A Marine charged in the death of Lance Cpl. Kristopher Cody Warren, a 19-year-old Marine from Calhoun, Ga., faces a general court martial at Camp Pendleton, Calif., next month.
Lance Cpl. Warren was shot and killed during deployment to Iraq in 2006. Cpl. Douglas Michael Sullivan, who was assigned to a military police unit at Camp Pendleton, Calif., faces a charge of culpable negligence, authorities said.
Lance Cpl. Warren was a member of the Chattanooga-based Mike Battery Marine Reserve unit. Another member of that unit, Lance Cpl. Blake Knowles, said Cpl. Sullivan shot Lance Cpl. Warren in the back of the neck while Lance Cpl. Warren was working radio duty in a combat operations center.
“From day one as a Marine we are taught never to point weapon at anything you don’t intend to shoot,” he said. “Every rule, he broke.”
An official with Naval Criminal Investigative Services confirmed that NCIS is conducting an ongoing investigation into the death and cannot comment.
Brandon Morgan, who also deployed with Mike Battery, said the death left a scar on the Mike Battery Marines and on Lance Cpl. Warren’s family.
“I’m kind of glad that he did get charged,” Mr. Morgan said of Cpl. Sullivan. “In the same sense you never want to wish that on another Marine, but he took one of my good friends away from me.”
For complete details, see tomorrow’s Chattanooga Times Free Press.
