"Who runs Bayou-town?"
"Mayor Nagin runs Bayou-town."
Posted on 09/27/2005 11:36:58 AM PDT by andyk
NEW ORLEANS
On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten."
Five days later, he told Oprah Winfrey that babies were being raped. On the same show, Mayor Ray Nagin warned: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people."
The ugliest reports _ children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement _ soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans.
The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations, including The Associated Press, carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements, and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution.
But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact.
They have no official reports of rape and no eyewitnesses to sexual assault. The state Department of Health and Hospitals counted 10 dead at the Superdome and four at the convention center. Only two of those are believed to have been murdered.
One of those victims _ found at the Superdome _ appears to have been killed elsewhere before being brought to the stadium, said Bob Johannessen, the agency spokesman.
"It was a chaotic time for the city. Now that we've had a chance to reflect back on that situation, we're able to say right now that things were not the way they appeared," said police Capt. Marlon Defillo.
Sally Forman, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the mayor was relying on others for his information about conditions at the evacuation sites. "He was listening to officials, trusting that information they were providing was accurate," she said.
To be sure, conditions at both sites were chaotic. Water was rising around the Superdome, home to 20,000 evacuees. Toilets were backing up, garbage was rotting, fights were breaking out. Food was in short supply at the convention center, where about 19,000 people took shelter from the rising waters. The temperature was climbing. The elderly and very young were desperate for food, water and medicine.
Police said they saw muzzle flashes at the convention center, and a National Guard member was shot in the leg when an evacuee tried to take his gun.
A week after the floodwaters poured into the city, an Arkansas National Guardsman told The Times-Picayune of New Orleans that soldiers had discovered 30 to 40 bodies inside a freezer in the convention center's food area. Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the newspaper that some of the dead appeared to have met violent ends, including "a 7-year-old with her throat cut."
When the convention center was swept, however, no such pile of bodies was found.
Lt. Col. Jacques Thibodeaux of the Louisiana National Guard said reports of violence at the Superdome and the convention center were overblown. He was head of security at the Superdome and led the 1,000 military police and infantrymen who went in to secure the center on Sept. 2.
"The incidents were highly exaggerated" _ the result of fear and hopelessness, he said. "For the amount of the people in the situation, it was a very stable environment."
Thibodeaux said his guard unit received no reports of rape.
Bill Waldron, a homicide detective from Florida in New Orleans for a murder trial, was stuck in the convention center until Sept. 1. He said he saw a couple of fights between young men, but "no murders, no rapes." He said that he did see people dying, but that those deaths were most likely a result of the heat and lack of water.
"People were wanting just some type of authority to come in and say, `Hey, this is what's going to happen,'" Waldron said. "People were scared."
New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan said officials at the morgue in St. Gabriel have identified four apparent homicide victims from the city. All were shot and all were adults. Police arrested one person on suspicion of attempted sexual assault but received no official reports of rape.
Judy Benitez, executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, cautioned that it might be too soon to say whether there really were rapes at the evacuation sites. Because the evacuees and any perpetrators have been scattered across the country by Katrina, and now Hurricane Rita, victims may come forward later, she said.
"It is extremely difficult to get good statistics about rape under normal circumstances, and these are certainly not normal circumstances," she said.
Bill Ellis, a folklorist at Pennsylvania State University, said rumors in an environment like that at the evacuation centers are to be expected, given the frightening circumstances and paucity of authoritative information.
"Rumors become improvised news. You become your own anchorman," he said.
The chaos also seemed to affect some reporters and editors, said Kelly McBride, who teaches ethics to journalists at the Poynter Institute, a journalism research and education center in St. Petersburg, Fla.
"You get so hung up as a reporter on what the big picture is that you use generalizations that become untrue," McBride said.
Saddest thing is, too many freepers couldn't wait to believe the violence reports were all true.
"The incidents were highly exaggerated" _ the result of fear and hopelessness,..."
by the MSM that they might not be able to bash W enough with just the hurricane alone
Good to know about the exaggerations.
That said, I'm not surprised it would be very hard to file criminal charges with extensive evacuations, and police stations swamped. The police who didn't go AWOL weren't spending their time doing paperwork.
So the bottom line is the following
Murders DID occur at these locations
Rapes DID occur at these locations
Assaults DID occur at these locations.
Hmmm
The numbers might have been exaggerated but the incidents did occur.
Funny how some people on here act like the article states nothing happened.
heh
"Who runs Bayou-town?"
"Mayor Nagin runs Bayou-town."
Except Katrina.....
Well I heard the state police chief implore people on air not to report rumors as fact because the SWAT team had already been called out to hospitals that had allegedly been taken over a number of times and found nothing. While the police were busy responding to non-existent takeovers the real bad guys could get back to looting.
That is why there were not as many deaths and other violent acts as imagined.
These men will go unnamed, unacknowledged.
They don't consider themselves heroes.
God does.
The MSM won't be investigating those events. No spice.
Good post. Ironically, this is what I saw when I was actually watching footage from the Superdome, Convention Center, etc. Not rape and murder. Oddly, the sensational stuff seemed to only come from third hand reports (though there were reporters on scene)
Good post Smogger. I was one of the Freepers who opined that this may be the stuff of urban legend. Too lazy to find the post for you, but it's in my comments somewhere.
And yet the press will be the first to accuse the President of bigotry. How do they manage to finangle all of this hypocrisy?
Well, I recognize I"m about fifteen hours late for your question, but I'll answer anyway.
I think people believed those stories at least in part because they found such stories about blacks easy to believe.
But they're not just doing it for fun, are they? There is an ulterior motive; In fact, there are two ulterior motives. On one side it's financial gain: On the other side it's political gain. The one's who do it for financial gain are winning. The ones who do it for political divisiveness will lose in the long run. Their peer pressure tactics may persuade some young people for brief periods, but no matter how hard the race-baiters try they cannot recruit mature adults who recognize these school yard games.
People believed the stories because they were being told lies by the mayor and by the chief of police, who together presented everything in a very convincing manner.
If it were just the MSM, more people would have been skeptical.
"So who's a racist again?"The msm.The coverage inferring wholesale murder,rape,....made the residents of NO look bad.From where i was sitting,it appeared that order had collapsed completely,and(imo)that was the spin the msm intentionaly presented to America and the world.In hindsight it appears that the vast majority of people stuck in NO handled the situation well.Do you think the msm will ever sit down and honestly ask themselves why their coverage was so innacurate,cynical,and biased?
It's never too late to answer such questions.
I did not watch very much of the Katrina disaster on TV. I mostly listened to the radio and read stories online.
When I began reading this thread I thought it was about people believing rumors without waiting for verification. I admit that I believed that there was some truth to most of the horror stories floating in and did not employ as much critical thinking as I should have. As I heard the stories coming in, I kept thinking, "My God, how horrible!" It never occurred to me to tie race to it. But then, that may have been because I've lived in predominately white areas all my life and some of the people I've known have done some pretty vile things.
Soldier! You missed a formation! Front-leaning rest position, move!
Still, some are holding on for dear life over this. Amazing.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
One word and there is nothing you can do about it. No wonder they get so upset when they think the power is not worshiped by all.
BTW- I am as much of a racist and a bigot as the sun sets in the East, and if people were not so frightened of being called vile names themselves- some freepers would show up and say so- but they are afraid- and who can blame them???- I have the freepmails and emails- (which I will never post or mention by name that tell me that.)
No matter- I have posted what others dare not- things, BTW our "black conservatives" have all said themselves- RDB3 says inner cities are an "experiment in Marxism" and that he would shoot and kill all of the looters in NO- but I am a racist for saying the inner cities are a mess and welfare should be controlled for fraud- I have donated to relief for those people who were displaced by Katrina, worked years in social work and in welfare, worked for a Democratic congressman, worked with Jesse Jackson and lived thru riots - I speak of my experience and opinions and I am somehow more of a racist than I was before I said anything.
I am called a bigot and a KKK member all over this forum- and those who are doing the name calling are demanding the world is unfair and full of hatred against them. (Rolling eyes)
There are websites dedicated to causing infighting at FR and are full of people who do nothing but call freepers and Jim Rob all sorts of horrible names- one which we know some posters( RDB3) on this thread are active participants with- and I am the one who is told to retract statements???? And freepers rush to his aid!?!
Ummm hmmm..... Food for thought: Can you imagine Dr. Rice getting on a pedestal and calling anyone a racist or a bigot for posting their opinions of riots and welfare on a website?
I can't- she doesn't need the smoke and mirrors. But then again this hysteria is about a culture which she does not belong to - not the color of her skin.
This too shall pass.
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