New Orleans - Murder and rape - fact or fiction?

The Guardian ^ | September 6, 2005 | Gary Younge

[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!"

[BnBlFlag]

Who am I going to believe, the Guardian or my lying eyes?

[Nathan Zachary]

"In the future, you demand a mandatory evacuation. You don't suggest it." The proceedure, which Nagin failed to follow although he signed it years ago, is to get the disabled, the poor, etc. to safty BEFORE the disaster hits. He had 3 days to do so, using those buses, which are even mentioned in NO's evacuation plan. This guy failed to act, he REFUSED to act, at which point the governor should have taken control. But she failed to act, and refused help from FEMA, who were already staged as of Sat and ready to act if only they were given orders. Further, Nagin KNEW the red cross would not go to the dome or supply it because it was in the disaster zone and unsafe. Knowing that, he should have prepared the site using the National Guard and FEMA. He failed to get Blanco to order the Guard and FEMA to do so days before, and piled people into the place with NO SUPPLIES. The blame has to fall on those two people. These same two people screwed up in the aftermath as well, and continue to do so, which Bush is getting blamed for. Thank God most of these people are gone now, and under the care of more capable leaders. But that wasn't the ideal situation either. These people should have be forced out if nessesary, and dispersed hroughout the nation to lessen the burden on any one community.

[Nathan Zachary]

Here's somehing from that racist page:

It is objective truth that white America does not care about diverse African Americans. It is not enough that there be affirmative action. We, as African Americans, are being portrayed as looters. Just because one steals a TV after a hurricane does not mean anything when you are eating corpses after four days without food. White america needs to pay up for past wrongs, and past hurricanes. How dare America segregate African Americans and force them to live below sea level. Why is it when white people take food, it is called "searching for food." But when African Americans take a TV from Walmart it is called "looting." Racism, that's why.

In order for America to prove that it is not racist, it must rebuild New Orleans above sea level.

Posted by: Cornelius on September 02, 2005 at 09:07PM

Quite frankly, I'm speechless. We rounded up blacks and FORCED them to live in NO? LMAO!!! Cornelius... planet of the apes?

[Elyse]

"The story about the young girl has changed considerably since last week."

It's like that game Gossip that you played at parties as kids. One person starts by telling the person next to them something and by the time it gets to the end of the line it's something completely different from what was said in the first place.

Oh, and seriously, I heard it was a 2 year old raped and found in the bathroom with her neck broke.

[SeaLion]

I agree, Red Zone, and have a big barrel of salt next to me. Let me stick my neck out a bit here to say I'm a little disturbed by some of the postings in this thread from folks who seem to need some of the horror stories to be true in order to score a debating point. And some of them may be true, and maybe even worse ones we haven't heard about yet are true, but it's too soon to really know--except we've all seen before how CNN and other 'rolling spews' groups pick up rumours, pick out the juciest that fit their propaganda agenda, and hey presto--we've got hot news! Just like Nathan pointed out about the 'massacre' at Jenin that wasn't, sometimes you just have to hang on knowing that they can't hide the truth forever.

And we harm ourselves when we play their game. Remember when Saddam invaded Iraq, and we had an 'eye witness account' of Iraqi troops dashing babies to death on the floor of a Kuwati maternity hospital? It all turned out to be utter hooey--and what was the point of all that? Saddam had already done enough evil to deserve complete punishment without anyone needing to make stuff up, or build crazy rumours. The truth was far, far more powerful!

[The Red Zone]

Annex New Orleans to Washington, DC. That's the only thing that will make them happy.

[SeaLion]

when Saddam invaded Iraq Oops, finger trouble on the keyboard -- 'when Saddam invaded Kuwait,' I meant! Although maybe a bit of a Freudian slip, the b*stard was a usurper who murdered his way to power in his native country!

[Katya]

"Even a socialist propaganda outlet is correct at times. "

Excellent assessment... I have been very wary of the claims made...at this point we should operate in "show me the body" mode.

[Alia]

bookmark.

[Ditto]

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).

It's called the "River Walk" and while not directly connected to the Convention Center, is literally feet away from the main entrance.

[cyborg]

A lot of it sounds made up to me from pure hysteria.

[sassbox]

I hope the Guardian is correct and that the reports of murder and rape in NOLA are false or exaggerated. I hope none of that stuff happened. However, I fear the opposite is true. Many times this past week I've thought, regarding the anarchy, that we probably aren't hearing the half of it. Problem is, because law and order broke down, it won't be possible for many authorities to thoroughly investigate these crimes, gather evidence, ID a suspect, etc, like they would for an ordinary crime. We probably will never know the numbers and just how many rapes and murders happened.

[monday]

"Has anyone proven yet that "hurricane victims eating corpses to survive"?


lol.... The Guardian is a British newspaper. British newspapers are all tabloids. You can't believe anything you read in them. They are a level or two worse than even American papers in terms of accuracy.

Personally I don't believe anything the news media says unless there are names and photos of the victims and perpetrators and concrete facts, so I am surprised that the Guardian felt the need to write an article like this. It seems like common sense, but alas, from reading responses on this thread, it would appear that some people do believe everything they read.

[Smogger]

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.

Hey I said the same thing, and was shouted down as well. Using commong sense I would hope that the average Freeper could distinguish between rumor, conjecture, and fact. Then, however, there is a minority on here that WANTED many of the more outlandish rumors to be true in order to support their twisted often racist worldview.

[CharlesWayneCT]

What were they supposed to do to handle the bathroom problem in the dome? The toilets were all backed up, because the sewers filled up, and there was no running water.

I suppose they could have brought in porta-potties, but in 24 hours would they have gotten enough for 30,000 people for 4 days? Probably not.

So long as the people were evacuated to a place which was under water, and forced to stay there for 3 or more days, they were going to have some pretty disgusting and unsanitary conditions.

That is unpleasant, but other than removing the people from the dome what were they supposed to do about it?

[CharlesWayneCT]

I bet that no more people were raped this week in New Orleans than in any other major city.

Even in the best of situations, the police largely cannot prevent crime, they can only capture people who commit crime.

And too many people only behave because they think they would get caught. As soon as you give them a situation where they think that they WON'T get caught, they stop behaving. Because they are not taught MORALITY.

[ArrogantBustard]

Yet another racist who desperately needs to issue an abject, groveling, bootlicking apology to the President and to the American People, then retire from public life in utter disgrace.

[B4Ranch]

I did see one officer carrying half a dozen handguns and a couple of knives from the AstroDome on TV yesterday. The way he was holding them made me think they had been confiscated.

[doc]

"It is objective truth that white America does not care about diverse African Americans. It is not enough that there be affirmative action. We, as African Americans, are being portrayed as looters. Just because one steals a TV after a hurricane does not mean anything when you are eating corpses after four days without food. White america needs to pay up for past wrongs, and past hurricanes. How dare America segregate African Americans and force them to live below sea level. Why is it when white people take food, it is called "searching for food." But when African Americans take a TV from Walmart it is called "looting." Racism, that's why."

It is sad that alot of ignorant blacks buy this drivel.

[AmericanInTokyo]

I happen to think that there was no exaggeration of the violence that occured in the Anarchydome.

Think for a moment. Who, if anyone, would benefit in downplaying the fact that rapes occured within a certain segment of the society in NO, uprooted suddenly and thrown into a dome for days on end.

I would imagine the rapes would be downplayed because it would not play well from a PR perspective by the people who would benefit the most by having it downplayed or ignored. I think there were enough eyewitnesses. I saw some reports from foreigners who were in there, and I can tell you, they did not exaggerate (one foreign, engaged couple for example--the fiancee was threatened with rape multipe times with rapes went on around them).