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 ...
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that Gretna would shut down the bridge and keep these people from leaving"
Leaving to go where? You don't explain yet where they would go to. From the waters edge in Orleans Parish to the waters edge in Jefferson Parish?
Well, the places they could have gone include the Cajundome in Lafayette, the Maravich Center in Baton Rouge, the Downtown Convention Center in Baton Rouge, and countless little private shelters all over the place.
Exactly where they wound up, but they could have gotten that much closer that much sooner, instead of hanging around being robbed and raped in the New Orleans Convention Center and the Superdome.
GretnaMayor - Ronnie Harris, Democrat
Chief of Police - Arthur Lawson, Democrat
City Councilman - Jonathon Bolar, Democrat
City Councilman - Belinda Constant, Democrat
City Councilman - Vincent Cox, Democrat
City Councilman - Ricky Templet, RepublicanJefferson Parish
Sheriff - Henry Lee, Democrat
President - Aaron Broussard, Democrat
Are you at all familiar with New Orleans? Because I lived there 1953-1959 and 1974-1988.
Still have many friends there, many of whom got out over these bridges.
Shape of things to come.
There will be more of this.
We see this now in limited form with "gated communities."
Shape of things to come.
There will be more of this.
We see this now in limited form with "gated communities."
If you look at a map, Gretna is in the opposite direction you want to go if your objective is to get out of the way of Katrina. Gretna is to the south east of NO. You want to go North or West. The only reason to go in the direction of Gretna is to loot
On foot, the only destination would be to squat in Gretna
If it is upheld, that what the Gretna police did was legal, then we can all pretty much kiss
the idea of free movement around the good ole' US of A goodbye. If allowed to stand, every
legal jurisdiction will be setting up checkpoints or points of entry that could control who
would be allowed to enter their jurisdiction or when they could enter, or even how long they
could stay. This was not a good thing for the US of A. The one thing that clearly delineates
our country from all others is the ability to move freely within our own borders.
If we ever lose this ability, then the other dominos of oppression will surely fall.
The people should have been allowed to cross the bridge. The sheriff should have been in his
right to control their movements(put on buses and driven to safe areas) once on his side of the
river. For this to have happened, he would have had to pickup the phone to the Governors office
and told the governor his present situation. The governor would have then had to utilize her
authority to bring the NG in and have them move the people to those safe areas.
I have truly never seen such a breakdown in the command and control during such a natural disaster.
It might not be such a bad idea to revoke LA's statehood and make it a federal protecterate until
such time that they have proven their ability to govern themselves again. Clearly, they were not
up to the task during this disaster.
Before this is over, I am confidant that the ACLU and the justice Dept. will be all over this.
I expect that every public official who was in on this decision to block the bridge will be
brought to trial(criminal/civil).
It just cannot be legal to block the free movement of law abiding U.S. citizens. If the storm had
passed and these people were just to be voyuers of the damage in Gretna, then yes, keep them out.
These people were seeking refuge and assistance and the sheriff did a disservice to his badge and
his uniform when he turned them away.
Ah, but it is. You don't have free access to a crime scene or a train wreck. Similarly, you don't have free and unhindered access to the scene of a natural disaster.
It was an unusual set of circumstances that led to refugees from New Orleans being unable to transit Gretna. The inability to state government to provide adequate security and transportation put the Gretna authorities in a difficult position.
I've no doubt that any suit aimed at the Gretna authorities would be dismissed.
The occupants of one lifeboat don't necessarily have free access to occupancy of the other lifeboat...
Here's a quote from post #65 above where the Chief tells of hauling 6000 back across the river, pass the Superdome to an evacuation center located at I-10 and Causeway Blvd.. Communications is going to be the major shortcoming of this entire event or the root cause of much of the problems, imo.
"The Westbank Expressway pretty much high and dry"
How about the Harvey Tunnel? Was that passable? Jefferson Parish was shut down, what part of of that do you not understand?
My point exactly
"For a bus convoy, you could go across the bridge, then head west on secondary roads"
What secondary roads would that be? You have the West Bank Expressway to the Huey P. Long Bridge, back over to I-10. Did I mention the Harvey Tunnel on the West Bank Expressway?
"Exactly the point. The GNO bridges were high and dry. The Westbank Expressway pretty much high and dry"
Bridges tend to be high and dry. What was the situation with the Harvey Tunnel? The West Bank was shut down and sealed, end of story.Hats off to the good folks on the Jefferson Parish Sherrifs Dept and Gretna Police
Lost in the argument is the fact that not only did the Gretna police block pedestrian access into Gretna, but at the same time the New Orleans police were blocking pedestrian access into New Orleans. I remember several stories of "self-deployed" relief workers with food and water and several with boats being turned back from entering New Orleans.
Ditto
D I T T O. It was completely unfair, and illegal.
bump
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