Recieved from the director of a NOLA organization I work with:
Federal department of justice indictments (finally) against New Orleans area civil authorities and vigilantes who engaged in the shooting death & injuries of innocent black citizens in the days, weeks, and months following hurricane Katrina. Brief clippings of those stories (note comments at the end) immediately follow the articles:
New Orleans cops indicted for post-Katrina civilian shootings on bridgeNew York Daily News - Meena HartensteinFour New Orleans police officers accused of fatally shooting two unarmed people in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina could face the death penalty.
Cops could face death in post-Katrina shootings -
The Associated PressPolice Officers Indicted in Post-Katrina Shooting Case -
NewsHour PBSSix New Orleans Officers Charged in Post-Katrina Shootings -
Main JusticeCBS News -
ColorLines magazine Man Indicted for Racial Attack in Post-Katrina New OrleansRoland Bourgeois was indicted today for his involvement in post-Katrina shootings, including the shooting against Donnell Herrington.
by Brendan McCarthy, The Times-Picayune, and A.C. Thompson July 16, 5:50 a.m.
A former New Orleans resident was charged Thursday with federal hate crimes for his alleged role in a racially motivated shooting of three black men in the days after Hurricane Katrina.
The man, Roland J. Bourgeois Jr., 47, is accused of plotting to defend his Algiers Point neighborhood "from outsiders" including African-Americans, constructing barricades on public streets and using racial epithets to describe black people, according to the five-count indictment.
At one point, the charges claim, Bourgeois said,
"Anything coming up this street darker than a paper bag is getting shot."The indictment charges Bourgeois with doing just that when three black males walked through the neighborhood toward a makeshift Coast Guard evacuation center on Sept. 1, 2005.
Bourgeois fired a shotgun at the trio, felling Donnell Herrington and wounding Herrington's two companions near the corner of Pelican Avenue and Vallette Street, according to the indictment.
Later, Bourgeois
plucked Herrington's bloodied baseball cap from the ground and proudly displayed it to others, boasting that he "got one" and had shot a "looter," according to a witness.
Bourgeois, who denied any knowledge of the incident to federal agents, is also accused of coercing an eyewitness to the shooting to lie to investigators.
Bourgeois left Algiers Point after the hurricane and now lives in Columbia, Miss., according to the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, which is prosecuting the case along with U.S. Attorney Jim Letten's office.
The indictment, filed Thursday, charges Bourgeois with conspiracy to commit a hate crime, committing a hate crime with a deadly weapon and with intent to kill, making false statements and obstruction of justice.
He faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted.
The Herrington shooting was the subject of a lengthy Justice Department investigation into claims that white residents of Algiers Point attacked African-Americans in a spate of racially motivated violence in the wake of Katrina. Algiers Point did not flood, though it did sustain wind and storm damage.
The hurricane prompted more than a dozen residents in the neighborhood, most of whom are white,
to take up arms, barricade streets with downed trees and debris, and coordinate vigilante patrols of the area.One witness, Terri Benjamin, recalled hearing gunfire and seeing Bourgeois among a group of armed white men. Bourgeois was gripping a shotgun and celebrating.
"My neighbor was jumping up and down, hooting and hollering like he was big-game hunting and he got the big one," she said earlier this year. "All of his friends were rallying him on, and they were cheering."
Another armed man approached soon afterward and
told the group that the wounded man was still alive a few blocks away.
According to Benjamin, Bourgeois said,
"I'm gonna kill that nigger," and ran, barefoot and shirtless, down the street before turning and jogging out of view.
Benjamin then heard another gunshot. And Bourgeois ran back to the group with a bloody baseball cap.
"And he brandished the cap for all of his friends," Benjamin recalled.
"Everybody cheered. They were happy for him."2 commentsThen there are the Danzinger Bridge shootings. White NOPD officers opened fire on group of unarmed black males, killing two. One man was 19. The other, 40 and mentally disabled was shot in the back. They conspired to forge reports to coverup the murders. Post-Katrina white vigilantism was rife. There are numerous examples of whites with guns tracking and shooting at black men. Three young men were summarily shot while walking through a park.by whites calling themselves “N-hunters” Others seeking shelter near a convenience store were shot because whites considered them looters. Cops murdered a black man and burned his body in his car. Eleven murders have been attributed to white on black violence. DOJ continues to investigate 5 years after the fact.
Yesterday, 1:23 p.m.
It was clear to everyone after Katrina that the main objective of the administration was to decrease the black, poor population of New Orleans. The comments made by Mr. Bush and other administration members are quite clear on this point. They wanted to make a “Disneyland” New Orleans for white yuppies. Leaving thousands of people in the Superdome without food or water was only the beginning of it. Transporting people far away from New Orleans and then using their inability to get back home as an excuse to demolish their houses, the plan to turn the lower 9th ward into so called "green spaces", with no people living there, and on and on.
All of those things make clear the intent to rid New Orleans of residents of color, and poor people. I fear the same agenda applies in the gulf “cleanup”. No one in authority cares about the people of the gulf, because they are mostly poor, working class folks. The upper class doesn’t care about them, and we will see an attempt to “resettle” them far away ! from their homes and their destroyed livelihoods. That way, BP can claim that it has “helped” them, and still sell the ocean front land to developers once it has been cleared of working folks.
Helen A. Spalding
Yesterday, 2:54 p.m.
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