Like the Energizer Bunny, you just keep going and going and...
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They're going fast!
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.
It is sad to see people fall for it,IMO. But there is nothing new under sun when it comes to the media.
LOL! ;]
4 days and you turn to cannibalism? Looks like some of them could have missed a few more meals.
"Riots used to be an offense now it is a defense...."
Like the Energizer Bunny, you just keep going and going and...
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
And here I thought posters here were wise to the media. Another bubble burst.
And you? (are you going to go after each and every freeper who has the gall to disagree with you? Each and every internet user? Where does it stop?) LOL.Be careful your agenda is showing.
Well, you're not lying here. Even busted up in a wheelchair, I still look oh, so good.
And you? (are you going to go after each and every freeper who has the gall to disagree with you? Each and every internet user? Where does it stop?) LOL.Be careful your agenda is showing.
Agenda? Methinks thou dost protest too much.
My only agenda here is taking you to task for obviously bigotry. That you can't deny. No one who reads your screeds can deny it. You just try to be cute about it.
It ain't working.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
Your opinion is misinformed and you are a liar. Prove the charge that my posts are "full of biortry," or retract it. Projection doesn't work here.
You're up.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
Yep. Pop!
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
You have your opinions and I have mine.
Demanding people retract their opinions on a political message board, because you don't agree with them, could be seen as a bit ummm...overbearing. Especially when you admit in your posts and taglines that you are not even of the same political thought as most people around here.... you are just looking for fights and using imagined racism as a soapbox.
Ping your buds- get your cronies to charge in and call me names- but, no- I won't retract a thing.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make her drink. ;)
Oh! That was rich!
On my worse day I'll out-think, outclass, and out-reason you and the best of your crew. Got that?
Especially when you admit in your posts and taglines that you are not even of the same political thought as most people around here.... you are just looking for fights and using imagined racism as a soapbox.
No, I'm not mired in the past nor am I stuck with radioactive political views. I'm an optimist. I believe in the "can do" spirit, not the constant "whoa-is-me" bitching and bellyaching that defines itself as top notch political debate. That crap is nonsense. So you've said nothing here.
Ping your buds- get your cronies to charge in and call me names- but, no- I won't retract a thing.
I fly solo. There's no need to ping anyone. You won't retract anything because you do not have enough integrity to do so. And you have no evidence of me posting "bigotry" because I've done no such thing. I will defend myself against any and all lies. You made the charge, so the onus is on you to prove it.
If you want a Google GMail account, FReepmail me.
They're going fast!
Are these the "real " police or the "on paper" police?
None of your posts have ever been deleted due to foul mouthed racism so anyone can look you up. I've looked over this thread and have not seen the evidence provided for your 'posts full of bigotry' so I think I'll be off to call my dearest now.
One can not "prove" an opinion.
Was Nagin following orders from Blanco to dissuade anyone else from entering the DOME or CIVIC CENTER?
They weren't prepared.
Money had been squandered.
They locked the doors.
They announced the reason for no more supplies was to discourage more evacuees.
They were very aware of what segments of the population they were ending up with. Lions and lambs.
Actually, at the time, a few bought it, it seemed very possible.
I believe Nagin reported this as well, because he heard from the same source, and had every reason to believe it was very possible.
Many Freepers asked for, waited for, confirmation.
There were multiple sources after a while, and it's credibility rating was up there. Still, many said without first hand proof, they would wait to see.
I would say we did above average on dealing with this aspect of internet knowledge sharing.
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