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They're going fast!
Posted on 09/16/2005 5:20:30 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Little over a week after this mostly white suburb became a symbol of callousness for using armed officers to seal one of the last escape routes from New Orleans — trapping thousands of mostly black evacuees in the flooded city — the Gretna City Council passed a resolution supporting the police chief's move.
"This wasn't just one man's decision," Mayor Ronnie C. Harris said Thursday. "The whole community backs it."
Three days after Hurricane Katrina hit, Gretna officers blocked the Mississippi River bridge that connects their city to New Orleans, exacerbating the sometimes troubled relationship with their neighbor. The blockade remained in place into the Labor Day weekend.
Gretna (pop. 17,500) is a feisty blue-collar city, two-thirds white, that prides itself on how quickly its police respond to 911 calls; it warily eyes its neighbor, a two-thirds black city (pop. about 500,000) that is also a perennial contender for the murder capital of the U.S.
Itself deprived of power, water and food for days after Katrina struck Aug. 29, Gretna suddenly became the destination for thousands of people fleeing New Orleans. The smaller town bused more than 5,000 of the newcomers to an impromptu food distribution center miles away. As New Orleans residents continued to spill into Gretna, tensions rose.
After someone set the local mall on fire Aug. 31, Gretna Police Chief Arthur S. Lawson Jr. proposed the blockade.
"I realized we couldn't continue, manpower-wise, fuel-wise," Lawson said Thursday. Armed Gretna police, helped by local sheriff's deputies and bridge police, turned hundreds of men, women and children back to New Orleans.
Gretna is not the only community that views New Orleans with distrust. Authorities in St. Bernard Parish, to the east, stacked cars to seal roads from the Crescent City.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
either by vehicle or food=either by vehicle or foot.
and what they did was reject people fleeing an oncoming hurricane.
There is little doubt that they closed the bridge.
The two who reported it in the socialist press also told of being fired upon and having their food and water stolen.
It's the possible embellishments that I question.
Hurricane had passed, but the floodwaters were still rising.
Ya know, I am really not having a problem with this consedering the chaos that was NOLA...no one else should have to put up with that....and yes, I would say that if the majority of NOLA residents were white and acting like @$$holes too. Race is not and issue here. Law and order are.
You don't have a problem with city police blocking a state highway to keep state residents from walking through their town, while escaping from one of the worst natural disasters of modern times?
Huh.
Gretna ping.
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They're going fast!
"You don't have a problem with city police blocking a state highway to keep state residents from walking through their town, while escaping from one of the worst natural disasters of modern times?
Huh."
Given the timeline and what these same residents had daone to their own city....no, I have no problem with this at all.
Oh sure, these residents had broken the levy and caused the breach that put their town underwater.
The LA Times, as is its wont, conveniently overstates the case. According to the 2000 census, Gretna was populated as follows:
White 56.3%
Black 35.3
Other 8.4 (Asian, Hispanic, etc.)
Source: Gretna demographics
"Mostly white"? Yes, but barely so.
And given the city's makeup, one would expect the city council to be equally "diverse". Consequently, as much as they'd like, there seems to be little reason to inject race into the matter.
Unless you're the liberal MSM, of course...
well, LA is 33% white last time I checked...probably less now....
they probably still call that mostly white too!
Oh sure, these residents had broken the levy and caused the breach that put their town underwater.
No, but they did the looting, shooting and worse. I wouldn't want that sh!t in my town either.
You know, there's a word for people who look at someone's outsides and think they know their insides.
But I won't use it.
What I will point out is that it's illogical -- you can't tell by looking at someone that they're a criminal -- just because they come from New Orleans doesn't make them criminals. Even if they are poor, black, and on foot.
"You know, there's a word for people who look at someone's outsides and think they know their insides."
Cute.
Truly.
I am not talking about looking at someone's outsides and thinking you can tell what's in their heart. Not possible.
Apparantly though, you would have taken these folks into your town, and "aw, shucks too bad if they destroy the place?"
Sorry, I say given what they did to New Orleans, I would've blocked the road too.
And it's not a racial issue, it's a Law and Order issue. I'd feel the same way no matter what color the majority of residents of NOLA were.
If you're so hot on law, then explain to me how it's legal to block people from travelling on a state highway from point A to point B.
I'd buy your argument if the people in question wanted to get off the state highway and move into the city of Gretna.
But obstructing a state highway isn't part of the job of a city cop.
Well, whatever you say, it's ok, but there will be civil repercussions, and some are going to lose their jobs, some might go to jail, while others will merely shell out megabucks. Since the city ratified it, the city's going to go bankrupt.
And, at the end of the line, there's the Good Lord waiting for His say in the matter.
Gretna (pop. 17,500) is a feisty blue-collar city, two-thirds white, that prides itself on how quickly its police respond to 911 calls; it warily eyes its neighbor, a two-thirds black city (pop. about 500,000) that is also a perennial contender for the murder capital of the U.S.
Itself deprived of power, water and food for days after Katrina struck Aug. 29, Gretna suddenly became the destination for thousands of people fleeing New Orleans. The smaller town bused more than 5,000 of the newcomers to an impromptu food distribution center miles away. As New Orleans residents continued to spill into Gretna, tensions rose.
After someone set the local mall on fire Aug. 31, Gretna Police Chief Arthur S. Lawson Jr. proposed the blockade.
If I was a Gretna homeowner, I would be proud of this Police Chief, too.
Yep. Wouldn't want a bunch of stinky old refugees, barefoot and reeking from the mud, carrying their children on their backs, to mess up the place.
You forgot to mention the cripples in wheelchairs and the blind people with canes, etc.
No, I guess the old people in wheelchairs and walking with canes probably had a hard time walking across the bridge. They got left behind. and as we all know, some of them died.
If memory serves me right that bridge is about a mile long, so it's not for the weak or the faint of heart.
It's just outrageous that the ones who had the courage and the strength to walk across that bridge were met with armed policemen shooting over their heads, turning them back, rather than letting them move on their own two feet to a safer haven.
I shed a bitter tear that nobody helped them along that route, but let that go.
They were doing the best they could, doing what we conservatives expect from our fellow men, that they do for themselves what they can do for themselves, not asking anybody for a helping hand, and to be thrown back into the cesspool like that is simply inhuman.
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