"It's strictly for medicinal purposes, don'tcha know!"
Posted on 08/30/2005 12:59:42 PM PDT by LM_Guy
NEW ORLEANS — With much of the city flooded by Hurricane Katrina, looters floated garbage cans filled with clothing and jewelry down the street in a dash to grab what they could.
In some cases, looting today took place in full view of police and National Guard troops.
At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and diapers.
When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming, "86! 86!" — the radio code for police — and the crowd scattered.
Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, stood outside and snapped pictures in amazement.
"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I guess not."
Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing and jewelry stores.
One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was asked if he was salvaging things from his store.
"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."
Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as National Guard lumbered by.
Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle unfold.
"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man, it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.
A man walked down Canal Street with a pallet of food on his head. His wife, who refused to give her name, insisted they weren't stealing from the nearby Winn-Dixie supermarket. "It's about survival....
(Excerpt) Read more at chron.com ...
> The next couple of weeks will be interesting to watch.<
I would think by then the Guard or FEMA would be dropping water and MREs by helicopter to the locals, assuming they're not all evacuated in a few days.
At least, I would hope so.
All your shoot guns are belong to us.
I loved the post about stealing plasma TVs to pawn for money to pay for life's necessities.
That was a real gem.
Scheiffer on CBS about to do a story on the looting after the break.
We'll have to see what happens..
Yeah, if it's food and it has been flooded, it can't be sold. It's just trash and a loss already as far as the store is concerned.
One man with an armload of clothes even asked a policeman, “Can I borrow your car?”
That just cracked me up. He had not only the audacity to go up to a police officer with an armload of stolen clothes (probably would be considered a loss too), and not only inquire about the officer's car, but to pretend it was on a loan basis, as if he meant to bring it back.
Not quite,
This has to be a first.
__________________________________________________________
Even a cop joins in the looting
NOLA.com ^ | 08/30/2005 | Mike Perlstein and Brian Thevenot Posted on 08/30/2005
Law enforcement efforts to contain the emergency left by Katrina slipped into chaos in parts of New Orleans Tuesday with some police officers and firefighters joining looters in picking stores clean.
"It's strictly for medicinal purposes, don'tcha know!"
doesnt it feel good to know you pay for this guy to sit around all day?
Leave it to a cartoon squirrel to give the miscreants a sound smacking they so richly deserve.
Remember the WATTS Riots in L.A.?
The Korean shopowners had the right idea.
Standing on the roof holding A-K 47s.
Not one looter would call them on it.
No one can tell me anyone is in so much
need SO SOON, to LOOT!
Just heard on CNN, if anyone EATS
perishable food, they will get
violently ill....and I saw a number
of them taking PERISHABLE foods from
a Winn-Dixie......PAYBACK!
Cholera, Dipthera, Tetnus can't be
far behind.
Sure does. /sarcasm.
He's so stupid!, alcohol is the worst thing to drink in hot weather....it's very dehydrating.
Yep. Payback is not far away, I'd say.
Shooting in the city and taking ppl at gunpoint to take their cars to get out of town.
Actually I think there was very little looting partly because of the level of destruction, danger of buildings collapsing, and cordoning off of the whole downtown area.
The one incident I remember was the stealing of scrap metal weeks later from a storage area in NJ by organized crime connected carters. The stuff was brought there with the intent of eventually combing through it for personal effects.
As someone who lived through 9/11, it was much different.
The loss, shock, anger, sorrow was enormous. But there was no loss of essential services. Most people not in the immediate downtown area did not lose their homes. There was food, water, phone, electric, hospitals. Rescue was on everyone's mind and there were more than enough for the task though tragically there was no one to rescue. It was the one time in my life I was happy to hear an ambulance siren hoping they had gotten someone out.
As Shep Smith said - Katrina recovery is a process which will go on for a long time.
Why does the law require it be discarded? Simple, because it may have been exposed to biological contaminants, and is therefore deemed "unsafe for consumption". On top of all else, do we really need an epidemic of cholera, or typhus in the area?
the infowarrior
ROTFL! I noticed that, too!
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