Posted on 09/06/2005 9:31:35 AM PDT by Pikamax
Murder and rape - fact or fiction?
Gary Younge in Baton Rouge Tuesday September 6, 2005
Guardian
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!"
Wow, a hard press on in the media to do a revision of the rapes and murders in New Orleans.
Now, they didn't happen.
You mean all 50% of them that showed up or were not looting?
---media credibility hits a new low-if that's possible---
By the time the MSM finishes it will be rich, white tourists who committed all of the rapes, taking advantage of poor, black storm victims in their hour of need. ;)
I'm glad that they are not finding these victims that the MSM was harping on and on about
- but this is bad news for Homeland and FEMA who stopped the Red Cross and others from coming in because of the violence we are not finding. Bush needs a shake up here and fast.
Some of them probably didn't happen, but we know some crime was taking place don't we? It would be nice if they could prove that americans didn't sink to the bottom of the pit in NO, but I think a lot of violent crime took place. It isn't surprising that a lot of it can't be verified. We need to just wait and see, and hopefully the news media will start telling the truth one way or another.
The MSM may not succeed in covering up: http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09.html#077206
Thank God (and JR) for FR. This info is NOT going to go away as long as we keep vigil.
The MSM can spin all they want -- the murders and looting DID occur. And we have the proof.
"And there have been NO substantiated murders, either. Not on OUR watch. But we'll be SURE to investigate, if any victims come forward and tell us what happened."
Oh, it's possible all right. It seems that every month they find a new way to lower the bar. I could call the NYT right know with a false, and completely anonymous story, which makes Bush look bad, and they will run it front page the next day.
The NO Police have been unable to do anything, save for joining looters.
I, for one, will be glad to find out that my fellow Americans did not sink to the level of depraved animals in the face of disaster. I hope that most of the horror stories we've been hearing really do turn out to be rumors.
I DO think a lot of it was hysteria. The problem is the MSM blows so much out of proportion. Maybe we need to amend the 1st amendment, and limit freedom of the press, because these souless headline seekers WANT to cause riots and war. Remember how after the Rodney King incident and the riots, there was the follow-up trial and all of the press were camped out in South Central just itching to see a riot start. They were actually depressed that people stayed calm.
Have they been able to confirm that there was a hurricane yet?
Rapes and murders occurred daily in New Orleans before the hurricane. I guess they magically stopped.
I get lied to enough by the U.S. news media. I'm not going to bother reading lies in the foreign media.
So either the MSM is busy whitewashing history or the initial reports were grossly exxagerated. In either case a congressional investigation into the working practices of the media is in order.
Umm, so you're hoping the rape and murder stories are true?
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