[Ken H]

What are the penalties for law enforcement officers who abandon their duties during a situation like this?

I doubt there are civil or criminal penalties for individual officers, but the city of NO is a different matter. You can bet the ranch that the trial lawyers are salivating right now.

[burzum]

I doubt they'll be salivating for long. I expect that the next Katrina appropriations bill will probably give immunity to the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana. After all it will be fairly counterproductive to allow a city to be sued for billions when it desperately needs the money to rebuild. Hopefully the future Congressional hearings will have the heads of the mayor, governor, and their cronies (including AWOL officers).

There can be no justice in this case. How do you get justice when someone who is responsible for the deaths of thousands? I don't think it is possible.

[lepton]

I doubt there are civil or criminal penalties for individual officers, but the city of NO is a different matter. You can bet the ranch that the trial lawyers are salivating right now.

The only liability that normally stands up is differential services that violate civil rights (such as systematically protecting members of one race and not another).

If you have a guy with a gun to your head, and the police don't bother to come until hours later because they were behind in their paperwork, that is legally justifiable. The consequences of not showing up in a timely manner are political, not legal.