Two New Orleans Police Department officers were sentenced Sept. 15
in the beating death of Raymond Robair. Six years earlier, before
Katrina hit New Orleans, local handyman Raymond Robair, 48, was
beaten to death. Former NOPD officers Melvin Williams, an NOPD
veteran known for a high number of arrests, and Dean Moore, a rookie,
were found guilty in April.
Williams was sentenced to over 21 years, while Moore will serve
more than 5 years. Moore stood by and did nothing while Williams
brutally killed an unarmed man who was not implicated in any crime.
Witnesses saw the former officers beat Robair to death while he was
attempting to fix a neighbor’s roof vent.
After fatally beating him, the former officers dumped Robair at
Charity Hospital without any documentation. They never responded to
radio calls. They later claimed Robair had powder cocaine in a bag
wet with saliva on him and overdosed.
As part of the cover-up, Williams and Moore claimed Robair ran and
fell as an explanation for his injuries. Robair died with a lacerated
spleen and fractured ribs, which are incompatible with an injury
caused by falling.
Judonna Mitchell, Robair’s daughter stated, “Maybe they
thought that no one would care about Raymond. Maybe they thought no
one loved Raymond enough to fight to hold them accountable for
causing his death.”
Robair’s grandaughter, Dacia Mitchell, said the family was not
sure “there is a penalty great enough” for the officers who
“robbed of us the joy” Robair brought them. (NOLA.com,
Sept. 15)
The Federal Bureau of Investigations opened a probe into Robair’s
death in 2005. An NOPD investigation, spearheaded by Sgt. Gerald
Dugue, cleared the officers of any wrongdoing. Relying on that
investigation, the FBI closed its Robair case file in 2006.
Since then Dugue has been investigated for allegedly glossing over
facts in
other investigations and is set to stand trial in January for his
role in the police cover-up of the Danziger Bridge shootings.
The FBI reopened the investigation into the Robair case in 2008,
around the same time that they began to look further into the
Danziger case.
Because this was a federal case, the officers were charged not
with the murder but with violating Raymond Robair’s civil rights and
the conspiracy to cover it up. This is similar to the guilty verdict
handed out to the five officers involved in the Danziger Bridge
Massacre, who were found guilty just over a month ago.
These thugs with badges were only held accountable after years of
struggle by the families of the victims and community activists who
fight back against rampant, racist police brutality and misconduct.
New Orleans, a city known for its corrupt and brutal police
department, serves a corrupt and negligent city government in charge
of policing some of the poorest people in the United States.
While the FBI and the federal courts have been instrumental in
bringing these killer cops to justice, the FBI is no friend of civil
rights. It is an arm of the repressive state apparatus that protects
the interests of the capitalist class. Real justice against police
brutality can ultimately only be won by the mobilization of the
people and by winning a social system where the state and its armed
bodies exist to defend the interests of the working class.
