Fellow SEALs say chief shot girl and old man in Iraq
Two Navy SEALs testified Friday that their platoon chief
gunned down a young girl and an old man in Iraq in 2017 from his sniper’s
perch, though neither witnessed him pulling the trigger.
The SEALs said shots came from the tower where Special
Operations Chief Edward Gallagher was posted and they watched through their
scopes as the civilians fell to the ground.
Dalton Tolbert said he and another sniper were in a
neighboring tower in Mosul on June 18, 2017, and had fired warnings shots to
scatter civilians by the Tigris River because the ISIS was operating in the
area.
An old man in a white tunic began running and then Tolbert
heard a third shot come from the neighboring tower where Gallagher was
positioned and saw the man fall.
Over the radio, he heard Gallagher say: “You guys missed
him, but I got him.”
Gallagher, 40, has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder
for allegedly shooting civilians. He also faces a murder charge in the alleged
stabbing of a wounded captive ISIS fighter.
The defense said the testimony was unreliable because no
witness reported seeing Gallagher pull the trigger. Attorney Tim Parlatore
accused the SEALs of organizing a smear campaign through a group text that
pressured fellow SEALs to coordinate their stories and get Gallagher ousted
permanently.
Tolbert was so upset that when he returned from deployment,
he texted members of SEAL Team 7 to say he wanted people to speak up about
Gallagher’s behavior.
“I shot more warning shots to save civilians from Eddie than
I ever did at ISIS. I see an issue with that,” Tolbert texted others.
Another witness, Joshua Vriens, said on another day that he
saw Gallagher shoot at a group of adolescent girls in floral hijabs, hitting
one in the stomach and sending two scattering.
Vriens said he watched through his scope as a fourth girl
dragged the wounded girl over a berm and under a bridge to escape.
During cross-examination, Vriens acknowledged he reported to
a superior that day that the ISIS was shooting civilians.
Tolbert and Vriens said there were no signs that the old man
or the young girl were threats. Most of the ISIS fighters were younger and had
longer hair.
The defense, however, countered that the ISIS used
civilians, including women, to provide supplies.
The shootings happened several weeks after other SEALs said
they witnessed Gallagher, a medic, stabbing to death a wounded and captive ISIS
fighter in his care.
On Thursday, another SEAL stunned the court when he admitted
on the witness stand that he — not Gallagher — killed the prisoner.
Corey Scott said Gallagher stabbed the captive, but that he
would have survived those wounds.
Scott said he suffocated the adolescent by plugging his
breathing tube as an act of mercy because he didn’t want him to be tortured to
death by Iraqi forces.
Vriens said Friday that he never saw the killing, but said
later that day a fellow SEAL who was viewing photos of the dead militant on a
laptop shared by the platoon asked Gallagher, “Is this the guy?”
Vriens said Gallagher replied: “Yes, I stabbed him in the
side, then grabbed him by the hair and looked him in the eyes and I stabbed him
in the neck.”