Posted on 09/06/2005 12:26:57 AM PDT by HAL9000
There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.
But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.
New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.
New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."
And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.
Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.
During a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of established facts.
One French journalist from the daily newspaper Libération was given precise information that 1,200 people had drowned at Marion Abramson school on 5552 Read Boulevard. Nobody at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the New Orleans police force has been able to verify that.
But then Fema could not confirm there were thousands of people at the convention centre until they were told by the press for the simple reason that they did not know.
"Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.
"There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.
"You can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist.
"But nobody is doing that."
Either way these rumours have had an effect.
Reports of the complete degradation and violent criminals running rampant in the Superdome suggested a crisis that both hastened the relief effort and demonised those who were stranded.
By the end of last week the media in Baton Rouge reported that evacuees from New Orleans were carjacking and that guns and knives were being seized in local shelters where riots were erupting.
The local mayor responded accordingly.
"We do not want to inherit the looting and all the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Kip Holden was told the Baton Rouge Advocate.
"We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."
The trouble, wrote Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune is that "scarcely any of it was true - the police confiscated a single knife from a refugee in one Baton Rouge shelter".
"There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes."
Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".
But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".
"She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns," wrote the LA Times.
"We have sick kids up here!" she shouted.
"We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!"
Wonder what the people in there thought of these news crews dashing in and out. Hey why don't you leave your lights in the bathroom for us? Because we sure don't have any there! ...
I did say that I suspected that much of the reports out of New Orleans were probably going to be proven to be exaggerated.
I got two kinds of responses... Polite agreement and rabid disagreement.
No, wait - to be honest, I did get a couple of respectful disagreements from people who heard personally from someone who heard from someone who heard from someone.
So what are they saying? That the media spread a bunch of B.S. that made the United States look bad. Tell me it ain't so.
Maybe the thugs hid their guns knowing that NG's would shoot them to death if they fight. Criminals are though guys, but when they know soldiers (who are trained for warfare) are coming, they are usually terrified.
But considering the difficulties inside the Astrodome; hunger, thirst, emotional trauma and more, people could easily thought about almost every wild thing they know.
LOL... Maybe The Guardian's source was that someone who heard from somebody and so on and so forth...
I read that the NG found a woman who was raped and killed and the guy who did it was beaten to death. Why are they saying it didnt happen? Because they didnt see the bodies?
I think this nurse is from San Antonio, and she was at the River something Mall in New Orleans where she and seventy five others had banded together for safety. She was on our local news, and said it was mayhem, looting, and women screaming down below. She wasn't at the convention center (unless the mall and convention center are one and the same).
Our Local station ksat in San Antonio had her on tonite.I'm sure they have it on video at www.ksat.com.
No kidding, genius! They caught the first available bus to escape your he]]-hole city...
Can the Guardian prove this? or is this just more unsubstantiated rumor? This article contradicts itself.
New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."
This certainly doesn't give one the impression that the NOPD is out there actively trying to find out what happened, but rather that they are sitting back and waiting for witnesses to come to them.
As we already know from their abysmal conviction rate, in the past witnesses to crime in NO have been very reluctant to come forward out of fear. I would expect unless the NOPD makes active efforts to find witnesses, few if any will come forward as they are more concerned with their hour-by-hour existence. It also seems rather odd that the police chief limited his statement to rapes and did not address any other crimes.
In the literal sense (people were physically wounding one another), or in the sense of a noisy disorder?
One National Guard soldier said: "We found a young girl raped and killed in the bathroom.The crowd got the man and they beat him to death." -
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15932579%26method=full%26siteid=66633%26headline=saved%2dat%2dlast%2d-name_page.html
I saw something like Louisiana has the worst penalties of any state for rape. Something like LWOP for first-degree rape. Seems to me if this is true, that's the crime that police would want most to catch.
Perhaps they can... although sometimes The Guardian considers a mere rumor as a major factual news...
Um, more than homicides? There were multiple reports in the media that murders had occurred both in the Superdome and in or around the Convention Center crowd.
I guess they are waiting for a murdee to complain.
Seriously I think even those keystone cops could tell foul play if they saw it.
The Guardian, as far to the left as it leans, was also the first to debunk our government's production that abused Jessica Lynch for the amazonian feminist interests among our "elite." Even a socialist propaganda outlet is correct at times.
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