Army Opens 'Criminal Inquiry' Into Pat Tillman's Death

Army Opens 'Criminal Inquiry' Into Pat Tillman's Death

Army Ordered to Look Again at Battle Death
By Monica Davey and Eric Schmitt
New York Times

Sunday 05 March 2006

Washington - In a rare rebuke of military investigators, the Defense Department inspector general has directed the Army to open a criminal inquiry into the shooting death of Cpl. Pat Tillman, the former professional football player whose enlistment as an Army Ranger drew national attention, Pentagon officials said on Saturday.

The new inquiry into the killing of Corporal Tillman, who the Army initially said had died as a hero in a blaze of enemy fire before attributing his death in 2004 to an accidental shooting by fellow Rangers, will be conducted by the Army Criminal Investigation Command.

It follows three other military investigations - two by his Army Ranger unit and one by its parent organization, the United States Army Special Operations Command - that the inspector general's office has now determined were deficient.

The new inquiry would be the first criminal investigation into Corporal Tillman's death, a move that military law experts said was unusual and significant.

"It obviously could lead to one of three things," said Eugene Fidell, who teaches military law at the Washington College of Law at American University. "Was there a negligent homicide? Was there a dereliction of duty? Was there a cover-up?"

Pentagon officials would not speculate on the outcome of the new investigation or its timing. But the officials said that given the confusion on a battlefield, particularly in an operation like the one in which Corporal Tillman was killed, it would be highly unusual to pursue criminal charges against a soldier for the death of a comrade.

Col. Joseph Curtin, an Army spokesman, said that the scope of the new inquiry had yet to be defined but that investigators would look at whether soldiers in Corporal Tillman's unit violated military law when they failed to identify their targets before opening fire on his position.

Corporal Tillman's parents, who were notified of the investigation on Friday, have long complained about the findings and contradictions in thousands of pages of earlier investigations and have insisted there was evidence of a crime.

Patrick K. Tillman, Corporal Tillman's father, said Saturday that he remained distrustful of the military.

"You're assigning the same folks that have been asked several times to address this issue," Mr. Tillman, of San Jose, Calif., said in a telephone interview. "You're asking them to prosecute something when three times they have said there was nothing to prosecute? Do you really expect them to do it right?"

A Pentagon spokesman, Bryan Whitman, said that the inspector general in ordering another investigation had not found evidence of a criminal offense, in Corporal Tillman's death or in the other investigations into it.

Rather, Mr. Whitman said, the inspector general concluded that the Army had failed to conduct a thorough enough investigation, including the possibility of criminal activity, immediately after Corporal Tillman's death on April 22, 2004.

Corporal Tillman's death first drew national notice because of who he was: a successful young N.F.L. player who had walked away from a lucrative contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist, then qualify for the elite Rangers, with his brother after the terrorist attacks of 2001.

But his death drew attention once more after it became clear that he had died not from enemy fire as he led his Ranger team up a hill, as the Army first told the public and his family, but from the fire of his own unit, a truth that Army officials knew weeks before the Tillman family was told.

Corporal Tillman died beside a boulder along a craggy stretch of land in southeastern Afghanistan. His Ranger unit had been split into two parts, the first of a series of circumstances that led to confusion, miscommunication and fatal errors before his death, the Army's earlier investigations have shown.

At one point, one section of the unit, a convoy that included Corporal Tillman's brother, reported coming under sudden attack and began returning volleys at what they said they believed was the enemy. After firing hundreds of rounds, the men discovered that they had actually being shooting at men in the other half of their unit - a group they said they had believed was miles away at the time, the earlier investigations showed.

An Afghan soldier fighting alongside the Rangers was killed, as was Corporal Tillman, who had tried desperately to alert his colleagues to his identity, the investigations showed. He had waved his arms frantically and called out "Friendlies!" to alert the other Rangers, according to the statement of a Ranger who was behind the boulder closest to Corporal Tillman when he died.

Those who fired on Corporal Tillman described a hectic, confusing scene to investigators, and said they had made an unavoidable error in the blur of a firefight. They said they could not see Corporal Tillman, fired in the direction of muzzle flashes that they believed to be the enemy and aimed in the same direction as their team leader.

Seven Army members faced administrative disciplinary action - though not criminal prosecution - after the shooting. They were cited by the military for failing to "provide adequate command of subordinate units," for dereliction of duty, and for failing to command and control the fire and movement of subordinates, Army documents show.

Corporal Tillman's family has long raised questions about the details of the investigations into his death. His father has pointed to contradictions in descriptions by witnesses and investigators about the lighting at the time of the shooting, the distances between those shooting and Corporal Tillman, the communication between the groups and all that happened to the evidence. His body armor and uniform, for example, were burned.

"We still don't know what happened," Mr. Tillman said. "All I want to know is what happened."

Last year, the Defense Department inspector general's office opened a review into the case after the Tillman family criticized the earlier findings. Mr. Tillman said he was told on Friday that the inspector general's investigation would continue, even as the Army prepares to open the criminal investigation.

Mr. Whitman, the Pentagon spokesman, said of the inspector general's decision to order the criminal investigation: "They've called a process foul on the Army for using the wrong investigative tools. That said, there's no reason to believe the outcome will be any different."

Mr. Whitman and Army officials cautioned, however, that it was too soon to tell what the new inquiry would turn up that the previous investigations had failed to find.

--------

Eric Schmitt reported from Washington for this article, and Monica Davey from Chicago.

-------