(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Press Release
Pentagon Refuses Legal Demand to Release Video That Reportedly Shows U.S. Military Killing Shipwrecked Survivors
POGO Investigates will continue its legal effort to make this footage public via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
Washington, D.C. — The Department of Defense is illegally concealing footage of the September 2, 2025, strike on a boat in the Caribbean Sea, which reportedly shows the U.S. military killed shipwrecked survivors in what experts have called an illegal “double-tap” strike.
POGO Investigates, the news reporting division of the nonpartisan government watchdog Project On Government Oversight (POGO), filed a FOIA lawsuit earlier this year to obtain the video. The footage raised serious concerns among a small group of lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who viewed it in a closed-door meeting with Pentagon officials last December. The Department of Defense denied POGO’s FOIA request — a move that appears to be against the law.
“The military has released at least 46 clips of U.S. attacks on noncombatant boats, including the first strike in this specific case. Its push to hide this video as classified raises questions as to whether it shows clear violations of the law,” said Brandon Brockmyer, Director of Investigations and Research at POGO. “Since last year, top national security lawmakers have been calling for the public release of this footage. We filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit because we believe the public deserves to know the truth about what their government did in the Caribbean.”
The Pentagon’s refusal to release the video appears to violate a directive which states that the government cannot refuse to declassify information to “conceal violations of law” or “prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency.”
“We believe the administration’s refusal to declassify this video, when it has posted dozens of similar videos online, is due to the backlash that would follow,” continued Brockmyer. “We will continue our fight for the truth and for accountability to ensure the public can draw their own conclusions about the administration’s military operations.”
Since September, the administration has killed nearly 200 people in boat strikes across the Caribbean and Pacific without congressional authorization. The New York Times is also in litigation against the Defense Department for the September 2, 2025, boat strike footage.
