Reply #3: From the AP Article: "criminal acts"; "who shot Pat Tillman, and why?" [View All]

[Leopolds Ghost]

They walked the landscape with surviving witnesses. They found a rock stained with the blood of the victim. They re-enacted the killings — here the U.S. Army Rangers swept through the canyon in their Humvee, blasting away; here the doomed man waved his arms, pleading for recognition as a friend, not an enemy.

"Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" the NFL star shouted, again and again.

(snip)

One of the four shooters, Staff Sgt. Trevor Alders, had recently had PRK laser eye surgery. He said although he could see two sets of hands "straight up," his vision was "hazy." (...)

Another, Spc. Steve Elliott, said he was "excited" by the sight of rifles, muzzle flashes and "shapes."

A third, Spc. Stephen Ashpole, said he saw two figures, and just aimed where everyone else was shooting.

Squad leader Sgt. Greg Baker had 20-20 eyesight, but claimed he had "tunnel vision."

(snip)

Three of the four shooters are now out of the Army, and essentially beyond the reach of military justice.

Taken together, these findings raise more questions than they answer, in a case that already had veered from suggestions that it all was a result of the "fog of war" to insinuations that criminal acts were to blame.

The Pentagon's failure to reveal for more than a month that Tillman was killed by friendly fire has raised suspicions of a coverup. To Tillman's family, there is little doubt that his death was more than an innocent mistake.

One investigator told the Tillmans that it hadn't been ruled out that Tillman was shot by an American sniper or deliberately murdered by his own men — though he also gave no indication the evidence pointed that way.

"I will not assume his death was accidental or 'fog of war,'" said his father, Pat Tillman Sr. "I want to know what happened, and they've clouded that so badly we may never know."

And so, almost two years after three bullets through the forehead killed the star defensive back — a man President Bush would call "an inspiration on and off the football field" — the fourth investigation began.

This time, the investigators are supposed to think like prosecutors:

Who fired the shots that killed Pat Tillman, and why?