Army Spc. Rashad Parkinson was arrested by local law enforcement and pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three underage girls while he was stationed at Fort Cavazos in Texas from 2017 to 2021. The mothers of two teen girls filed a lawsuit last month against the U.S. government accusing the Army of failing to investigate allegations. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
The mothers of two teen girls filed a lawsuit last month against the U.S. government accusing the Army of failing to investigate allegations that a soldier was abusing young girls near one of the service’s largest bases.
Army Spc. Rashad Parkinson was arrested by local law enforcement and pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting three underage girls while he was stationed at Fort Cavazos in Texas from 2017 to 2021. Investigators testified at a sentencing hearing that they believed Parkinson had abused dozens more young girls, citing images recovered from his phone.
Now a federal lawsuit alleges that the Army knew of allegations against Parkinson well before his arrest in November 2021 but failed to thoroughly investigate him or confine him to post after he had been questioned by police working with Army authorities.
“Had the Army appropriately and timely investigated Rashad Parkinson upon receipt of information of his initial crimes, he would have been subject to pretrial restraint,” reads the lawsuit, filed this month in the Western District of Texas by the mothers of two minors allegedly assaulted by Parkinson. “The Army’s failure to act on a known child predator in its ranks resulted in the sexual assaults of J.A. and D.D., plus countless other children.”
Parkinson, now 29, is serving a 35-year-sentence after he pleaded guilty in Texas courts to three sexual assaults in 2023. Army records show he was dishonorably discharged early this year after pleading guilty in military court to two counts of producing child pornography in 2018 and 2019.
Army spokesman Bryce Dubee declined to comment on the lawsuit, which is seeking damages from the U.S. government. Col. Kamil Sztalkoper, a Fort Cavazos spokesman, also declined to comment on the allegations in the lawsuit but called the crimes Parkinson is incarcerated for “heinous.”
“We are committed to preventing sexual assaults and sexual harassment by creating a climate which respects the dignity of every member of the Army family,” Sztalkoper said in a statement.
An attorney who previously represented Parkinson in his sexual assault cases did not respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department, which must respond to the Aug. 21 complaint within about two months, also did not respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit comes as the military at large continues to grapple with sexual misconduct in its ranks. Congress in 2022 passed legislation that took the decision to prosecute allegations of sex crimes out of the hands of unit commanders and gave that responsibility instead to independent military attorneys. But sexual misconduct remains a problem, with a Pentagon report released in May detailing 8,515 reports of sexual assault in the ranks in the previous year.
Mark Guerrero, an attorney for the plaintiffs in the Parkinson case, says his lawsuit shows how a serial sexual predator can evade justice when investigators do not quickly respond to allegations. He said he suspects Parkinson has more victims than the eight alleged in the lawsuit. The allegations against Parkinson date back to 2018, and his alleged victims ranged in age from 12 to 16 years old at the time they were assaulted, the lawsuit said.
“It’s just shocking, the potential scope of it,” Guerrero told The Washington Post. “No one has any real clear answers as to how many people this particular soldier impacted.”
Parkinson enlisted in March 2017 and served as an armored vehicle maintainer, according to a service record shared by the Army.
In a March 2023 sentencing hearing, police and Army investigators testified that while at Fort Cavazos, Parkinson routinely contacted underage girls on social media and promised to sell them vapes. He met with minors at high schools and middle schools, claimed to be a high-schooler and brought them to his car or home off post where he sexually assaulted them, according to investigators.
Guerrero told The Post that, based on conversations with the mothers of children allegedly abused by Parkinson, he believes the Army first became aware of allegations against the soldier in 2019 — the time frame during which Parkinson later pleaded guilty at court-martial to making child pornography.
“Either there was no investigation at all,” Guerrero said. “Or a completely inadequate and unreasonable investigation.”
The lawsuit alleged that Army authorities missed further opportunities when civilian police investigated Parkinson.
In April 2021, police worked with Fort Cavazos authorities to bring Parkinson in for questioning on suspicion of sexual assault, according to an arrest warrant. He was arrested weeks later and released on bail shortly afterward, but the Army did not confine Parkinson to base and his crimes continued, the lawsuit alleged.
Parkinson was confined at Fort Cavazos for one day in November 2021 before police arrested him on another sexual assault charge, the lawsuit alleges. In the months between Parkinson’s first arrest and his second, the lawsuit alleges he abused three more girls. Among the three assaults Parkinson pleaded guilty to in civilian court was one that occurred in July 2021 while he was on bail.
The mothers who filed the lawsuit told The Post their daughters remain severely traumatized by the alleged assaults. One struggles with truancy and substance abuse. The other stopped going to school and no longer feels comfortable around men, including teachers and family members.
“She’ll do her therapy every week, but she’s just not happy anymore,” Jessica Nichols, one of the mothers in the lawsuit, said of her daughter.
Both mothers said the Army did not apologize or offer victim services after civilian police informed them of Parkinson’s assaults.
The lawsuit alleges that the Army’s negligence at Fort Cavazos, which at the time was known as Fort Hood, typified the problems at one of the country’s largest military bases during a turbulent period marked by the killing of Spec. Vanessa Guillén. Before her 2020 death, Guillén voiced concerns to her family about sexual harassment.
After Guillén’s killing, an independent civilian review board found that a “toxic culture” and an inexperienced, overstretched criminal investigations team allowed crimes like sexual misconduct to pervade Fort Cavazos.
Josh Connolly, senior vice president of Protect Our Defenders, an advocacy group for preventing sexual violence in the military, said the allegations in Parkinson’s case were consistent with the failings reported after the killing of Guillén in 2020 — and that they show the Army’s investigative processes still warrant greater scrutiny.
In war, “when there’s a failing, they go back and try to learn from that lesson,” Connolly said. “With sexual assault and command climate on bases, they have not applied that same standard or methodology to that. They keep repeating the same errors.”
