statement for five minutes and then we will accept your other comments as written comments. and we thank you all for being here. major general martin, would you like to begin? >> good afternoon, chairwoman speier, ranking member banks and distinguished members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. i'm here to discuss the cripple investigation command known as cid, mission, structure, ongoing initiatives and our efforts to address the findings and recommendations of the ft. hood independent review committee. i serve the united states army in two capacities, as the provost marshall general of the army and commanding general of cid. as the provost marshall general i'm the principle military adviser to the secretary general of the army and all army policing and law enforcement matters. this includes law enforcement policy, criminal investigations, criminal intelligence, army corrections and confinement, anti-terrorism matters and detention operations. as the commanding general of cid, i am responsible for overseeing the u.s. army's primary criminal investigative organization, cid is responsible for conducting felony level criminal investigations in which the army is or may be a party of interest. for context, my special agents conduct criminal investigations that range from murder to organized crime, and they often partner with local, state and other federal law enforcement agencies, including the fbi and u.s. marshal service. i am also here to address the ft. hood independent review committee findings regarding cid. the secretary and chief of staff of the army accepted the committee's findings in whole and based on the committee's findings and recommendations, i am working with key stake holders to reform, restructure and modernize cid to address the shortcomings identified in the report and to organize cid to better meet today's law enforcement challenges. while cid remains the army's premier law enforcement organization providing professional felony level investigations and simultaneously prepared to support large-scale contingency operations, we are seizing this moment to reform and strengthen cid. we can and we will do better. since the report was released, ft. hood has taken immediate actions on several of the ft. hood independent reviews committee recommendations. some of these efforts include creating a female mentorship program and several improvements aimed to support crime prevention and enhanced communication between ft. hood law enforcement and local law enforcement. ft. hood has also recently stood up the supporting warrior action team or s.w.a.t. s.w.a.t. is a knewly designed sexual assault prevention training program with the goal to train soldiers on how to recognize signs and early warnings of sexual misconduct. how to intervene in incidents of sexual misconduct and how to advocate for vulnerable service members and the survivors of sexual misconduct. additionally, we have collaborated with osi and ncis to look at their organizations and consider some of their best practices, and how they could benefit cid. our efforts extend beyond just the ft. hood independent review committee's findings. they incorporate a holistic and collective approach with input from across the law enforcement enterprise. and, finally, i would like to address recent media reports, discussing proposed courses of action that are being considered to restructure the cid. the courses of action reported in the media have not yet been decided and i am preparing to brief army leaders in the coming weeks. the report prematurely addresses draft planning documents that include addressing cid capabilities. ultimately, any decision made by army senior leadership will lead to an organization with enhanced capabilities, organized and led by law enforcement professionals. in closing, the findings of the ft. hood independent review committee were eye opening to our army but particularly to the law enforcement enterprise. i do not take this report lightly. and reforping cid is my top priority. i acknowledge the necessity of the task ahead, and i am dedicated to the cid's time-honored commitment to do what happens to be done in order to protect our soldiers, civilians and family members. i, along with the army's leadership, look forward to the opportunity to work with this committee to strengthen the army's law enforcement effort. and i welcome the opportunity to answer your questions. thank you. >> general bullard? >> madam chairwoman speier, ranking member banks and members of the subcommittee, i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. as commander of the department of air force, office of special investigations or osi i join my colleagues here to discuss law enforcement mission and our continuous improvement processes, especially as they relate to the ft. hood independent review committee's report. i'm very proud to represent the civilian in uniformed men and women of osi, who are supporting our united states air force and space force from 303 units located across the globe. as our criminal investigations division colleagues have learned from the ft. hood report, we, too, leverage the report to assess our own policies and practices to identify all applicable areas for review and possible improvement. in line with our review, i would like to briefly cover the highlights of our observations in the areas of resourcing, training, currency, experience, collaboration and the overall timeliness and sufficiency of our investigations. an overall resourcing of osi to execute our mission, the department has sufficiently resourced the command to execute. over the last two to three years, the department has significantly enhanced the resourcing of osi to help mitigate preidentified significant shortfalls with more capacity projected to come online soon, specific to the areas of sexual assault, criminal analysis and digital forensics. on the training of our osi agent, all new agents attend our osi angd at the federal law enforcement training center for their initial training, along with other 90 other federal partners. along with our initial training, agents pursue additional training during probationary period. additionally we provide advanced, specialized training in a number of areas, such as sexual-based offenses and complex case management. while we believe our training programs are effective, we can always improve and we plan to. specifically, while covid has set us back on advanced training like our advanced sexual assault course, we're using those lessons learned by offering more courses virtually and on demand to afford more access. on the currency of our air men to execute the mission, osi has executed over 3,000 law enforcement tied investigations annually over the past five years. this operations tempo, teamed with field commands, staffed with senior agent leadership and suggest matter experts, as well as specialist squadrants with on-call expertise for traditional and physical forensics helps keep our agency currency levels high. on the issue of experience levels of our force to conduct highly complicated cases, in october 2020, osi launched a study to examine experience levels and slor ways to better posture our less experienced members across the command. recommendations from this review will better distribute probationary agents and will be augmented with newly established field training agents. our field leadership, region commanders, colonels who, themselves, are special agents, average 23 years of experience, subordinate, captain through lieutenant colonel who are also special agents average 13 years. specific to collaboration, the ft. hood report reinforced three osi partner-based initiatives with departmental entities to institutionalize best practices in criminal and fraud-related matters. these initiatives are designed to drive deeper partnership with our judge advocate and teammates on investigations as well as foster closer ties to agencies best placed to detect fraud. every month osi reviews measures of sufficiency and timeliness of our investigations. overall, we feel our timeliness is solid but are full further reviewing to make sure we assess the efficiency of our investigations, both bimonthly oversight program and independent reviews, like those done by the d.o.d. inspector general and the defense advisory committee on investigations, prosecution and defense of sexual assault in the armed forces. these reviews routinely report osi cases are overall sufficiently run. we fully realize there's always room for betterment and we are dedicated to that continuous improvement. i recently requested a review of our oversight program to make sure it meets our needs for rigor and efficiency. thank you for the opportunity to provide insight into some of the exceptional work our members do every day to protect the department. aan organization, osi has never been satisfied with the status quo and has always sought to pursue improvement. i look forward to your questions and the dialogue they will drive among the panel as we all work to improve our processes to best support the d.o.d. thank you. >> thank you. mr. lopez? >> good afternoon, chairwoman speier rg ranking member banks, and distinguished subcommittee members. thank you for the opportunity to discuss the scourge of sexual assaults in the department of the navy. i'm honored to be representing the dedicated men and women of ncis stationed throughout the world supporting our war fighters on the navy and marine corps team. as director of ncis, i'm a career civilian special agent and member of the senior executive service who reports directly to the secretary of the navy. this historical alignment continues to ensure ncis' independence from perceived or actual undue command influence over investigative decisions. i'm proud to lead a comparatively small but elite workforce located around the world in 19 field offices of 191 satellite locations and 41 different countries. ncis special agents are deployed in conflict areas around the world and serve aboard all carrier strike and amphibious ready groups. ncis has conducted itself in a manner similar to the fbi, with a civilian director who leads both a criminal investigative and national security mission. ncis special agents also possess civil authority, and are able to operate effectively on and off military installations. current ncis manpower structure evolved in the early 2000s, after the attack on the u.s.s. cole, supporting expeditionary forces and covering 100% of navy visits in ports. later focusing efforts on protecting critical navy and marine corps technology and significantly expanded efforts in cyber space and now in combating the threat of domestic terrorism. over the last eight years, sexual assault cases have doubled. ncis, in coordination with department and service leadership, has worked to surge resources from other nonintelligent funded programs to ensure that all allegations of sexual assault are fully investigated in a timely and thorough manner. in maintaining the surge, ncis has focused heavily on two key issues. improving the quality of investigations and reducing investigative timelines. this has resulted in a very robust case oversight system and significant reductions in time lines over the same period. due to the expeditionary nature of ncis support to navy and marine corps forces around the world, ncis now requires all special agents receive mandatory d.o.d. sexual assault training at the add-on academy for law enforcement training center. this allows us to leverage the full versatility of the criminal investigator job series, ensuring immediate response to allegations of sexual assault anywhere in the world at any time, both at sea and ashore. this great agility comes with long-term risks associated with this unrelenting operational tempo. the degradation of support to other critical missionaries and highly experienced investigators. departmental and service leadership is well aware of this and is carefully working with ncis to manage this risk. following the release of the ft. hood independent commission report, ncis undertook careful review. while this review is ongoing the majority of the report did not speak to ncis structure, we did determine there were many recommendations and areas for our improvement and focus. members of this committee, i thank you for the opportunity to provide some insight into the exceptional work our members do every day. our solemn commitment to justice for all sexual assault survivors continues to be one of my highest priorities as director. through strong partnerships with sapro and service leadership, ncis will continue to seek the technology and manpower investments needed to maintain its unwavering focus on thorough and timely criminal investigations particularly those of sexual assault and violence. i welcome your questions and feedback, which will enable us to continue making positive strides toward addressing reforms within the military, criminal, investigative enterprise. thank you. >> thank you, mr. lopez. let me go to you first. how many civilians do you have within ncis? >> for inside of the special agent core, 1811s for doing criminal investigations we have 753. >> what percentage is that? >> of the whole agency? >> of civilian versus military. >> they're all civilian, ma'am. >> they're all civilian. and you, at one point, had a structure that was very similar to the army. what triggered your change? >> back in 1991 there was an incident. as a result of that, there were legislative actions as well as department of defense actions that resulted in separating ncis as being -- we went from being the nis to the naval criminal service and a civilian director was appointed to lead it and civilize the entire structure. >> and tail hook dealt with sexual assault of sailors, correct? >> that is correct, ma'am. >> representative speier, we have approximately 475 civilians. my enlisted airman are 1,053 agents and my special officers are 290. >> all right. thank you. general martin, what experience do you have conducting criminal investigations? >> chairwoman speier, i am a military police officer by trade. i have 32 years of military service in the criminal military police role. >> all right. so, general, you indicating two specifics in your opening remarks that you have taken as a result of the ft. hood report. one to create a mentoring program for female soldiers and a new sexual assault training program called s.w.a.t. i must tell you, i'm truly disappointed that that is the extent of what you have gleaned from from the report. let me ask you this. have you established a system to track the progress of specific and measurable goals, objective s and metrics as it relates to timely investigations, drug crime suspension, investigative activities, staffing and training? >> chairwoman speier, first, let me correct the record. those initiatives were taken by ft. hood in the ft. hood leadership. as a result of the ft. hood independent findings, my command started a bottom-up assessment of the entire command, looking at the findings and making an assessment of those capacities and capability weiss needed in order to build -- >> what percentage of the special agents at ft. hood have less than two years experience right now? >> as i look at those demographics, at ft. hood currently, the number of agents with zero to one years is 12. >> how about zero to 2? >> zero to 3 years, the category i have is 21. >> 21% or -- >> 21 total number. >> how does that relate to the 92%? what i would like for you to do is provide us separately a breakdown of what steps you have taken to respond to the report's request that no more than 50% be journeymen or apprentices. what you have done to reduce the number of apprentices providing special agent services, what percentage are more than three years, what have you done to have you furnished licenses and equipments specifically to that base? >> chairwoman speier, yes, that is complete. >> there are now three licenses there? >> there are a total of seven licenses at ft. hood. >> and they've been renewed? >> all of them were not expired. >> according to mr. swecker, all of the three, only one was operational at the time of the disappearance of specialist guillen. >> chairwoman, the difference was the capability at the battalion level and the digital forensic cell and that cell was not used by the detachment. >> that is no longer the case then? >> no, it is not. >> have you established an mou and begun embedding special agents? >> chairwoman, there's no -- the requirement for mou is really not necessary. it is an inherent business practice that we have those partnerships with local, state and federal law enforcement. >> with all due respect, general, the caleen sheriff, i believe, said he presented a power point to the leadership at ft. hood, wanting to do more work together and they receive nod response to that. there are 100 soldier cases that caleen has presently or at the time of this particular report, and many more who are victims who are outside the base but are soldiers at ft. hood and there was no work being done together. >> and so, congresswoman, i'm happy to report that is being addressed currently. with the new commander on the ground now, he has established those cells. cid is part of those cells. criminal intelligence fusion is being done with state and local law enforcement and with the law enforcement on the installation. >> all right. thank you. ranking member banks? >> thank you, madam chair. general martin, good to see you again. you talked about the bottom of review. tell us about the scope of the bottom-up review. >> thank you for the question, congressman. we wanted to look at experience of our agents rg how long our agents were staying on station. some of the very immediate things we did was extend our agents' time on station. agents can stay up to five, six years on station. we also looked at those capabilities that our agents needed in order to execute these crimes. one of our options and courses of actions had not been briefed yet to our senior leaders but one of it would add up to 300 1811s across our command to help fill those capability gaps we do not have. >> was the bottom-up review just for hood, other posts, whole of army? what was the scope of it? >> the scope is the entire army. >> okay. ft. hood's open number of sex crime cases were three times more. what is the army doing to make sure caseloads are allocated in the future? >> for all of those cases in our assessment, we found that those requirements for investigators were much higher. as part of that assessment, we will grant those offices more 1811 investigators to execute those criminal investigations. >> okay. tell me, in your opinion, what is being done or what effort is there to rebuild relationships with the ft. hood community and improve the cooperation with local law enforcement? >> provost marshall general, i am charge of policy across the army. one of the initiatives we're doing right now is a community policing initiative. what that does is strengthens the bond between the community and the policing force. and so we have done things like bicycle patrol to put police in presence, daily contact with the public and using those initiatives to help build trust. >> at ft. hood? >> at ft. hood and many installations across the army. >> anything at ft. hood that you can tell us about that you've done to repair the relationships locally there? >> at ft. hood one of the things our agents is doing is participating in this criminal fusion initiative. we are improving our relationship with local, state law enforcement every single day. we're working hard to rebuild those relationships and we're working hard to ensure that the community feels that they are safe. >> okay. that all sounds good. and those are things that i would hope we would be doing everywhere anyway. but i'm not hearing a specific answer about a specific effort at ft. hood to repair damaged relationships that there should be an extra effort or strategy to -- i hope you'll take that back and give us more of a specific answer to that question. doubling tools like the disciplinary board are effective? >> yes, and i use that specifically for that purpose. >> what has been done to systematically improve case tracking specifically for sex crimes? >> i'll have to take that one back for the record as well, congressman. >> okay. then a last question for all of three of you. what are the most useful field skills thought in each of your training curriculums and what is something you wish you could do more of that you aren't resourced to do right now? mr. lopez, we'll start with you. >> thank you, rampging member banks. i think one of the biggest, or most useful capabilities we have is our ability to direct higher. that gives us a very critical capability to really look for diversity in our with workforce. we're able to go out and higher, for instance, expert investigators. we brought people over from different agencies, local sheriff's and bring over people from the secret service, from fbi, other locations. when they come from ncis after they go through our academy they can hit the ground, be more seasoned and experienced investigator because often times the way in which we support the services we may be alone. there may only be an agent afloat on a carrier and they have to be able to do everything. that's one piece that is really helpful for us. the other in terms of resourcing, the threats are becoming more and more asymmetric and i think it's hard to define threats in the computer cyber space, whether it's terrorism, as being one type of threat or another. and i think we need to really continue to look at things in a very multidisciplinary way and approaching it from a holistic government. task forces and working on different environments, on the jttf or other task forces is really the key to combating the threats to the navy and the marine corps. >> my time has expired. both the army and air force could respond on the record, we would appreciate it very much. the chairwoman has given me the liberty of allowing you to answer that question on the record. >> absolutely. thank you for the question, representative banks. i would say our strength is in the diversity of our competition. i look at our civilian agents, officer agents, enlisted agents, what they bring each day to the competition at the detachment level, squadron level and up through the command level and the various ways, the background that they bring in to look at a particular investigation. that is absolutely one of the things that i've cherished as a detachment commander, two times where i've had that composition, mix of civilian agents to look at specific investigations and then i would absolutely transition to our military set where that composition within our team gives us the ability to look at some things through differ perspectives and. problem solving is at the base of what we do. from a challenge standpoint, i would absolutely agree with director lopez that the cyber environment prevents a very unique, complicated challenge as we look at the authorities that we have, as we look at the talent we have on hand and how we tackle that problem with agents who have that cyber experience and some of the unique ways we're looking to get after that in partnership with the air force, in bringing in our cyber operators to partner with our agents. that's one way we're tackling that, but it's definitely something in the future we'll have to keep our eye on. >> thank you. general martin? >> yes, congressman. i believe our strength lies in our people as well. their desire to execute crimes and to give our family members, our soldiers a safe environment for which to work. i believe that desire and that passion is there. the strength is definitery our people. we have not had significant structural change inside cid since pre-9/11. yet we've had quadrupling cases of sexual assault. we've had challenges in mission increase with the number of years it is required to maintain and retain evidence. we've also had a demise and degradation of our military police structure. that effort to prevent crime has been degraded over time. >> just a very brief question. should cid, osi or ncis be providing the protective services as part of their function or should that be an mp function? >> i will tell you from our perspective the way that osi is built with our 1811s, federal law enforcement mandate, our engagement off base, our level of training, i believe that the mission set is properly set for us. however, what we have done is transition our model to osi agent led security force members providing most of the manpower. the air force recently approved 54 security force member billets in order to allow us to flush out those details, still have agents in charge of the details themselves. that allowed us to recoup agent back to the command in order to put them back against investigative duties. >> mr. lopez? >> thank you, chairwoman speier. similar to general bullard's comments, we've been doing it a long time just as he described. we have 1811 special agents in charge of the details for whether it's in theater or domestic and then we use navy and marine corps security forces, ma's, police officers we train to do support to those details. >> general martin, my pulled away at fort hood from the investigation in the vanessa gehan case to do a protective role for a period of a month. maybe i'm confusing the cases. maybe it was another one. are you changing that? >> chairwoman, it is absolutely an option that we will look at and will ensure that once inve gators start on a case, they are in that case from cradle to grave. >> all right. thank you. >> mr. escobar? >> thank you, madame chair. general martin, i want to thank you for the work that's been done, but i agree with our chairwoman. there needs to be in my view, a really robust effort because as i mentioned in the first panel, what we are seeing is the tip of the iceberg. this is just what we are -- what is being made visible to us, these cases. and i think that we are in a state of crisis in many regards. i'm curious, did you in your fact finding role, did you review fort bliss? >> congresswoman, we reviewed every military installation. >> can you share with me what you discovered about fort bliss, what your thoughts are, and anything that you can share? >> so as we looked at those installations that were division or core, or had a division or a core and fort bliss has a division, we recognize that they also need additional resources. and so our options would lead to additional 1811s civilian investigators. also additional assistance special agents in charge are those asacs at division installation level. we also looked at additional drug investigators at our division installations, and then we also want to look at the prosecution and how we support prosecutions and so one of the options that we're looking at is actually building prosecutorial teams that consist of dedicated agents that work with trial council to bring cases to trial. also across the board we looked at we needed about 30 civilian support agents personnel to take care of the administrative and the logistics functions and the technology functions that happen at the core and division installations. and as well, to take away some of those administrative burdens. we're going to put captains, military police officers, in charge of our offices to lead those administrative type functions to free up our investigators to do investigations. >> did you find -- i mean, this is definitely the case at fort bliss, but did you find -- or actually, what did you find with regard to backlogs? backlog of cases? so cases that are ready to go but just, they are languishing? >> so i don't have that data, congresswoman. we would be happy to provide that to you. >> okay. i really would like to better understand how quickly those cases are moving. you know, part of as the ranking member mentioned, the feeling that justice delayed, it absolutely is justice denied, especially when the women that i've been hearing from who feel like the inaction is a signal. it's a signal that their leadership doesn't care. it's a signal that the system doesn't care, and it's a signal that they remain vulnerable, and i feel almost as though the backlog issue is a major red flag, because as we heard with the prior panel, one of the issues also is those serial offenders. those offenders that continue to prey upon our service members and i have a suspicion that a part of that, part of why they feel that they are able to do that is because they feel that there's no accountability. and so if you could please share that information about the backlog with us, i really do feel like that is one of those areas where we need to do a deep dive and understand the consequences of it in addition to how we address it and how we prevent the backlog. i do believe that's an issue at fort bliss. and in my remaining 30 seconds, if you could just tell us a little bit more about the female mentorship program. every time i visit an installation or talk to female soldiers, they are hungry for this, but will it be a meaningful, sustained resourced program? >> and so the female mentorship program that is currently being worked at fort hood is the brain child, started, actually, at fort lee. and so a group of female officers developed a program called the fmmp. t the female mentorship morale program. and that program gave women a form in which they could get together and talk about some of these concerns. it also focussed on professional development and other things that were of concern to women. it was a safe space for them to talk, and so that brain child at fort lee has now graduated and is actually spreading across the army. and it will start at fort blis as well, first ad. >> thank you, madame chair. i'm out of time. i yield back. >> the gentle woman from california is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you so much, madame chair. in light of the criticism of cid, what would you tell a young soldier looking to become an mp or cid agent? >> thank you for the question. i would tell a young soldier that if you have an inquisitive mind. if you want to solve crime or if you think that you want to make a difference, then being a part of cid or being a part of the military police regiment is for you. >> can you tell us why military agents play such a critical role in the cid. >> military agents play a critical role, especially in our deployed role. part of our mission is sensitive site exploitation. we also do logistics security and logistics security ensures that equipment that is critical on the battlefield moves from port to theater and is safely transported for our war fighters, and then we also execute wartime crimes, the criminal crimes during wartime. so military agents help us and give us the ability to execute that role. >> thank you. could you talk a little bit more about how your agents gain experience and what some recent cid success stories are? >> i would love to. so our agents about 45% of our agents have bachelor's degrees already before they come in. but our cid agents go to the united states army military police school for a 14-week course there. and the military police school is also accredited by the same board that accredits the federal law enforcement training center. and they train agents in the subjects of criminal law, crime scene processing, testimony wall evidence, fraud, investigative reports, special investigative techniques, crimes against persons, and then our agents as they progress in their careers much like my fellow mcios, they also go to those advanced training skills at fletsiy as well as over to the canadian law enforcement agency and we do other training in other schools. and are your agents trained to handle same sex sexual assault investigations? >> absolutely. our agents are trained, and they are absolutely capablen of investigating crimes against same sex persons. >> thank you. and my last question is just if the fort hood independent review committee sought your perspective or that of anyone in senior cid positions as they were working on their report. >> there were members of my agency that were attached for providing records to the fort hood independent review. but as far as an interview with me, no, there was no interview. thank you. okay. thank you so much, and madame chair, i yield back the reminder of my time. >> the gentlewoman yields back. the gentlewoman from texas. >> thank you. i'll start with major general martin. major general, i want to be clear. i know that i asked the question of the chairman of the previous panel the question about the continuity of investigation when the agent was pulled away, and i think it says that he -- he left his duties pursuant to his permanent change of station in the middle of an investigation. in response to the chairwoman's question you said it would be an option for them not to do that, to follow it from cradle to grave. i mean, that doesn't sound like a commitment to change that to me when you're saying it will be an option. wasn't it an option before? i mean, can you commit to us today that that will change and an investigator starts an investigation, especially one as complex and critical as this case, that they will finish it through? >> chairwoman, i will make that commitment to you that yes, when an agent is involved in a complex criminal investigation, they will remain on station. >> they will. all right. and i want to ask the same question. does the air force have the same policy and, of course, ncis also. >> representative garcia, i think it's a very individual question by each unit having been a detachment commander two times and looking at turnover and what we do in projecting for investigations. how they're going to be handled. is there going to be a transition? do we stop that agent from initiating new cases? >> but do you have a policy or practice in place that covers that? >> we do not have a policy. it is a leadership-driven -- >> is there a policy or practice that if they ask for waivers that they can stay that it would be granted. >> representative garcia, absolutely. >> thank you. ncis? >> thank you for the question. there isn't a specific policy, but they would stay and work the case. >> thank you. the other thing that really troubled me was the case file reveals that suicides and deaths were not fully investigated by cid. i mean, it's awful to think that cid would not look at off site suicides. as we learned during our last visit with some of the sheriffs in law enforcement locally as the chairwoman again pointed out, there didn't seem to be a lot of cooperation. is that normal? >> no, that is not. that is not typical. so that relationship is a jurisdiction issue. so if a suicide or a case happens off the installation, we do a collaborative investigation with the local law enforcement in every case. our 1811s have that authority to conduct those cases. but our military -- >> i'm sorry. i don't know what an 1811 is. >> our civilian investigators. >> all right. >> so they have those authorities off post. our military investigators do not. >> i know about jurisdiction, but you still would not go out there and work together with the sheriff or the constable or the police chief of that area? >> that's correct. we would go out and work with them, and then we would fulfill any requirements that they have on the installation. and for example, to conduct any interviews with any service members at that time. that's our -- what we would do to help an investigation on the installation. >> is it normal in the air force? >> representative garcia, we have policy in place that we investigate all active duty deaths regardless of where they occur. >> regardless, and you work together with the law enforcement in the community if it's off base? >> absolutely. >> ncis? >> we have the same policy as the air force. >> that is a new policy or is it long-standing? it seems odd that the army just was not completely aligned with that. >> it's a long-standing, ma'am. >> long standing? well, that brings me to my last question. do you all ever get together to compare notes, best practices to make sure that whether it's a post or a base or -- that no matter where the soldier is, that they're safe? it just troubled us, again, when we visited ford hood when we asked people when we had the town hall with spouses and family members, how many felt safe. nobody felt safe. remember chairwoman? nobody rose their hand. >> will the gentle lady yield? >> yes, ma'am. >> one case in particular, a mother talked about keeping a gun on a shelf in the kitchen because she was afraid on base, and needed it to protect herself. >> i mean, is that normal? all three of you. i mean, there are families that have to feel safe. the soldiers have to feel safe. our families have to have a level of trust and confidence that they are safe. >> no, that is not normal for a family to feel unsafe -- >> a whole room full of families felt unsafe, ma'am, at fort hood. >> i understand, and we're going to work really hard to ensure that our families feel safe on the installation. >> air force? >> representative garcia, that is not what i would expect to hear from a military family on an air force installation. and we certainly work with base leadership, with our security partners to make sure that's not the case. >> thank you. ncis? >> yes, ma'am, the same for ncis. we work closely with base leadership and, in fact, we partner often with the air force and army in locations where they have a facility and we'll work out of their facility. so we're in close contact with each other in terms of working together. that would not be something normal on a navy base. >> gentlewoman's time is expired. >> thank you, madame chair. i yield back. >> the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, madame chair. i do really appreciate the courtesy of you allows me to participate in this hearing and thank you for all your great work. i really do appreciate it. i thank the witnesses for their willingness to help the community with its work. i represent brockton, massachusetts and specifically the family of elder fernandez, sergeant fernandez. he met an untimely death by suicide at fort hood. his remains were found on august 25th, 2020. and cid was involved in an investigation prior to that surrounding sergeant fernandez's claims of sexual assault on the base, and obviously remains involved in the overall case surrounding sergeant fernandez's death. i want to tell you, so sergeant fernandez filed a complaint against a superior officer for sexual assault. and when sergeant fernandez went missing, i contacted the family and expressed the willingness to travel to fort hood to help them find their son. however, by the time i got there, his body had been recovered, and so even though i wasn't able to help them in that respect, i tried to help them get answers from cid. and the day that i arrived, the day that i arrived, it was only a matter of days really from when sergeant fernandez had made the complaint of the sexual assault, but in that short period of time, it might have been over a week, but not two weeks, cid had conducted an investigation of all relevant witnesses, all relevant testimony. they had conducted a poly graph of the accused officer, and the day that i arrived they rendered a decision that they did not sustain the complaint. they dismissed the complaint against that superior officer. but to this day, to this day, we haven't received the report of what happened to sergeant fernandez from cid. we've got the report from the temple police department because that's where he expired. and we have the investigation results from kalim texas, but to this day, his body was discovered an august 17th, 2020, and we don't have the report. so madame chair, if i could, i would like to enter into the record a letter from the attorney for the honorable -- excuse me. this is to the honorable johnny whitly, the acting secretary of the army, and it is from attorney lenny keston representing the family. and they have some attorney questions there that i think need to be answered. so my question to you is why, why -- >> without objection, it's admitted to the record. >> thank you, madame chair. so the investigation to exonerate the officer was completed in days, days. including polygraph which i question the integrity of that process. we don't even allow that in federal court. but relying on a polygraph, you were in a rush to determine that the superior officer was not held to account. but when the family is looking for information about the disappearance of their son, it's taking forever. even though the local police have submitted their investigation in their report. temple, klim, texas both forthcoming. it's taking forever for cid to get the family the information regarding the death of their son. and i don't know if you're just trying to outwait us. i don't understand the pace of discovery here. it's been a long, long time for that family to be suffering and looking for answers for their son. we got to do better than this. so why has it taken so long to give the family the information regarding their son's death? >> representative, i don't believe that there's been a request for those records, and if there has, i would happily assist the family in receiving the report from cid. >> wait a minute. wait a minute. when i was there, we asked for information in person. i believe you were on one of the panels. i asked for the information, and then the family requested it in writing. do you think that a family should have to -- i mean, let's set aside the fact that we asked for the information. and i brought the family into the hearing, into the meeting with cid at the time. they had nine officers working on this from cid. we asked for all that information. but to suggest that the army didn't know the family wanted to know the details of their son's disappearance and death? really? is that a legitimate -- >> representative, i will personally look into that. >> the army didn't know or didn't imagine that the family would want information regarding their son's death and disappearance? i mean, think about that. >> gentleman's time has expired. we'll allow general martin to respond. >> representative lynch, i will personally take that and i will ensure that the family gets the cid report. >> thank you, general. i appreciate that. thank you. >> all right. each of you has referenced the fact that the case load for sexual assaults has doubled, quadrupled, the numbers are skyrocketing. do you have enough revenue or resources to provide the services necessary? and as the report had indicated, special victims counsel which has been a huge success throughout the military, their case load is at 60 cases which is far too many for a special victim's counsel to handle. so my question is what resources do you need with the exponential increase in sexual assault cases? and have you also requested additional funding for svcs? general martin? >> madame chair, so our assessment would tell thaus we need 20 additional special victims investigators inside of cid. we also are requesting in our reform effort to look at eight major case response teams, and these teams would be positioned at both of our groups at fort lewis and at fort hunter army airfield. so that would give us an additional capability to surge capability on a major case with the expertise that's required. so that major case response team would not only have special victims investigators. it would also include digital forensics experts and forensics science officers. >> special victims counsels are a different function? >> that is correct, and they are controlled by the t-jag of the army. >> and so have you requested additional sbc snz. >> i know currently there's a bottom up assessment of those capabilities as well. >> all right. general va lard? >> representative spear, we've identified the need for additional agents, additional analysts and support individuals to be able to cover this increase in reporting that we have seen. we are in dialogue with our department now about obtaining those resources, so that process is underway. i cannot speak to the status of our special victims counsels within the united states air force. but i know that it's -- we have a great partnership with them, but just as general martin pointed out, they fall within the span of control of the judge advocate general of the air force. >> okay. mr. lopez? >> thank you, chairwoman spear. to echo the air force, we've asked for man power as well as technology investments. there's technology that we can utilize that would make some of these timelines even shorter. a lot of digital forensic evidence capabilities that continue to increase that i think would also help shorten timelines. tools that could be used to get into phones and other things faster than current technology. so we're looking at that and exploring those investments, because we think those could have direct correlation to timelines as well as investing in additional man power to get after the problem. >> so for each of you, would you make this sub committee aware of what your requests are up the chain of command? because our role is slightly different, but we want to make sure that these cases are promptly handled, that the resources are not an impediment in you doing your jobs and if you need additional forensic tools, we need to know what they are so we can make sure you're able to ascertain them. ranking member banks, any other questions? >> none? all right. we want to thank you for your service. thank you for being here today. what you do is incredibly important to the safety of our service members. if they don't feel safe, if they don't feel that there's the talent necessary to do the investigations, then we have failed them. so i thank you all for being here and for your participation. this meeting is [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2021] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> you are watching c-span, your unfiltered view of government. c-span was created by america's tape -- cable companies in 1970 nine. today, we are brought you by these television companies who provide c-span to viewers as a public service. >> thursday, national institutes of allergy and infectious diseases expert dr. fouts he and dr. rochelle walensky testify with other officials on the covid-19 response. watch live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span, online at www.c-span.org four listen live with the free c-span radio app. >> coming up live today, the house returns to complete work on reauthorizing the violence against women act and moving the