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 ...
It tells us that the population of New Orleans is at least 68% black, though we already knew that before Katrina, and that the post-evacuation population is even more uniformly black than that, but we could've already guessed as much (the poor are less likely to evacuate).
Whenever and wherever society breaks down, looting follows. It's amazing that anyone is even slightly amazed by that.
Sorry to say but there was an extensive amount of looting of the WTC during the crisis.
No there wasn’t.
There was some isolated incidents, and a few people were prosecuted for them, but there was no large scale looting in the WTC or in the stores and buildings surrounding it.
Months after the attack, you could still see dust covered merchandise sitting on the shelves of surrounding stores, untouched.
The only one seeing them was this news reporter.
Which would make sense; New York City wasn't in a starvation survival situation, unlike the poor of flooded NOLA.
Hmmm. Sounds like communist theory in action, when the leftist's used to agitate for violent criminals in prison because they considered them "true revolutionaries".
The grocery stores would have to throw out the food anyway. I don't know if they could even hand it out, because if someone got sick, they could be sued. But I remember going into a LI grocery store after Gloria and being upset at the amount of food being just tossed.
Thanks...your absolutely right!
The looter will ALWAYS rush to get 'basic necessities' first. /sarc
Sheesh. Shoot to maim. If they give any guff and 'my rights! lip after that, shoot to kill.
Please, if you can, list all the examples of organized White looting in the US in the last 100 years?
LOL!!
I just hope the starving people of New Orleans have some creative recipes for television and jewelry gumbo.
Some inner city poor are now millionaires with some nice diamonds.
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Help us understand how the poor starving underclass of New Orleans are feeding themselves by stealing TV sets, fancy suits and beer.
Shoot the ba$tard$ then hang them in public.
The only thing keeping them from going in there are those dudes with the shotguns, and even at that, they swarm up pretty close. Not good.
Beer is the safest thing to drink....it is mostly water.
I don't begrudge someone entering a store for beer, water or food for survival....but just like the LA riots...they try to justify it by saying they are "oppressed". Puleeze.
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