Ex-SEAL charged with making up racially-motivated attack

Chris Heben is a retired Navy SEAL who showed up at a fire station in Bath, Ohio this past March with a bullet wound to the abdomen. He told police at the time that he was shot outside a nearby shopping center by three armed black men in a grey sports car who called him a "white boy" and said something about teaching him a lesson before they shot him. According to him, he "plugged the bullet hole after doing a self-assessment" and immediately hopped in his car to give chase, but lost the suspect vehicle on the Interstate, and so drove to a nearby fire station to get first aid.



Of course, certain sectors fell in love with this story, with its manly-man narrative, military veteran angle, and the black-on-white-racism and shades of black gang violence. Chris Heben has also become a minor local celebrity, with car dealership spokes-gigs and a website where he sells Navy SEAL-themed diet products.



Yesterday, however, Bath Township police charged Heben with falsification and obstruction. According to them, video evidence from the large shopping center doesn't show any incident like the one described by Heben taking place on the day in question, and Heben's cell phone records show that he was actually not at the shopping center at all at the time of the alleged incident. Heben was shot - a bullet fragment was removed from his abdomen - but it wasn't by angry racist black thugs in front of a store.