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His eighth deployment, from February to September 2017, was to Mosul, Iraq. Some of the SEALs who served under him told investigators that at first they were excited to be led by someone with Chief Gallagher’s reputation, but they soon started to see him as unhinged. He fired his rifle about ten times as often as other snipers, they said, even at times when there seemed to be no targets.
“Every single sniper in the platoon said he was not a good sniper,” Agent Warpinski told the court.
The chief was hard on his platoon, investigators said, berating and punishing SEALs who he thought were not aggressive enough.
Chief Gallagher’s lawyers said that hard feelings in the platoon over his actions had led some SEALs to concoct stories in the hope of forcing him from command.
In May 2017, Iraqi forces captured an enemy fighter who had been wounded in an airstrike. Video images show the bleeding fighter, who was thought to be between 12 and 17, being brought to the SEAL platoon on the hood of a truck, and Chief Gallagher and others cutting away his clothing to give medical aid.
Photos of the fighter viewed by The New York Times appeared to show that medics had put tubes used to treat a collapsed lung in his side and cut an emergency airway in his throat.
Navy investigators said that one SEAL medic was kneeling over the fighter’s head, treating him, when Chief Gallagher walked up and, without saying a word, took out a handmade knife and stabbed the teenager several times in the neck and side.
Investigators said two other SEALs gave similar accounts.
Members of the platoon then posed for photos with Chief Gallagher as he held the teenager’s head up by the hair with one hand, and held his knife in the other. Photos show Chief Gallagher then raising his right hand to perform a re-enlistment ceremony over the dead body, while another SEAL member holds an American flag.
