They've Never Been Arrested. Why Does the FBI List Thousands of Service Members as Potential Criminals?
Denise Rosales has never been arrested.
She’s never been handcuffed.
She’s never spent a night behind bars, never stood before a judge to profess her innocence.
And yet, if you perform a background check, a criminal database maintained by the FBI will say that she was “arrested or received” into custody and charged with three crimes in January 2021.
While deployed in Kuwait, Rosales, a member of the Texas Army National Guard, threw a birthday party for her husband. Some of the guests allegedly brought alcohol, according to the Army, “in a nation where such substances are illegal.” She was investigated and fingerprinted by an Army investigator, but received nothing more than an administrative reprimand.
Still, more than four years later, the Texas mother of two is fighting to clear her name. She’s been forced out of her full-time position with the National Guard on a multiagency counterdrug task force, lost job opportunities, and even denied the chance to chaperone her kids on school field trips.
Rosales’ saga is the result of a perplexing record-keeping process the military justice system calls “titling”—and it’s one that’s left potentially thousands of veterans saddled with false criminal histories, according to a lawsuit against the Army and Department of Defense.
The term sounds nonthreatening enough. But in the military, “titling” isn’t about taking ownership of a car or property. It’s what happens when a service member’s name is simply listed as the “subject” in a military criminal investigative report. “Titling does not mean an individual has been arrested, charged or convicted of a crime,” a legal assistance document on the Army’s website explains.
https://thewarhorse.org/service-member-flagged-military-titling/
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