When I was a paratrooper, I had a damaged chute on one of my jumps. Shortly after opening shock, I found several broken suspension lines dangling around me. I was worried that the uneven stresses might cause the canopy to rip, but I had other problems to deal with so I didn't pull my reserve. Fortunately, the chute held. (The actual story of that jump would take several minutes to type. I call it the "clusterf**k jump" because so many things went wrong.)

Not too long afterwards, I read how a supplier had been arrested for providing defective suspension line cord to the military. I don't know if my chute had some of those defective lines on it or not, but the news story hit close to home.

This current situation is a lot more serious. A total malfunction is a rare but very dangerous situation. Since access to those chutes is so tightly controlled, it seems it had to be an inside job. I sure as hell hope they catch the SOB before he kills someone. I wouldn't shed any tears for him if he was beatenly severely while resisting arrest, too.