Shawn Gibson

Shawn Gibson was Sergeant in the 3rd Infantry Division of the US army in Iraq. On the morning of 8 April 2003, Shawn Gibson, as the commander of an Abrams tank positioned on the Al-Jumhuriya Bridge in Bagdad, reported spotting a person with binoculars in a building on the east side of the river. It is not clear whether he received an immediate order to fire or whether he fired after superiors had deliberated for 10 minutes. However, the building attacked, the Palestine Hotel, served as a base from where numerous foreign journalists covered the battle.

Jose Couso, a cameraman for the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters, were killed. Sgt. Shawn Gibson would later be quoted as saying that he, like his superior Capt. Philip Wolford who ordered the attack, was unaware that the building was packed with journalists.

A U.S. military investigation in August 2003 cleared Shawn Gibson and the other two soldiers concerned, Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp and Capt. Philip Wolford, of wrongdoing, saying they acted properly because they believed they were firing on enemy troops.

An inquiry conducted by a news media advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in May 2003 that it had uncovered no evidence that enemy fire had been directed at American forces from the Palestine Hotel. But the group's report also concluded that the killing of the two journalists was not intentional, though it said their deaths could have been avoided because Pentagon officials and field commanders in Baghdad had been aware of the hotel's location and knew that journalists were staying there.

In February 2004, the NGO Reporters Without Borders, after undertaking their own investigation (see ”links“), called for the reopening of the enquiry into the incident of 8 April 2003. The NGO stated that the soldiers on the ground, including Philip Wolford, Philip DeCamp and Shawn Gibson, could probably not be held responsible for their lack of information about the function of the Palestine Hotel. Reporters Without Borders however demanded that the responsibility of higher commanding levels be investigated, as they had withheld the crucial information from their lower ranking officers that the Palestine Hotel was used by journalists.