Posted on 10/09/2005 3:29:13 PM PDT by katiedidit1
AOL News
State authorities are investigating allegations New Orleans police officers broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars - including 41 new Cadillacs - as Hurricane Katrina closed in.
"It is a very, very active investigation," Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general, said Friday. "We expect developments quickly."
Wartelle would not comment on why the officers may have taken the cars or whether they were used in the line of duty.
However, the cars may have been taken before the hurricane even roared into town Aug. 29, according to the president and general manager of the dealership, Doug Stead.
Stead said the cars included 88 new Cadillacs and Chevrolets, 40 used cars, 52 customers' cars and a restored 1970 El Camino and 1966 Impala.
"We put the loss on new cars at $3.7 million," Stead said. "The used cars ran another $900,000."
When reports first surfaced last month that officers may have taken the cars, New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said it was not considered looting because the officers patrolled in the cars.
"There were some officers who did use Cadillacs," Riley said. "Those cars were not stolen." On Friday, police spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said the department's only comment was that it was cooperating with the attorney general's investigation.
Police are also investigating 12 officers for allegedly looting or failing to stop looting. And about 250 police officers - roughly 15 percent of the force - could face discipline for leaving their posts without permission during Katrina and its aftermath. Stead said he got a call Aug. 28 while evacuating the city, telling him one of the dealership's garage doors was open. The rest of his trip was spent fielding calls about his cars.
"I had eight calls from people in an hour saying they heard I was giving police Cadillacs to drive," Stead said. "It seemed like everyone knew about it, so I knew we were in trouble."
Stead said he got calls from people telling him they had seen his cars in Baton Rouge, Houston and other cities with uniformed police officers driving them. He said people saw his cars parked outside a police precinct.
Keys to the new and used cars were kept in a locked box on the second floor, Stead said. The box was taken on a forklift to the third floor, where a blowtorch was used to open it, he said. For cars without keys, the ignitions were jimmied, he said. Two new Corvettes were left in the street outside the dealership, apparently stalled out by the floodwaters and abandoned.
The cars recovered so far have various amounts of damage, Stead said.
Because of the damaged garage doors at Stead's dealership, wind funneled into the building and a wall blew down, he said. "The sad thing is if the building hadn't been vandalized, there would have been no damage at all," the dealer said.
I vote for line of duty. They needed them to get out of town with more loot than they could physically carry.
The NO police needed a moral compass not an immoral Compass.
Every officer that had ANYTHING to do with this fiasco needs to do SERIOUS prison time.
NOLA PD scumbags.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1492670/posts
I vote for housing the thieves in a locked box on the second floor of a prison.
Didn't BJ Clinton have a 1970 El Camino (with astroturf in back)?
"It had astro-turf in the back. I don't want to tell you what the astro-turf was for.".
lol
Love that it seats three...toss in a overhead sun/rain protector and I am sold on that baby:)
No wonder they didn't want any armed responders in the city.
I'm Shocked! Shocked I tell ya!
It's actually called a Texas Limo;)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Yup, that's where I found the quote in my post #11.
New Orleans police officers broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars
----How else would they be able to leave the city with all the stuff they stole?
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