Blackwater Suit Cites ‘Culture of Lawlessness’
An amended lawsuit filed Monday claims guards employed by Blackwater Worldwide ignored orders to stay in a secure area the day they shot and killed 17 Iraqis.
The suit was filed in Washington, D.C., federal court on behalf of seven shooting victims, including five who died. The complaint says the Blackwater guards were not protecting any State Department official at the time of the Sept. 16 shooting in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square. It was filed the same week that a federal grand jury is hearing witnesses in a Blackwater probe, the Associated Press reports.
The FBI has found that at least 14 of the shootings in Nisoor Square were not justified, according to an earlier New York Times report.
The civil complaint also says Blackwater failed to give drug tests to its security guards, even though the company knew that at least 25 percent of them took steroids or other “judgment-altering substances.”
“Blackwater created and fostered a culture of lawlessness among its employees, encouraging them to act in the company’s financial interests at the expense of innocent human life,” the suit says (PDF posted by the Center for Constitutional Rights).
Lawyers from the Center for Constitutional Rights are among those who represent the plaintiffs, according to a press release by the group.
Blackwater spokeswoman Anne Tyrrell told AP that Blackwater employees are tested for drugs when they are hired and then on a quarterly, random basis.
A hat tip to Blogonaut, which posted the AP story.
