Six New Orleans Police Officers Indicted in Danziger Bridge Case

[kpete]

Source: USA Department Of Justice

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Six New Orleans Police Officers Indicted in Danziger Bridge Case

WASHINGTON –Six officers with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) were charged today in connection with the federal investigation of a police-involved shooting on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina, the Justice Department announced today. The incident resulted in the death of two civilians and the wounding of four others.



The indictment charges four officers – Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso – in connection with the shootings, and charges those four officers and two supervisors – Arthur “Archie” Kaufman and Gerard Dugue – with helping to obstruct justice during the subsequent investigations.



The indictment alleges that officers Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso open fired on an unarmed family on the east side of the bridge, killing 17-year- old James Brissette, and wounding Susan Bartholomew, 38; Leonard Bartholomew III, 44; the Bartholomew’s daughter, Lesha, 17; and the Bartholomew’s nephew, Jose Holmes, 19. The Bartholomews’ 14-year-old son ran away from the shooting and was fired at, but was not injured.



The second shooting occurred minutes later on the west side of the bridge, where officers shot at brothers Lance and Ronald Madison, killing Ronald, a 40-year-old man with severe mental disabilities. The indictment alleges Faulcon shot Ronald Madison in the back as Ronald ran away. Bowen is charged with stomping and kicking Ronald Madison while Ronald was wounded, but not yet dead. Ronald later died at the scene.

Read more: http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/July/10-crt-798.html

[tblue]

1. About damn time. nt

[rocktivity]

4. DING DING DING! Tbule, you're our grand prize winner!

Especially since if BP is Obama's Katrina, this case is Bush's BP.

:evilgrin:
rocktivity

[slackmaster]

2. K&R. This is excellent news.

It should have been done long ago.

[Warpy]

3. High frigging time.

First, this racist scum. Next, maybe the administration that encouraged them.

[HardWorkingDem]

38. Pictures of the six indicted....

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/07/us_attorney_general_to_discuss.html

[TerribleLarryDingle]

5. Thank god! K&R

[IScreamSundays]

6. Indicted finally is good news.

Convictions would be even better.

[Spazito]

7. Excellent news!

Recommended.

[Dogtown]

8. It's my understanding

that when Justice indicts local police officers, a conviction is probably. I'll admit that my opinion may have been set by the Johnson KKK prosecutions.


This incident reads like a Southern Gothic horror (my apologies to those members from the South, it's a recognized genre and is *not* meant to infer anything regionally negative).


I'm hoping for 20 in Marion.

[greiner3]

9. Being serious;

Does this mean that the cops were guarding the bridge?

[TheMadMonk]

36. As a matter of fact yes. They were keeping the riff-raff out of the neighbouring...

...more affluent county.

[revolution breeze]

43. Actually, the Danziger Bridge runs over the Industrial Canal

in Orleans Parish.

[bvar22]

50. Many people get these two separate incidents confused.

From everything I've seen, the shootings at the Danziger Bridge are out and out Cold Blooded Hate Murder.

The Gretna Police armed Blockade of the bridge across the Mississippi River into high and dry Gretna is on an altogether different level of EVIL, and still needs to be addressed.

[rhett o rick]

53. Thanks for the clarification. Is anyone looking into the case of the Gretna police? nm

[revolution breeze]

62. Two of five lawsuits were settled out of court

if I remember correctly.

[rhett o rick]

65. What about criminal charges? Civil rights violations as well as the threat of bodily harm

when they shoot over the heads. The FBI should be investigating and the ACLU and NAACP should be investigating.

[revolution breeze]

66. I haven't heard anything more about this in a while.

I agree there needs to be more investigation, but the victims involved have gotten strangely quiet.

[rhett o rick]

67. LOL. Of course they are quiet, they have no media. nm

[jobycom]

49. No, that was another bridge, over the River. No one was killed there.

This was a case in New Orleans from one side of the canal to the other. Both neighborhoods were about the same economically, if I remember the geography. People were crossing from one area to the other to shop at some of the stores that had opened.

[jobycom]

52. Although, now that I think about it more...

The bridge connected the east side of New Orleans with the city proper, so even though the neighborhoods on both sides were about equal, the bridge was still a gateway into the city. So maybe they were trying to "discourage" people from crossing into the city.

[NOLALady]

57. I don't think they were trying to discourage people

from crossing over into the city. It's a small bridge. There isn't much difference on either side.

No rhyme or reason for their actions other than they were straight up out of control.

[revolution breeze]

59. Wrong.

Winn-Dixie, nor any of the retail stores on Chef Highway, were open

[jobycom]

60. Umm, which do you mean? The Winn Dixie was or was not open?

Can't tell from your word choice. The story was that people were crossing the bridge to get supplies. If you're saying the stores weren't open, okay, but that's still why they were crossing. I did a lot of driving around then (in gulfport) to find places that were open.

[revolution breeze]

61. Winn Dixie, which lies at the base of the Danziger Bridge,

Did not reopen until late October 2005 and then only for limited hours. There were actually several weeks where it was not known if the store would reopen. Chef Mentuer Highway was a virtual ghost town until Summer 2008.

[jobycom]

63. Okay. So they were wrong about the store being open.

:shrug: They still weren't crossing from a bad neighborhood to a good one, as the post I responded to suggested, and they claimed they were looking for supplies. Again, I drove all over the Coast looking for supplies. If you ask me now whether I found any on September 7 at the Lowes or the Home Depot, I probably couldn't answer specifically, but I'd still remember that that's why I was driving around.

[revolution breeze]

64. It was such a difficult time.

So much confusion, so hot, no utilities (they finally have streetlights back on the interstate in that part of New Orleans five years later), no cars on the road, martial law had been declared. Never would you have imagined such a scene in the United States. I was not there but have family who live in the neighborhood. I had never received a text message on my phone until Katrina hit, but text messages worked when cell phone calls would not. I think it taught everyone how to text.

[thereismore]

10. Thank you, DOJ. nt

[dipsydoodle]

11. Six more cops indicted in Danziger Bridge shootings, coverup

Six current or former New Orleans police officers are the latest to be indicted in the sprawling civil rights investigation into shootings on the Danziger Bridge and a subsequent conspiracy to cover up what happened. Two people died and four were injured in the tragic incident that happened in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.

Three of the officers turned themselves into the FBI today.

Frank DeSalvo, the attorney representing Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, said his client, along with officer Anthony Villavaso and Sgt. Robert Gisevius, surrendered after learning that former officer Robert Faulcon had been arrested at his home in Texas early this morning.

Also indicted by a federal grand jury were homicide Detectives Sgt. Arthur Kaufman and former Sgt. Gerard Dugue, according to the 27-count indictment unsealed today.

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/07/us_attorney_general_to_discuss.html

[laughingliberal]

12. Big K & R! nt

[msanthrope]

13. THANK YOU ERIC HOLDER AND PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!

It deserved caps.....

[Subdivisions]

14. Finally. n/t

[mike_c]

15. get thee to the top of the greatest page....

About damned time!

[DiverDave]

16. Times Picayune story:

The story from the local newspaper

http://tiny.cc/ivgt4">Here


I want to know just what the HELL these murdering bastards were thinking when they fired on people RUNNING AWAY!! GRRR :mad:

[MadMaddie]

22. Not only that but the kid that was mentally challanged was

shot in the back and then one of the officers went over to him and kicked him repeatedly. What that poor child last saw before he died.....these rogue cops should be put away for life in Federal prison with no chance for parole. They didn't give the unarmed victims a chance at life.

[NOLALady]

17. I've been waiting for this

for nearly five years. Hopefully, justice at last.

[centerdem]

18. MURDERERS

So if LA was a state that had a law against filming the police, would there be a case admissible in court?

[TheMadMonk]

37. 'twould always remain admissible in FEDERAL courts.

Anyone who ever has such footage come into their possession should make multiple copies and the feds should always be given their own copy at the same time as one is given to any state/local authority.

Tough guys can let the cops have a chance at giving them a 'touch up' before telling them "The media were given a copy of this, oh-" looks at wrist where watch should be, "five minutes ago."

[ColesCountyDem]

19. K & R!

:thumbsup:

[tsuki]

20. May they rot in Hell. nt

[valerief]

21. Great news! Now they need to round up Bush and Cheney. nt

[Hoopla Phil]

23. Excellent news.

[defendandprotect]

24. Disgraceful . . . and about time!!

[Boudica the Lyoness]

25. Fucking pigs

I hope they hang for this as a warning to all the other pigs who think they can treat us like this and get away with it!

[The Wielding Truth]

26. And the world starts to come back into order.

[Liberty Belle]

27. What took them so long? Oh, of course....

The Bush Justice Dept. was into abuse of human rights, not protecting them. Kudos to the Obama injustice for finally righting this wrong.

[unkachuck]

28. Good!....n/t

[alp227]

29. DoJ goes after violent cops once again!

The DoJ got two of the cops who beat up Rodney King to spend a couple years in prison each for violating King's civil rights.

Right now, Justice is reviewing the Johannes Mehserle case; Mehserle is the former BART police officer who was recently convicted of involuntary manslaughter for fatally shooting Oscar Grant.

And now, a real case...some police officers who shot civilians on sight, mimicking the same acts of violence committed by our military overseas for decades. Put these four cops in the pen and never let them exist in civilised society ever again! (Oh yeah, the fact that two of the officers were black doesn't excuse anything. Race doesn't matter...if you're a cop and use excessive force, you don't deserve "to serve and protect" straight up.)

[TheMadMonk]

40. You could say turncoats, but that's not exactly accurate. "Tribal Identification"...

...comes closer to the psychology of what went on there.

Minority officers self identify as cops first and then as members of their ethnic minority. And realistically they have to do this in order to do their job. The problem arises I think, when there is a strong element of racism in the police force. Just to get along, a large number of minority officers are going to become rather hypocritical. Perhaps justifying it with thoughts like: "These are the n*****s, giving the rest of us a bad name."

And the distrust on the part of the community towards race/class 'traitors' helps reinforce those feelings among minority coppers who do feel that they are only trying to do the right thing, but are getting spat on by those they are trying to help.

You see exactly the same thing in homosexual conservatives. We all have something about ourselves that we hate. Self loathing is easy. And easy to ignore. We are all, each and every one of us, a special case in our own eyes.

[AtheistCrusader]

30. I hear being a cop in jail is real uncomfortable.

[Name removed]

32. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LostinVA]

46. niiiiiice -- prison rape "joke"

[AtheistCrusader]

54. Just to be clear, I wasn't trying to go there.

Mistreatment comes in many forms.

[Canuckistanian]

31. Good.

That was a CRIME screaming out for justice.

[lonestarnot]

33. Good. Better late than never.

[sofa king]

34. Well now, that's refreshing.

While you're at it, DoJ, just what were the 9/11 terrorists doing on Jack Abramoff's boat?

[Number23]

35. My God. Why?

open fired on an unarmed family

officers shot at brothers Lance and Ronald Madison, killing Ronald, a 40-year-old man with severe mental disabilities. The indictment alleges Faulcon shot Ronald Madison in the back as Ronald ran away. Bowen is charged with stomping and kicking Ronald Madison while Ronald was wounded, but not yet dead. Ronald later died at the scene.

Why??

[rjwin]

42. perfect example of white privilege

.

[Lochloosa]

44. Hummm....three of the six are black. Perfect example of out of control cops.

pics here:

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2010/07/us_attorney_general_to_discuss.html

[NOLALady]

56. They have better sense

than to pull that kind of out of control behavior in white neighborhoods.

[Solly Mack]

39. k/r

[HEyHEY]

41. I just don't understand this story

Were these murders for fun? Or was it a case of cops being over-the-top?

[LostinVA]

47. I think a bit of both

[NOLALady]

55. A case of SOP

for NOLA cops. That's not the only atrocity.

http://www.pslweb.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=13165&news_iv_ctrl=1046

Henry Glover was shot "allegedly" by NOPD. His remains were found burned in a car behind the police station.

[Blue_Tires]

45. finally...

[boycottfaux]

48. Swift Justice, hmmm . .

It took 5 years to investigate and indict police shooting a
man in the back???

Really, come on . .

Anyone know when this investigation was started??

[disillusioned73]

51. 1/20/09

[rhett o rick]

58. I am betting on a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter. nm