Police Kill Five on La. Bridge(UPDATE CONTRACTORS WERE SHOT AT: THE NOPD shot BAD GUYS)

CNN, AP BREAKING ^

[Chucky is a girlie man]

New Orleans PD shot contractors - not thugs - on bridge

Mod point of clarification: The first 100 or so replies below were posted in reaction to reports that the contractors had been fatally shot.

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Mod Update

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The Associated Press
Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.

Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six.

Fourteen contractors were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers.

They were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal, Hall said.

None of the contractors was killed, Hall said.

The bridge spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

No other details were immediately available.

[cajungirl]

Do we know where the shooters were? Were they in plain view? And any identification?

[El Gato]

I want to know why these Army Corps of Engineers contractors had a police escort, and not an Army or National Guard one? I'm an Army Contractor, and if I ever have to go into a place like that, I want military guys protecting my ash, not a bunch of donut munchers, especially not from a department where, according the LA National Guard, about 2/3 did not report for duty after the water started rising.

Of course I'd prefer to have that military escort, and be armed myself, which I could probably be, based on my other hat as a retired AF reservist. (At least unofficially).

[JohnD9207]

I take it their guns were hostered, which then makes me ask "Didn't the cops tell them to freeze or did they just shoot?".

What's your point??????

[A CA Guy]

If the guns came out around the police or against innocent contractors and the bad guys got shot, GOOD.

No other point need be made. :-)

[El Gato]

None of the contractors was killed, Hall said

But were any of them injured? None of the stories I've seen say.

[JohnD9207]

That was my point...the first paragraph was by some poor unenformed individual. You are correct no other point needs to be made....except didn't the article say 6 of 8 shooters were killed. Sounds like the cops need bigger weapons or more practice.