Comments on Cop in the Hood: New Orleans Police after the flood

Thanks. Fixed it.

2010-03-01T13:56:04.985-05:00

Thanks. Fixed it.

FYI- the first link doesn't work.

2010-03-01T13:52:31.655-05:00

FYI- the first link doesn't work.

Truly wonderful "the truth hurts" post! ...

2010-02-28T22:18:43.812-05:00

Truly wonderful "the truth hurts" post! Thank you for it.

I was a San Diego tourist trapped in the Superdome during Katrina. The Airport, Amtrak, and Greyhound all shut down 2 days PRIOR to the storm and a day before the evacuation. All rental cars were gone.

Anyway we inside believed all the rumors of rapes and murders inside the Dome. I imagine it was one of us who started the rumor; we'll never know. Fear is a powerful tool in influencing behavior and that coupled with a lack of communication leads to so much misinformation.

Still, since so much attention is being paid to New Orleans these days I wish the media would take the initiative to do more follow up on correcting the exaggerations they made about the extent of the murders, rapes, and supposed helicopter shootings that they first reported during Katrina. This left some otherwise sympathetic Americans from giving as much of themselves as they would have liked to, and demonized parts of the City.

Gulf officials and the media have the world's ear these weeks and they need to correct some of the false rumors that still are prevalent in mainstream America.

Oh and by the way, GEAUX SAINTS!

Paul Harris
Author, "Diary From the Dome, Reflections on Fear and Privilege During Katrina"

Great post. I certainly like what it has to say a...

2010-02-28T13:11:03.477-05:00

Great post. I certainly like what it has to say about human nature.

The New Yorker should do a cover story abou...

2010-02-28T07:27:15.870-05:00

The New Yorker should do a cover story about what happened on the Danziger Bridge and the failed state prosecution. It is an interesting story, and really makes one wonder how many bad shoots are simply covered up well enough that the public never finds out.

I am not a fan of what the US military has become, but we really could have used them during Katrina and they were not there for us when real, average Americans really needed them. I guess the one silver lining is that somewhat reduced the cultish hero worship of the preseident and the army that got started toward the end of 2001. People didn't come out and say it. People try to shift the focus to Nagin (perhaps because he is not big on gun rights), but if there was ever a job for reserves and their expensive equipment, it was the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina.

I have mixed feelings about whether civilians should have been allowed to keep their guns when in the dangerous zone. Since some policemen were taking potshots at people, it might have been better to let the civilians keep their guns so they could defend themselves against attacks by police and others. Perhaps the Second Amendment applies. I guess for me, it comes down to whether more or fewer people would have been shot if everyone had been armed. If the people on the Danziger Bridge had been armed then they might have avoided getting shot (because the bad policemen probably would have been cowardly enough to retreat in the face of an armed person) and that would have been a better outcome. Even if the seven officers who shot at the people on the bridge had all been killed, that also would have been a better outcome because it was just plain nasty to not let the poor people escape the floodwaters. If Madison were armed and had shot the seven officers, he would have had a rock solid case of self defense and defense of others. Policemen have no right to stop civilans from fleeing flood waters to try to avoid drowning. When they do this to civilians, they simply deserve to die.

One number we still don't have a good handle on is how many of the 1,464 victims of the flood waters died because police would not let them flee at Danziger Bridge, and most likely other checkpoints as well. Even if hundreds of people died in this fashion because of what the policemen did, we would have no way of knowing that because dead men tell no tales. We only know about the six shooting victims on the Danzinger Bridge because they decided to try their luck with the policemen, rather than the flood waters.

Finally, as I noted on the other thread, state courts simply do not work for criminal prosecutions of on-duty policemen.