New Orleans Mayor Orders Forced Evacuations

[in_cog_ni_to]

New Orleans Mayor Orders Forced Evacuations


By By CAIN BURDEAU , AP

NEW ORLEANS (Sept. 7) - To the estimated 10,000 residents still believed to be holed up in this ruined city, the mayor had a blunt new warning: Get out now - or risk being taken out by force.

As floodwaters began to slowly recede with the city's first pumps returning to operation, Mayor C. Ray Nagin authorized law enforcement officers and the U.S. military to force the evacuation of all residents who refuse to heed orders to leave.

Police Capt. Marlon Defillo said that forced removal of citizens had not yet begun. "That's an absolute last resort," he said.


Nagin's order targets those still in the city unless they have been designated as helping with the relief effort. Repeated calls to Nagin's spokeswoman, Tami Frazier, seeking comment were not returned.<snip>

http://aolsvc.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20050824033709990005

This could get ugly. The military has been given permission to forcefully remove people from the homes they don't want to leave? *sigh* Hang on folks....this could get very, very ugly!

[in_cog_ni_to]

1. back up. This is important.

This is DANGEROUS.

:kick:

[Dunvegan]

2. It's a Hobson's Choice...

It has to be done.

Damned if you evac, damned if you don't.

But evac shouldn't mean unnecessary force by any means.

Here's the problem with remaining in most of NOLA:

Anyone remaining on the ragged edge or the waterlogged middle of this disaster will be putting their lives on the line due to the effects of skin and ingested contact with the toxic flood soup, incubation of waterborne pathogens, and infection from insects hatching in standing sewage.

No one is going to give anyone wishing to stay in their home the proper vaccines to deal with the disease...or the constant supplies of potable water and food they'll need...and the city will be pretty much deserted, making the few dry areas still not good places to be due to lack of critical infrastructure.

The President and FEMA laid back and held out rescue until a major American city was utterly decimated. Was this on purpose or negligance?

Whichever, of one thing there is no doubt: Bush lost New Orleans.

[in_cog_ni_to]

3. Yeah, I know it's for their own good, but mixing

the victims who don't want to leave with a FORCEFUL military, could get ugly.

[Dunvegan]

4. There is no reason, law enforcement-wise, that unnecessary force...

...should be used.

But, the feds have circumvented local police contraventions and inserted military...which has no equilivent public duties to due process and fairness towards civilians in their orders.

Police can be cowboy crazy (I used to live in LA) but they are accountable to the system for restraint of unnecessary force.

And for local police, these are still their people, their communities. Makes a big difference in how things are approached.

Watch the "cavalry" closely...take phone pictures and publish them...publish accounts of the evacuation.

Because if the military goes off half-cocked against an American civilian population, and we see any Abu Ghraib madness going down...we want to talk court-marshaling in batches here.

[in_cog_ni_to]

6. That's what concerns me.

:scared: I just hope it's all documented ON FILM. Otherwise, it will be covered up....just like Abu Ghraib rapes and torture have been.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

5. It's already ugly. n/t