FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — The father of a Navy SEAL killed during an anti-terrorism raid in Yemen is demanding an investigation into its planning and criticized the Trump administration for its timing. 
 
 Bill Owens told The Miami Herald (http://hrld.us/2lTYhPB ) in a story published Sunday that he refused to meet with President Donald Trump when both came to Dover Air Force Base to receive the casket carrying his son, Chief Special Warfare Officer William "Ryan" Owens. 
 
 "I want an investigation," said Owens, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective and veteran. "The government owes my son an investigation." 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told ABC's "This Week" on Sunday she believes the president would support an investigation. 
 
 "I can't imagine what this father is going through," she said. "His son is a true American hero, and we should forever been in his son's debt." 
 
 The younger Owens, a 36-year-old married father of three, was the lone U.S. fatality in the Jan. 27 raid on a suspected al-Qaida compound. Approximately 16 civilians and 14 militants died in the raid, which the Pentagon said was aimed at capturing information on potential al-Qaida attacks against the U.S. and its allies. 
 
 The elder Owens, a retired Fort Lauderdale police detective and veteran, told the Herald he refused to meet with the president because the family had requested a private ceremony. 
 
 "I'm sorry, I don't want to see him," Owens recalled telling the chaplain who informed him that Trump was on his way from Washington. "I told them I don't want to meet the president." 
 
 He said he was also troubled by the attack Trump leveled at Khizr and Ghazala Kahn, an American Muslim family whose Army officer son died in Iraq in 2004. The couple had criticized him at the Democratic National Convention last summer. He also questioned why the president approved the raid a week after taking office. 
 
 "I told them I didn't want to make a scene about it, but my conscience wouldn't let me talk to him," Owens told the Herald. "Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen — everything was missiles and drones — because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?" 
 
 Sanders defended the raid in her interview with "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos. The White House says the raid was planned during the Obama administration, but the former president's aides have said he hadn't given the go-ahead because it would have been an escalation of U.S. involvement in the war-torn and destitute Arab country. 
 
 "The mission has a lot of different critics, but it did yield a substantial amount of very important intel and resources that helped save American lives and other lives," Sanders said. 
 
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 Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com ||||| White House responds to father of slain Navy Seal 
 
 White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer addressed questions raised about the raid in Yemen by the father of slain Navy Seal, William “Ryan” Owens, during Monday's press briefing. "On behalf of the president, his son died a hero," Spicer said.
– When Bill Owens went to collect the body of his son at Dover Air Force Base, he found out that the president of the United States was also on his way to pay his respects as the casket of Chief Special Warfare Officer William "Ryan" Owens was unloaded. But he told the chaplain, "I'm sorry, I don't want to see him. I told them I don't want to meet the president." The elder Owens, himself a military veteran, tells the Miami Herald that more than shunning President Trump, "I want an investigation" into the death of his son, the only American casualty in a botched raid in Yemen, and the first American combat death of Trump's term. "The government owes my son an investigation." Owens says he's been troubled by Trump since he went after a Gold Star family while on the campaign trail. Says a White House rep, per the AP: "I can't imagine what this father is going through. His son is a true American hero, and we should forever be in his son's debt." But Owens questions the very purpose of the mission: "Why at this time did there have to be this stupid mission when it wasn't even barely a week into his administration? Why? For two years prior, there were no boots on the ground in Yemen—everything was missiles and drones—because there was not a target worth one American life. Now, all of a sudden we had to make this grand display?" The entire Herald article, which profiles 37-year-old Ryan Owens extensively, is worth a read.