Slaughter At Nisour Square: The Inhumanity Of Blackwater

On September 16, 2007, 5 men from Blackwater (a private military contractor) drove thru Nisour Square in Baghdad, Iraq when suddenly they fired upon Iraqi citizens and police killing 14 people and wounding 20. An independant Iraqi commission as well as a Federal Bureau of Investigation report found that the Blackwater guards fired without cause and with malicious intent to injure and kill. Those involved in the shooting Donald Ball, Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Nicholas Slatten, and Paul Slough faced multiple counts of manslaughter, and on June 17, 2014 four of the men would be found guilty of voluntary and attempted manslaughter charges, and of using a machine gun to commit a violent crime. They were sentenced to decades in prison with Slough facing life. However on December 22, 2020, US President Donald Trump would grant a full presidential pardons to Slatten, Slough, Liberty, and Heard.