Posted on 11/25/2005 12:24:02 PM PST by John Jorsett
NEW ORLEANS — Even in the desperate days after Hurricane Katrina, the news flash seemed particularly sensational: Police had caught eight snipers on a bridge shooting at relief contractors. In the gun battle that followed, officers shot to death five or six of the marauders.
Exhausted and emotionally drained police cheered the news that their comrades had stopped the snipers and suffered no losses, said an account in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. One officer said the incident showed the department's resolve to take back the streets.
But nearly three months later — and after repeated revisions of the official account of the incident and a lowering of the death toll to two — authorities said they were still trying to reconstruct what happened Sept. 4 on the Danziger Bridge. And on the city's east side, where the shootings occurred, two families that suffered casualties are preparing to come forward with stories radically different from those told by police.
A teenager critically wounded that day, speaking about the incident for the first time, said in an interview that police shot him for no reason, delivering a final bullet at point-blank range with what he thought was an assault rifle. Members of another family said one of those killed was mentally disabled, a childlike innocent who made a rare foray from home in a desperate effort to find relief from the flood.
The two families — one from New Orleans East and solidly middle class, the other poorer and rooted in the Lower 9th Ward — have offered only preliminary information about what they say happened that day. Large gaps remain in the police and civilian accounts of the incident.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
----And who knows what to believe
Say what you will about these New Orleans officers (and I don't know anything about them), at least (A) they existed (some NOLA PD were bogus numbers drawing real salaries), (B) they didn't evacuate, (C) they didn't loot.
There was corruption throught the region. Nothing surprises me. And we always knew there was corruption.
It is one of the things the Bush haters are reluctant to admit.
Item (C). How about the cars taken from the dealerships? Still waiting for the "rest of the story" on that one. Anyways there is supposed to be an FBI investigation going on.
Except that Mayor Nagin is a moron and caused hundreds of deaths because of his negligence ... and that NONE OF IT was Bush's fault.
I couldn't care less what happened to or what happens to NOLA. The people there got the government they voted for.
Give that cesspool of corruption back to the swamp and let the rest of the country move on.
The people that got what they voted for, does that include the 45 to 48 percent who constantly vote Republican or for the conservative candidate? If Kerry had won the presidential election in 2004 would you have gotten the government you voted for? Of course not. Why would you lump everybody together like that? Is that fair to the ones who wanted Republican, conservative leadership?
The entire Katrina/NOLA event was one of the wierdest, media hyped/disinfo'd/clusterf**ks ever witnessed on US soil. Bizzaro world televised.
I live in a "blue state" and deal with that kind of idiocy all the time.
This is like trying to get an Indian to say what happened at Custer's Last Stand... 2 months after the battle.
The real problem is the foil hatters immediately scream "conspiracy!" the moment any fact or story changes, too.
What failures led to 9/11?
STILL don't know the answers to that one.
And yes there were screw ups. Same with the USS Cole.
They were preventable.
New Orleans is a quagmire. We should pull out immediately.
As there should be. All things with regards to Lousiana are suspect. Too many internal coverups and sweetheart deals.
Exactly. Does one believe the reports of credible people who were there, or the sanitized versions floating around now?
Does anyone know if we have an extradition treaty with Jamaica? Just wondering ....
"Welcome to Yamaica mon! Here, have some ganja mon! Listen to Bob Marley, mon?"
That's why I don't live in Columbus, Ohio. I would rather live with Republicans. My town is very conservative, but only 30 minutes away. Columbus is great and isn't bad for a big city, but it can be a cesspool, too. It might be one major disaster away from looking like NOLA. Maybe we will never know. But we know about NOLA.
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