Three FBI investigations are underway in an attempt to uncover some of the atrocities committed by the New Orleans Police Department following the initial destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. These investigations follow three incidents in which police are believed to have acted in “disaccord” with local law enforcement policy.
 The racist NOPD is under investigation for shooting Katrina survivors |
During and after Katrina, the NOPD’s policy was to protect private property at all costs. The federal government sent in the military as well as Blackwater mercenaries to protect private property. The military and NOPD officers were given strict “shoot to kill” orders against people who were struggling to survive. Racist brutality was the norm.
However, the three incidents in question involve racist officers going above and beyond even the extremely brutal formal policies of the NOPD and the military following Katrina.
The first event under investigation occurred four days after Katrina hit. On Sept. 2, 2005, a 31-year-old Black man named Henry Glover was shot by a gunman believed to be an NOPD officer.
Following the shooting, a man in the vicinity, William Tanner, attempted to drive Glover to the nearest elementary school at which the NOPD had set up temporary emergency services.
Tanner said that upon their arrival he was handcuffed and interrogated along with two other men who were in the car. The NOPD then branded them as “looters” and proceeded to beat them.
All this time, Glover was not treated for his injuries. In Tanner’s account, one of the officers then drove away with Glover in the backseat. The car with Glover’s remains was found weeks later near a police station. The car and the body had been burned.
The coroner did not rule this incident as a homicide, and no further investigation was made. The current FBI investigation only began this year after The Nation magazine highlighted the event in an article and other media outlets took notice.
The second sequence of incidents under investigation happened on New Orleans’ Danziger Bridge six days after the hurricane. Early that morning Lance and Ronald Madison, two brothers from the lower ninth ward, attempted to evacuate over the bridge. Ronald was mentally disabled. The brothers were shot at by police, resulting in Ronald’s death.
False claims of police exposed
The police claimed that they were responding to the shooting of two officers. This account later turned out to be false.
Later that morning, another family was shot at by police on the same bridge. Five out of the six members of the family were shot. One of the victims lost her arm, one was shot four times, twice in the abdomen, and now wears a colostomy bag, and one was killed. The officers on the scene claim that they were shot at by the residents crossing the bridge. All other accounts dispute this.
There are major discrepancies between the police account and what actually happened on that day. For example, a man who identified himself as a deputy sheriff turned out to be a private citizen. The police lied about the shooting of Ronald Madison, stating that they only shot him once. In fact, the police shot Ronald seven times.
In the end, four people were seriously wounded, and two were left dead on the bridge that day.
A third incident under investigation involved a bar fight in which Black transit workers were assaulted by a group of white racists that included police officers. Here, too, evidence points to a police cover-up. No criminal charges were filed against the racist white mob. This incident happened three years after Katrina, evidence of the deep institutional racism that remains in New Orleans.
The current investigations are a result of the media attention surrounding these incidents. Endemic violations of workers’ rights continue to run rampant in the areas hit by Katrina.
The reality on the ground in the wake of the devastation was twisted by the mainstream media to portray victims of the storm as criminals.
Indeed, during attempts to seize basic necessities at a time when material aid was nowhere to be seen, people did what they had to in order to survive. Workers went into their local grocery stores and took provisions meant to feed their families during a time of national disaster and government negligence. Workers who tried to save people from the wreckage by commandeering boats were branded as looters.
In the chaos, white racist vigilantism was encouraged and went unpunished. For the historically racist NOPD, it was an opportunity to unleash a wave of terrorism against the predominantly Black residents of the lower ninth ward.
The FBI investigations should result in the punishment of all officers involved for their crimes. The NOPD is unfit as a body to protect and serve any worker in New Orleans, especially its Black residents. A bureau investigation is obviously not enough, however.
The NOPD should be disbanded immediately and replaced with grassroots community-controlled public safety organizations.
