Hurricane relief workers say they witnessed Bourbon St. beating

WWLTV ^ | 10/11/2005 | Associated Press

[LA Woman3]

BRADENTON, Fla. (AP) -- Two hurricane relief workers from Manatee County, Florida, say they witnessed the beating of a man on Bourbon Street in New Orleans that's been all over television news programs for the last couple days.

And they say one of them was manhandled as well.

Calvin Briles, a consultant for the Volunteer Center of Manatee County, says when law enforcement officers tried to get him and other passers-by out of the area, Briles said that he would tell somebody about what was going on.

Briles says that's when a man in a U.S. Customs vest grabbed him and threw him against a car, pressed his head against the hood and told Briles it was none of his business.

[beltfed308]

From this report and the other reports on FR it looks like the boys in blue act quite the same. So much for it only being a New Orleans problem. Feds, state police and local PD must really feel big right now.

[geezerwheezer]

They have real problems down in New Orleans, from top to bottom!! Shame when a man can't go buy a pack of smokes without getting the crap beat out of him. I am anxious to hear the rest of the story though, but right now I think the cops were way out of line and should be fired. If it comes out later that there was something else going on, then I may change my mind, but until then, no way!!

[conservativehusker]

What this looks like to me is a couple of these policeman didn't take kindly to being questioned..I suspect some of the supporting roles where just backing them up...maybe unwittingly.. In any case arrogance + power combined with fatigue is dynamite

[cynicom]

SS troops coming to your area soon.

[L98Fiero]

I tend to be "pro-cop" on these types of threads but this time, based on what I've seen, I say they were considerably out of line. The rest of the story might put it in a little more perspective but I really don't see how. They seem to have pretty much threatened or assaulted everyone in the immediate area.

As a discalaimer I should say I have had several interactions with the NO police in my life and have always been treated well. Granted, I never was on their bad side.

[VRWCTexan]

The full article is even worse:

QUOTE:

"Both Briles and Monaghan say they were handcuffed. Monaghan says he was nudged by a police horse and then accused of hitting the horse, which he denies. Briles says he was pushed face down onto the pavement while officers checked his name for warrants.

The men say they reported the incident to the FBI and U.S. Customs."

[armyavonlady]

I am pro-cop by nature (since I deal with defending them in civil actions), but not this time. Based on the video I saw, these guys were, shall we say, "outside the line and scope" of their duties. I've never seen those head blows in any use of force training I've watched or participated in. And frustration is no excuse for this type of behavior. If they're that stressed by the job, they should find another line of employment which doesn't include impact weapons.

[swarthyguy]

>>then accused of hitting the horse

Good thing Mongo didn't punch out the horse.

[henderson field]

Firing the cops?
Do you think that's enough punishment?
I don't.
How about imprisoning the cops - eliminating their indemnification and putting them in jail for a long, long time.
How about deporting the cops? They really don't belong here in America. Not with Soviet behavior like that.

[Mr. Rational]

This is standard procedure for NO cops - they just got caught on film. This is not opinion, but personal experience.

[LA Woman3]

What this looks like to me is a couple of these policeman didn't take kindly to being questioned..

Exactly! And the mayor and governor have the same attitude.

[LA Woman3]

They need a bigger horse.....

[Unicorn]

BTTT

[Americanexpat]

These cops should be prosecuted, same goes for the Feds that helped them.

[LA Woman3]

These cops should be prosecuted, same goes for the Feds that helped them.

I think their punishment should be to clean up this mess...

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_10_11.html#086486

If you thought that putrid pot roast moldering in the back of your freezer was bad, Mark Blanchard has 52 million reasons why you’re not as bad off as you might think.

Make that 52 million pounds. Of rotting chicken.

That's what Blanchard has in three warehouses in New Orleans. As executive vice president of New Orleans Cold Storage, it's his job to oversee the cleanup and dumping of all those chicken parts – leg quarters to be precise – that, had they not been stuck in a warehouse when the power went out six weeks ago, would have been on their way to Africa, or Russia or South America.

Hundreds of thousands of area homeowners, who lost power and whose refrigerators sat rotting for weeks, have a little idea what Blanchard's task is like. His job stinks, in more ways than one.

More than a month after Hurricane Katrina turned what used to be row after row of 35-foot-high frozen towers of palletized leg quarters into an immense mound of unimaginable foulness, the mess still has not been cleaned up.