ROCHESTER, N.H. - Evan Liberty, a 26-year-old former Marine, is routinely described by friends and family here with the kind of all-American accolades reserved for hometown heroes.
Patriotic, respectful, courageous, self- sacrificing, kind, and caring. That's Evan Liberty, they say.
The US Justice Department, however, has other, damning words. In an indictment unsealed last week, Liberty and four other private security guards face manslaughter charges in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians, including women and children, in a hail of allegedly indiscriminate gunfire last year in Baghdad.
The charges have stunned this struggling former mill city, where Liberty has returned to live at his parents' home. No one interviewed for this report said they had heard Liberty's version of events, including his father. But his defenders are reflexively adamant that the scrappy athlete and consummate outdoorsman could not possibly have gunned down innocent people while working for Blackwater Worldwide, the largest private security contractor in Iraq.
"I don't know what the military does to you these days, but it doesn't sound like Evan," said Dan Cronin, a former basketball teammate of Liberty's at Spaulding High School.
Well, HOW ABOUT FINDING OUT about the WARS and the LIES that led to them, coach?
Brian Liberty, the defendant's father, said Evan did not join Blackwater for its high pay. "It wasn't for the money. He saw this as a way to serve his country."
Serving in BLACKWATER is serving your country?
As he awaits trial in Salt Lake City, where the guards surrendered last week to federal authorities, Liberty is studying at Hesser College in Portsmouth....
And he will be acquitted, too. AmeriKa always acquits its mass-murderers; in fact, some we don't even try!
Wanna read about what a great kid he is? Go here
