NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 28 (UPI) -- The New Orleans Police Department will establish a tribunal to determine whether 249 officers had valid reasons for being AWOL during Hurricane Katrina.
Police Superintendent Eddie Compass, who announced his pending resignation Tuesday, said he will assemble a tribunal of his four assistant chiefs to hear the circumstances of each officer unaccounted for during and after the Aug. 29 storm and who are seeking to return.
The 249 officers who left their jobs make up about 15 percent of the nearly 1,700-member force, the New Orleans Times Picayune said Wednesday.
Lt. David Benelli, president of the Police Association of New Orleans, said true deserters should be fired.
However, Benelli said he expects that once accounts of individual officers are heard, only a small fraction will be exposed as deserters. For example, several officers have talked about colleagues who were on leave or vacation when the storm hit, and were unable to quickly return to the city.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
I think it might have been a lot more fun if the FBI had kept quiet about this until after the "tribunal" had issued a "report"! :)