[supercat]

What sort of "show of force" did you have in mind? The looters are armed and are willing to shoot at the cops. Did you want the cops to return fire?

Someone posted a poster from the San Francisco Earthquake with a proclamation by the mayor: LOOTERS WILL BE KILLED.

The number of looters that would have to have been killed to prevent looting from spreading would pale in comparison with the number of people who have died or will die as a result of looters' lawlessness.

[Deo volente]

Mayor Schmitz, "shoot to kill" proclamation, from a less politically correct era:

http://www.sfmuseum.org/1906.2/killproc.html

(I wish I knew how to get these images to load directly w/o the link!)

[TChad]

Someone posted a poster from the San Francisco Earthquake with a proclamation by the mayor: LOOTERS WILL BE KILLED.

I saw that. Since the looters (when do we start calling them insurgents?) are now shooting at the rescuers, such a policy would be appropriate for New Orleans.