Local Activist Sues Veterans Administration For $14M

NORFOLK
Local Civil Rights Activist Roy L. Perry-Bey, who led a massive African American veterans’ demonstration at the United States District Courthouse in Norfolk in July 2019, recently announced a new lawsuit to redress grievances he suffered while serving as a military member.

Perry-Bey said he has filed a $14 million dollars

lawsuit FTCA, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, against the United States Department of Veterans Affairs Hampton VA Medical Center (HVAMC). The suit offers several allegations against the VA.

“The HVAMC failed to advise or timely inform me of a medically necessary cervical procedure that could have left me crippled,” he said. “Further, the United States Department of Defense actions are in direct

contravention of the binding United States Department of Defense guidance standards that require discharge review boards to take PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) into account, especially when reviewing discharge

characterization or reason for discharge.”

Perry-Bey’s fifty-five page complaint charges that the Veterans Administration, the United States Department of Defense and the United States Army have long shared a

culture of downplaying the severity and pervasiveness of active duty injury, PTSD, or PTSD related conditions. At the same time they have stigmatized those who seek compensation or treatment.

Perry-Bey, an Honorably Discharged veteran, alleges that he was verbally and physically assaulted by two officers during a military service at Fort Benning, Georgia. He noted the fort is named after Brigadier Gen. Henry Lewis Benning, whom he called “a treasonous Confederate Army general and Columbus native”.

Perry-Bey, alleges the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its Army Review Boards are not efficient enough to handle the overwhelming cases from veterans impacted by physician shortages which is undermining health care,  hearing delays and erroneous denials of VA benefits.

“The main remedy is effective health care, discharge characterization upgrades and a substantial monetary award….

“We are people who sacrifice our life for America.