Posted on 09/03/2005 8:04:59 AM PDT by Carl/NewsMax
New Orleans Police Chief Edwin Compass said Friday that hurricane rescue efforts were hampered when relief workers came under attack by the city's criminal element, prompting conditions that resembled "urban warfare."
"We have never had an urban warfare battle like this on any front in the history of our nation," Compass told NBC's "Dateline."
"You're fighting in buildings that are pitch black with darkness. These individuals have root - the criminal element have looted all the gun shops and gun stores in this city, so they're armed, they're dangerous."
Federal Emergency Management Agency Chief Michael Brown, under fire for his agency's slow response, echoed Chief Compass's complaint, telling CNN: "We are working under conditions of urban warfare."
Though the city's crime rate is ten times the national average, U.S. news outlets downplayed the connection between New Orleans' outsized criminal element and delays in rescue efforts.
Saturday's London Times, however, painted a bleak picture of the challenges faced by local police as they tried to restore order.
"One New Orleans police officer wept as he described seeing bodies riddled with bullets, and the top of one man's head shot off. He said some looters were armed with AK-47 rifles, and compared the situation with Somalia, with police outnumbered and outgunned by gangs in trucks . . .
"An effort to remove patients and staff from Charity Hospital, in the city centre, was suspended after it came under sniper fire . . .
"'It's a war-zone, and they're not treating it like one,' he said, referring to the federal government . . . Gunmen continued to fire on troops and rescue helicopters, and police officials said that many officers had stopped reporting for duty, cutting manpower by 20 per cent."
You mean your daddy done left you holding the bag, boy? You mean you didn't think the lights would go out? That the criminanimals would go on a spree? Couldn't find that paper with the emergency plan Stan?
LOL! You've got that right! (I'm afraid you and I are in need of "sensitivity training"!)
This world is full of evil people and many lived in the projects in N.O. The kind of trash ( both black and white) that prey on the week. Yes I am positive they stayed to steal and rape and take advantage of the old and weak as all cowards do.
The gun shop owners were irresponsible. They should not be allowed to reopen within the city, ever. I don't care what all you gun enthusiasts say, this was unconscionable negligence. NO police force should have to waste its time and resources protecting gun shops abandoned by their owners or have to clean up the mess when those shops are ransacked and the guns used.
"The last thing the Dems want is it coming out that 20% or so have been murdered."
For some reason, I see the opposite. That is, I see them COUNTING on there being alot of urban warfare deaths so they can blame the president for not having troops there to protect themselves from themselves.
Remember, these people are not responsible for anything, much less their own actions. They need to be protected from themselves, and if the feds cant' do that, then its a conspiracy of racism.
After all, they will claim, if this happened in a white community, where white people were being shot, President Bush would have rode in on the first tank to protect those "white folk"... nevermind this was their own community tearing itself apart... they dont' want to talk about that.
The blame for these "gangstas" with stolen guns will be placed squarely on the NRA for allowing guns to be sold and stolen in the first place. It will never be blamed on individuals. After all, they are black, uneducated, urban and therefore not responsible for their own actions.
You are correct. I'll bet you could count the number of Republican voters in the center of New Orleans on the fingers of one hand.
Last night on Fox I caught a snippet of an elderly African-American lady in New Orleans. She had obviously swallowed all of Jesse Jackson's propaganda, because she was lambasting President Bush. It would probably be a waste of breath to try to explain to her that the rescue was delayed because African-American thugs were shooting at the rescuers.
1) they are drug addicts they won't blend in for long.
2) anticipate locals will expose the criminals. The poor innocents are traumatized but will turn on the thugs as they feel safe and learn more about the situation.
3) there will be massive arrests & trials
I read somewhere that Walmart had guns stolen. Is this true?
I have heard that Texas welfare payments are among the lowest in the US. If true, I wonder if many of these soon to be transplanted people realize the surprise they are in for.
I'm sure many will soon wise up and be coming to California.
And whatever you do, don't vote for someone because he or she has the same skin color as you.
Slow down there partner. I'm a "gun enthusiast", and I'm in complete agreement with you.
Dozens of abandoned gun shops and Wal-Marts in the middle of New Orleans was like chum in an ocean full of great white sharks.
Thanks, I'm just waiting to get flamed by the "the only problem was that the good folks did not have enough guns" crowd. Sometimes the answer really is not more guns.
I was wondering where Chief Moose ended up.
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