Posted on 08/03/2011 8:56:09 PM PDT by smokingfrog
The Danziger Bridge trial is coming to a close. Both sides have finished presenting their closing arguments, and after the judge gives the jury their final instructions today, they’ll start deliberating sometime this afternoon. The prosecution and the defense have spent the last 5 weeks developing two different versions of what happened on the bridge that Sunday morning. Whose version the jury believes will determine whether the five officers on trial end up guilty or not. While the jury deliberates, here’s a look at those two versions, starting with the prosecution’s.
According to the prosecution, this all started on a Sunday morning, September 4th, six days after Hurricane Katrina. Two families, the Madisons (Lance and his mentally retarded brother Ronald) and the Bartholomews (Susan, her husband Leonard III, their two kids Lesha and Leonard IV, their nephew Jose Holmes Jr. and his friend James Brissette) were heading towards the Danziger Bridge. The Madisons were headed back to the Friendly Inn on the Gentilly side of the bridge, while the Bartholomews were headed to Winn-Dixie for medicine and food.
Around this same time, NOPD officer Jennifer Dupree was radioing in a 108 call after a rescue worker posing as a cop and a real NOPD officer ran down the Downman ramp of the I-10 and began chasing four people who were shooting at other rescue workers down by the Industrial Canal. Dupree, who was on the high-rise portion of the I-10 that sits parallel to the Danziger, reported that two officers were down underneath I-10 and needed assistance.
Eleven officers who were about 2 miles away at the Crystal Palace on Chef and Read Blvd heard the call and jumped in a Budget Rental truck then floored it towards the Danziger.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
“one of them shot Susan Bartholomew in the ass and blew a whole in Lesha’s calf”
Not exactly top quality journalism here. Again the point is made that a spell checker is not a copy editor.
Everyone of these guys should get the death penalty. It seems to me they saw Katrina as an opportunity to go “hunting”.
Nuts. I really have no desire to visit that place.
Really! It almost sounds like they shot someone’s livestock!
Nothing like a natural disaster to show just how corrupt and unprofessional a rotten police force like New Orleans’ was.
It is astounding. I haven't read anything so homicidally maniacal since reading about Nazis gunning down Jews in the Polish ghettos.
If these accusations are true, those cops should hang from that bridge until they rot.
Terrible.
I realize there were huge concerns about looting. If the Winn-Dixie was open for business, they should have been allowed to go. There was a similar concern on the Crescent City Connection and I believe the police acted properly there (simply not allowing people to cross).
For years we all have read about how corrupt the New Orleans police dept is.
Police killing police to cover their drug trade.
Police walking through a wal mart taking what , “they needs” after the hurricane.
Shakedowns, bribes, just the norm for a N.O. cop.
Yes, it is unbelievable. Why are these cops still walking the streets? They should be taken out.
Just a microcosim of what happened. Police used the flood to rob and plunder.
I always wanted to visit New Orleans but after seeing what happened during Katrina, no way!
20 years ago, everybody saw Rodney King. Then Waco, Elian, we were allowed to see and form an opinion. Now, we are so far past the point of being a police state that it's inconvenient if the rabble knows about it. And it's not a GOP/Dem issue. Both sides are total fascists now. You won't see this on Fox News or MSNBC. Better to entertain us with the Budget Show.
If this happened in Iran, it would be on FNC 24/7.
Appalling. Absolutely appalling.
http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2011/08/danziger_jury_gives_new_orlean.html
Guilty. But not of murder. Amazing.
But the minimums are long, in one case 60 years.
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