posted by Jennifer Hlad on Jan 10
Sgt. Heriberto Becerra-Bravo was the first to take the stand Thursday.
Bravo, as he was referred to by the prosecutors and the defense lawyers, was driving the second vehicle in the convoy March 4, 2007.
Before the blast, Bravo said he saw a car, a van and two more cars coming toward the convoy. The gunners motioned for the vehicles to get out of the way, and while the cars did, the van kept coming toward them, Bravo said.
The van exploded in front of vehicle two. Bravo said he remembers “a giant redness with yellow.”
“I had no idea what was going on,” he said.
Bravo heard shooting, but said the only person he knows for a fact was shooting was Staff Sgt. Josh Henderson, because he was the gunner in the same humvee.
He shot to the left, stopped, then fired to the right, Bravo said.
Bravo also heard distant incoming fire, he said.
Though Bravo incidicated he didn’t see much after the blast — including a blue SUV that was apparently stopped to his left — he said he did see puffs of smoke on a hill top when the convoy had moved past the blast site and over the bridge.
Bravo said Thursday that he never saw anyone shooting at the convoy. But lawyers pointed out that in a previous statement, he said he saw Sgt. Brooks shooting and that he saw two military-age men shooting at the convoy.
Bravo said he doesn’t remember either of those things, and felt the NCIS agents who questioned him were trying to “put me in a corner.”
After he told the NCIS agents he didn’t see Brooks firing, they kept pressing, so he eventually said Brooks was probably firing. He did not write anything down, and only signed a statement after NCIS agents told him he had to, Bravo said.
But, he said, those parts of the statement that are inaccurate.