Posted on 09/02/2005 6:20:49 PM PDT by HAL9000
NEW ORLEANS, Sept 2 (Reuters) - With the rotors of President George W. Bush's helicopter sounding overhead, New Orleans' poor and downtrodden recounted tales of murder, rape, death threats and near starvation since Hurricane Katrina wrecked this city.Ending days of abandonment since the hurricane struck on Monday, the U.S. National Guard handed out military rations and a bottle of water to thousands of evacuees -- the first proper meal most had eaten in days.
But as the masses lined up outside, herded by Army troops toting machine guns, inside the convention center where these people slept since Monday was the stench of death and decay.
Leroy Fouchea, 42, waited in the sweltering heat for an hour to get his ration -- his first proper food since Monday -- and immediately handed it over to a sickly friend.
He then offered to show reporters the dead bodies of a man in a wheelchair, a young man who he said he dragged inside just hours earlier, and the limp forms of two infants, one just four months old, the other six months old.
"They died right here, in America, waiting for food," Fouchea said as he walked toward Hall D, where the bodies were put to get them out of the searing heat.
He said people were let die and left without food simply because they were poor and that the evacuation effort earlier concentrated on the French Quarter of the city. "Because that's where the money is," he spat. A National Guardsman refused entry.
"It doesn't need to be seen, it's a make-shift morgue in there," he told a Reuters photographer. "We're not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq."
As rations were finally doled out here on the day President Bush visited the devastated city, an elderly white woman and her husband collapsed from the heat.
"I had to walk two blocks to get here and I have arthritis and three ruptured discs in my back," said Selma Valenti, 80, as her husband lay beside her, being revived by a policeman in riot gear. The two had eaten nothing since Wednesday.
Valenti and her husband, two of very few white people in the almost exclusively black refugee camp, said she and other whites were threatened with murder on Thursday.
"They hated us. Four young black men told us the buses were going to come last night and pick up the elderly so they were going to kill us," she said, sobbing. "They were plotting to murder us and then they sent the buses away because we would all be killed if the buses came -- that's what the people in charge told us this morning."
Other survivors recounted horrific cases of sexual assault and murder. Sitting with her daughter and other relatives, Trolkyn Joseph, 37, said men had wandered the cavernous convention center in recent nights raping and murdering children.
She said she found a dead 14-year old girl at 5 a.m. on Friday morning, four hours after the young girl went missing from her parents inside the convention center.
"She was raped for four hours until she was dead," Joseph said through tears. "Another child, a seven-year old boy was found raped and murdered in the kitchen freezer last night."
Several others interviewed by Reuters told similar stories of the abuse and murder of children, but they could not be independently verified. Many complained bitterly about why they received so little for so many days, and they had harsh words for Bush.
"I really don't know what to say about President Bush," said Richard Dunbar, 60, a Vietnam veteran. "He showed no lack of haste when he wanted to go to Iraq, but for his own people right here in Louisiana, we get only lip service."
One young man said he was not looking forward to another night in the convention center and wondered when conditions would improve. "It's been like a jail in there," he said. "We've got murderers, rapists, killers, thieves. We've got it all."
Set it up for a slam on Bush. Beautiful, Reuters.
I am sure he said that. A little creative license from Reuters?
People are taping and murdering children, and this is President Bush's fault???
Sorry. People are raping and murdering children, and this is President Bush's fault???
The hate-Bush-media has a mission.
Savages.
They probably traded bottles of cold water for those stories.
It hasn't been explained, but the Dome refugees disproportionately were of the lowest sort - drug addicts, gangsters, alcoholics.
I can stand corrected, but the "dry" areas are on the lip of the Mississippi river, the high ground, the French Quarter, The CBD, and the poorest area of the city. All the family residential areas were wiped out, except maybe the high ground hugging the Mississippi.
Will they go so far as to say that these black people threatening to murder whites are racists? Because I damn sure will!! When whites are protecting their property from blacks who are looting they are racists but when blacks threaten to kill whites there are simply trying to survive
What is wrong with some of these people? I have a feeling they were animals before all this happened. What's being done to filter out the criminal elements before they ship them up here to Texas?
Yes. Somehow President Bush is responsible for the animal acts of a depraved group of people.
Look to the leadership on the local level that told everyone to go to the dome.
Witness the hundreds of busses that could have evacuated those without transportation.
Hear the "mayor" of NO profane the name of God and watch the clips of the weepy "governor."
Therein lies a major part of the answer.
The truth will come out, but only through FR, blogs, the internet and not through the legacy media.
Bush cannot control the animal instincts of the perverted, deranged thugs.
All I can say is damn those that only added to the misery and stop blaming MY President.
Foolish bastards.
I have more, but I would be banned.
"One young man said he was not looking forward to another night in the convention center and wondered when conditions would improve. "It's been like a jail in there," he said. "We've got murderers, rapists, killers, thieves. We've got it all."
In addition to # 11 - I don't know if these were current prisoners, but any not in prison would likely by geographic quirk have been concentrated in the area near the CBD/Superdome.
Too many people in America live in denial of reality... They need to find someone to blame in order to "maintain". And many are too used to expecting others to take care of them - people need to understand what PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY means again. Ultimately we are all responsible to take care of ourselves.
I'm sure some mistakes were made, but Bush will unfortunately bear the brunt of the anger no matter what he does simply because of who he is... our President.
It's sad, because it's a bad coping mechanism that will lead to more problems in the aftermath of this whole situation...
Do you know what a "sheeple" is? It's a person who does whatever someone tells him to do. He thinks "somebody" will take care of him...always.
I know these people left home with very little, but a lot of them can still walk. When they got to the Super Dome and realized there was no food or water, what stopped them (the first day) from riding shanks mare to a better location? I'm so tired of the whining...of making it the gov't's fault that they are hungry. A basic human instinct used to be for food and water, and to protect your own. Has our society bred those instincts out of us? Have we become a nation of sheeple? Life is what you make it, and if all you want to do is sit around and bitch, then your life will be a bitch! (/rant)
of course they were animals. have you ever been to NO?
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