"Karl Rove sent the hurricane to kill the black man"
Next you thing you know'll be questioning this fellow's credibility...
/barf
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!"
Has anyone proven yet that "hurricane victims eating corpses to survive"?
Well, we'll probably learn a lot more in the coming days as to what happened not from the police but from journalists (real journalists, not from The Guardian) as they sit down and conduct more detailed interviews with evacuees from the Superdome and the Convention Center in the Astrodome, Dallas, Arkansas, DC, and other places these people have been dispersed to.
Other than looting, in the end it will probably be found that crime was actually down in the New Orleans area. Given the flooded streets and the history of crime in that city, I find it hard that it would be up.
That will be another medal to hang around Nagins and Blanco's necks. A big gold one. The Mayor and Governor who's inaction, unpreparedness and stupidity caused the super dome to be demolished.
one rumor I wish I knew was not true, was the one I heard today about the nursing home....where the caregivers were able to take out so many patients, the ones they thought could make it, and left the rest , who drowned in their own beds......horrifying.....
I think the criminals were terrorizing, and assaulting people. I also thought it sounded like the women down below were being sexually assaulted, although this wasn't specifically stated. The nurse's young children had just been reunited with her, and I don't think she was going to go into all the details in front of them.
I just checked the ksat.com website, and it's not up there yet, but since it was just on the news tonite after the FSU-Miami game ended, they may not put it up until tomorrow.
As if everyone has lots of faith in the NOPD. Or the Guardian. Talk about something being apocryphal!
Keep in mind, some were likely mentally disturbed people sans medication. They could imagine a murder at a scene where in fact nobody was even hurt. I'd take isolated reports of such events with a pound of salt unless there's physical corroboration that such an event took place.
The New Orleans Saints (who right now seem to want to become the San Antonio Saints) own the building. If they consider it to be bad enough juju, it will come down.
That's another one. As I said, the Guardian contradicts itself. They are the LAST "news agency" to be preaching about journalistic accuracy. They are usually the first ones to print anything they can dream up to slam the USA and Bush, or condemn Israel. In fact, they create many of these stories themselves.
...so true. That part of our country (and much around it) is rife with public corruption. That's one of the main reasons that I moved west.
That is horrible. I can't help but wonder why their children or grandchildren didn't move them in advance.
These nursing homes are a story untold however. They should have been evacuated days before the storm, with all those buses Nagin had at his disposal. They should have been among the fisrt to go! I have heard some news stories blaming Bush for not using these Buses. It's incredible. Bush should have been in NO directing traffic and running the show I suppose... They sure don't want to hold Nagin and Blanco responsible for anything. It's like they never existed in MSM eyes.
I'm not sure which funnier. His ridiculous claims, or the fact that he apparently thinks anybody took them seriously.
One thing I noticed following the storm last weekend, is that it did speed up or the weather people had it wrong.
On Saturday the weather forecasters were predicting a Monday night landfall, then it became a late Monday afternoon. It then became Monday morning. The earlier landfall combined with the weak evacuation orders issued by local leaders hurt the effort.
In the future, you demand a mandatory evacuation. You don't suggest it.
"Karl Rove sent the hurricane to kill the black man"
Next you thing you know'll be questioning this fellow's credibility...
/barf
I just read that racist's page. Disgusting.
If anything, the accounts I have been hearing from personal friends of mine who have been escaping the carnage in NOLA lead me to believe that the MSM have been sugar-coating and omitting much of the horror that's been occuring on in that hellhole.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.