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PDFFrom The Root:
Six years after the federal levees failed and 80 percent of the city was flooded, New Orleans has lost 80,000 jobs and 110,000 residents. It is a whiter and wealthier city, with tourist areas well-maintained while communities like the Lower 9th Ward remain devastated. Beyond the statistics, it is still a much-contested city.
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In the aftermath of Katrina, media images famously depicted poor New Orleanians as criminal and dangerous. In fact, at one point it was announced that rescue efforts were put on hold because of the violence. In response, the second-in-charge of the New Orleans Police Department reportedly told officers to shoot looters, and the governor announced that she had given the National Guard orders to shoot to kill.
Over the following days, police shot and killed several civilians. A police sniper shot a young African American named Henry Glover, and other officers took his body and burned it behind a levee. A 45-year-old grandfather, Danny Brumfield Sr., was shot in the back in front of his family outside the New Orleans convention center.
Two black families — the Madisons and the Bartholomews — walking across New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge fell under a hail of gunfire from a group of officers. “We had more incidents of police misconduct than civilian misconduct,” says former District Attorney Eddie Jordan, who pursued charges against the officers but had the charges thrown out by a judge. “All these stories of looting, it pales next to what the police did.”
After years of protests, press conferences, and lobbying, the DOJ is finally conducting investigations of New Orleans police killings and plans to provide oversight of the New Orleans Police Dept. The DOJ is also looking at oversight of police departments in Newark, Denver and Seattle.
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