Family Shaken 4 Years After Picatinny Accident

Four years after a test at Picatinny Arsenal went awry, Cassandra Gadow can't sleep in her bedroom.

A “two-pound fragment of an artillery projectile filled with explosive materials” that was fired from Picatinny Arsenal, “crashed through the roof” of the family’s home on April 11, 2008, according to the complaint filed by Cassandra's parents, Fred and Cheryl Angle.

The fragment came through the roof in Cassandra's bedroom. While she wasn't home at the time, the family cat, Sarah, was asleep on her bed. The metal ended up fatally injuring the cat.

The family's suit comes after the Army’s settlement offer of approximately $7,400.

“The Angles started putting claims in to the Army in September of 2009,” said Daniel Perez of Newton, the Angles' attorney. “It took the Army until November 2011 to finalize the claim, and this is what they came up with. That’s just adding insult on top of injury, leading to the lawsuit.”

The Angle family had an ongoing dialogue with Brigadier General William Phillips of Picatinny after the incident, according to Frederick Angle.

“Phillips was an officer and a gentleman,” Angle said. “He promised my family that anything we needed to get past this, the Army would take care of us. He said they would take it on the chin.”

However, after Phillips’ promotion to a position in Iraq, Angle said the famly’s pleas, “fell into the hands of the Army lawyers, and since then, we’ve gotten nowhere. It’s unfortunate that it had to come to this, but it has.”

Angle has tried working to fix the house up after the accident, but it has all been to no avail, he said.

“I busted my butt and managed to put an addition on the house, so the room where it happened is now a storage room. But my wife hates the house now, and she doesn’t want to live here anymore. She’s scared.”

Officials at Picatinny declined comment.

“It is the policy of the U.S. Army not to comment on ongoing lawsuits,” said Peter Rowland, Picatinny’s public affairs officer.

Angle believes the incident has completely taken away his family’s sense of safety.

“It’s ironic that they haven’t done any open air testing since that day,” Angle said. “But every time my wife hears any kind of noise coming from that direction, she melts into a puddle.”

Angle also doesn’t feel that any sort of testing of this type should be done in this area.

“The Army called this an anomaly, but I think they didn’t take enough care of their neighbors,” he said. “This type of testing should be done in the desert, in a rural area where there is nothing around for miles.”