[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Yep, the NOPD officers were badly outgunned during much of this incident;***

Many of those officers storming the shaft were armed with m-1 carbines with extended magazines.

[AmericanVictory]

I was there for most of the events, starting at the beginning. I very narrowly escaped from within the hotel. The police were very heavily armed and many were using armor piercing ammo. The problem was not lack of firepower on the part of the police. In fact there was too much firing and it was very poorly coordinated. Initially there was no coordination at all and the command and cotrol was very poorly thought out, particularly the command center placement.

The whole effort was astoninshingly poorly organzed until an experienced marine officer, who came with the copter, became involved. I said then and I say now: a single military squad trained in urban warfare could have quickly and effectively dealt with the situation. The New Orleans police were trained in Mardi Gras crowd control and were completely untrained and unprepared to deal with what occurred on that fateful day.

[Charles Martel]

Yes, the carbines were brought to the scene once Essex holed-up in that building - I'm not sure if they were in NOPD inventory or if that was part of the assistance that the city received from nearby Belle Chasse Naval Air Station. Watching it unfold on TV, all that was shown were cops crouching behind cover and holding revolvers.

Around ten years ago (the 30th anniversary of the incident), a book was published about this. From comments I've seen, it paints Essex as a victim and a hero to the black community. Hey, maybe Tarentino can make a movie about him.