No Charges in Katrina Bridge Blockade

[Eugene]

Source: Associated Press

No Charges in Katrina Bridge Blockade

Wednesday October 31, 2007 6:01 PM

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

Associated Press Writer

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - A grand jury will not charge
anyone in a police blockade that kept hundreds of
evacuees from crossing a Mississippi River bridge on
foot after Hurricane Katrina flooded New Orleans,
authorities said Wednesday.

Several hundred people claimed police from suburban
Gretna blocked them as they tried to flee New Orleans
on Sept. 1, three days after the storm hit.

Many of the evacuees, who had been stranded at the
New Orleans convention center without food and water,
said they were told to cross the bridge to be evacuated
from the city, only to be forced to turn around upon
reaching the other side.

Police later said they blocked the evacuees because
there were no supplies or services for them on the other
side of the river. Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson
also acknowledged that his officers fired shots into the
air during the blockade in an attempt to quell what he
described as unrest among the evacuees.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7039198,00.html

[Catherine Vincent]

1. This is just pitiful.

They are just now deciding on this? I guess they thought enough time would go by so people can forget what happened.

[NOLALady]

2. I'm not surprised.

Business as usual. The officers will probably be promoted for protecting their city.

[Irishonly]

3. Disguisting

It's wrong on so many levels

[Drum]

4. Score another win for The Man.

:(

[tom_paine]

5. That was an unsurpising decision from a Totalitarian Nation that wipes it's ass on it's own people.

In other words, this is EXACTLY what I would expect from this nation, which no longer desrves (and probably hasn't for a long time) the freedom that it lost.

I'd say we should be ashamed of Bush-occupied Amerikas, but exactly what do We the People have to do with Bush-Occupied Amerika, other than that we are our Bushie Masters' Fodder Units, their Virtial Slaves.

[rodeodance]

6. and a jury believed this horseshit

[Mojorabbit]

7. I hope this gets appealed

It bodes poorly for future disasters if people can be kept from freely crossing a bridge in this country.

[gratuitous]

8. Unlikely

This was a grand jury proceeding, to determine if a crime had been committed at all, so there won't be an appeal. But I'm sure we can all rest assured that the local district attorney did his or her level best to bring charges against the local cops.

[High Plains]

9. Ha ha ha. That was a good one!

[hootinholler]

14. Especially in Gretna!

I'm sure the complaint was vigorously pursued.

-Hoot

[DLnyc]

17. True grand jury can't be 'appealed', but new gj's can be empanelled over

and over, as far as I know. And, I am totally confident, of course, that the local DA will continue to pursue this until he (or she?) gets an indictment. Just as DA's all over the US actively seek indictments in all cases of police misconduct.

[Judi Lynn]

20. Really hope you're right, and that they won't let it slide. n/t

[DLnyc]

23. Sorry, I was being (very) sarcastic

I've seen this scenario over and over and all across this country. Police misconduct is essentially NEVER prosecuted by local DA's; those DA's are almost always afraid to ruffle feathers with the local law and order types, be they clean, messy or outright corrupt.

Perhaps the U.S. Dept. of Justice could file civil rights charges, but that certainly won't be happening under *'s Dept. of Justice!

[Mad_Dem_X]

10. Holy crap.

I wish I could say I was shocked by this. But anything is possible in W's Amurika. :grr:

[EFerrari]

11. Shame on them. n/t

[LostinVA]

12. Several DU apologists for these sleazeballs when this story broke

Disgusting. They should have been charged.

[Judi Lynn]

21. I remember that, too! It was a keen reminder we're never actually free of racists, what a damnable,

loathesome shame.

Damned proud and pompously so of their rationales. Would make a maggot gag.

[NorthernSpy]

24. and of course the "why don't they rescue themselves?" faction hadn't a word to say...

... when it was revealed that people were TRYING to rescue themselves, and the police were blockading public ways and firing "warning shots" over their heads to STOP them from leaving the city on foot.



Nope, not a word to say.

[hootinholler]

13. I can't believe they admitted they fired shots!

They wouldn't after Katrina.

-Hoot

[KAZ]

15. I'd welcome a "hung" jury, in this case. Post facto. Assholes. n/t

[pitohui]

16. there was never going to be any other outcome

you cannot force people to mandatorily evacuate their homes and then allow strangers to come over and enter your home while you are not there

if you lived here, you would understand

so many many many lives would be lost in future storms if people could not confidently evacuate and instead people had to ignore mandatory evac orders to guard their homes themselves -- the police had a duty and they executed that duty, i'm sorry a gun had to be fired, but sometimes distressed and angry people don't comply w. law enforcement orders just because you asked them nicely

not allowing people to cross the bridge is not a popular decision nor is it a decision that panders to popularity or "how it looks" in the eyes of people who never have to evacuate in serious weather -- nonetheless, it was the right thing to do

if you're not from here or if you didn't yourself shelter an evacuee in your home, i suggest you have no real standing to comment -- i suggest you volunteer your own home before you volunteer the home of relatively low income people in gretna -- it's always cheap and effortless to offer someone else's only financial resource

at the earliest time i could return, i offered shelter to another, i'm not just talking out of my ear

we fought a war back in 1776 that the gov't can't just stash random people in our homes against our will

FEMA and the gov't should have provided proper food, medical care, water in place at the superdome and convention center, in no case was looting the homes or businesses of the people of gretna on the table as an alternative

i don't like gretna nor do i like jeff parish law enforcement, which is corrupt as hell, but in this case, they took the heat while the real culprit was the failure of the federal gov't

while we fight amongst ourselves, *co is laughing

[happyslug]

19. problem was the Bridge WAS THE EVACUATION ROUTE

The Police BLOCK people from New Orleans from leaving the City of New Orleans. No one ever attempted to enter any houses or any other building along the route. If you had a car, the police left you go through, it was the people on foot the Police forbade from crossing. That is illegal, you have the right to MOVE, even if your only means to move is by walking.

The City of Gretna had NO BUSINESS Blocking these people from walking through the town. The police had the right to arrest anyone who broke the law (i.e. enter any building) BUT NO RIGHT TO ASSUME THAT PEOPLE WILL.

As to the Federal Government, at that point all anyone could do is to tell the people to walk out of town. The Feds had to move Buses from all over the country to move the remaining people out of New Orleans, and that took days. One way to speed that process up is to have people walk and when they meet the buses to load them up at that time. The US Army did this extensively during WWII, moving troops in the rear of a Column to the Front as the column, as a whole, march forward (This seems not to have happened after WWII, for we had enough trucks to move out troops). This does NOT sound like much movement, it is some and given the situation in Louisiana at that time the best that could be done AND THE POLICE OF JEFF PARISH PREVENTED THIS FROM OCCURRING. That is the crime and hopefully the Feds will step in and bring the Charges.

[pitohui]

26. no it wasn't the evacuation route, i live here, but don't let facts get in your way

the bridge to the north and to higher ground is the causeway, actually, which we can all agree would be the bataan death march if dehydrated people had walked over it in a heat index of 108 degrees, it just isn't feasible to walk out of a major city if you are older, fragile, have a child with you, or otherwise vulnerable when the heat index is 108 degrees

we need to focus on the real villains -- those in the federal gov't who refused to drop food, water, supplies immediately to the people sheltered at the superdome -- there was no secret as to where the people were -- fema merely had to get on its hind legs and act

the bridge to gretna was not going to take people anywhere they needed to go

the city of gretna, and the parish of jefferson, has a duty to protect the property of the folks who have been forced to leave under a mandatory evacuation order, and once it is decided that the area is unsafe for residents, then it doesn't magically become safe for desperate people maddened by heat

the proper thing to do was to deliver food, water, medical personnel and so on to the central locations already provided, including the shelter at the superdome

there was not going to be any way to help people wandering at random through jefferson, they needed to be in place to receive supplies at that point


there are some racist dirtbags involved in jeff parish law enforcement, we can all agree on that, but punish them for what they do that's actually wrong, don't punish them for doing their damn jobs

shit flows downhill but to punish some random police officer for the crimes of the united states president, the most powerful man in the world, that's just craziness

i don't see how they ever expected to get an indictment from a local grand jury frankly

[NorthernSpy]

27. thank you for saying that...

:hug:


If you don't have the right to preserve your life by walking out of a disaster zone via a public way, under your own power, then there are no rights. Because it is that right to preserve and protect your life that is the fundamental right of all.

[pitohui]

29. again, don't let facts get in the way

the disaster zone was several hundreds mile long, i drove, in an automobile, for several hours to be out of the zone -- i was told by state police to leave jackson, mississippi because they did not have sewer and electric due to katrina. look at a map sometime and see how far that is

if you think the most vulnerable of our population, the very old who can no longer drive, the handicapped who can't drive, the single mothers with babies and toddlers who never had the wherewithal to afford a car to drive -- if you want to see those people on the bataan death march in 108 degree heat index, that's pretty damn cold if you ask me -- because there was NEVER any chance that those people could have walked far enough way to get out of the disaster zone

the officers made a tough decision, playing to what was best for everyone, rather than what would look good to people who don't know anything about the size of this storm

those people were NEVER going to be able to walk to safety, instead, they were going to be dispersed through another area of the disaster, with no help of supplies being delivered to a centralized area where they could get them in a timely fashion

[NorthernSpy]

30. you exhibit the ethics of an East German border guard...

Same lame apologetics.


They fired "warning" shots over the heads of those people -- who were just trying to walk away from a flooded city. The people weren't waiting for the government to save them, and the government steps in, blocks their way, and threatens to shoot them.

Sounds pretty Stasi to me.

[KamaAina]

18. Apparently no one will ever be brought to account for criminal actions in those awful days

'specially not Bush** or Heckuvajob Brownie. :grr:

[pitohui]

28. the fish rots from the head down

if congress doesn't have the gonads to impeach bush over something like this, then i don't see how anyone can be second guessing officers on the ground and on the scene who put their lives at risk instead of evacuating with their families

these storms can happen again, and when they do, we'll still want police officers, medical workers, etc. on the ground to assist with the disaster

[Solly Mack]

22. fucked up and disgusting

not surprising though...sadly :(

[NorthernSpy]

25. konstitisyon se papie; bayonet se fe...

The Constitution is paper.

Bayonets are steel.



(as they say...)

[Nicole0214]

31. Unbelievable