On Feb. 24, a former New Orleans police supervisor pleaded guilty to a federal obstruction charge, confessing to participating in a conspiracy to justify the shooting of six unarmed people after Hurricane Katrina. The confession has shocked and angered residents living in a city already notorious for the racism and brutality of its police force.
 The New Orleans Police Department is guilty of racist killings and brutality |
On Sept. 4, 2005, just days after Katrina had devastated much of the city, seven NOPD officers opened fire on a group of people crossing the Danziger Bridge trying to reach a supermarket. Two men, 40-year-old Ronald Madison and 19-year-old James Brissette, were killed. Four others were injured: Susan Bartholomew, whose right arm was partially shot off, and her husband, daughter and nephew.
An FBI investigation was eventually opened after media reports of holes in the police’s official story began to spread. In the original report, police claimed to have shot Ronald Madison, a disabled Black man, once. Two separate autopsies invalidated this claim, showing Madison was shot seven times—five in the back as he was running away.
On the day of the shooting, police further attempted to cover up the incident by arresting Ronald Madison’s brother, Lance, and charging him with eight counts of attempted murder of police officers. A Louisiana state grand jury found no evidence to indict Madison, and the charges were later dropped.
In January 2007, the seven officers were indicted and charged with murder and attempted murder, but by August 2008, a district judge dismissed the charges.
Facing charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, Lohman admitted he failed to order the collection of evidence or canvassing of witnesses, helped craft police reports filled with deliberately false information, participated in a plan to plant a gun under the bridge and then repeatedly lied to investigators who questioned police actions.
In fact, racist violence was widespread in post-Katrina New Orleans, as the NOPD and private security firms like Blackwater were under explicit “shoot to kill” orders. Reports of “looters” and armed people in the street always focused on the poorest Black residents of New Orleans, while racist white vigilantes were openly arming and organizing.
Following the guilty plea, Lohman has been painted as a “bad seed” in the NOPD, and excuses have been made for the seven officers that the police department was “overworked.” These are hollow excuses for the capitalist state, which systematically targets the poorest and most oppressed sectors of society with police violence and brutality.
Justice must be fought for—and can be won—for Ronald and Lance Madison, James Brissette, and everyone on the bridge and across New Orleans who suffered violence at the hands of the NOPD at precisely the moment it should have been helping them survive a disaster of a historic magnitude.
