Yesterday I caught a rebroadcast of a “This American Life” program (Episode 296, “After the Flood,” Sept. 9, 2005) that originally aired a year ago regarding experiences some people had while trying to get out of New Orleans after Katrina. I had, of course, remembered some of the reports of people being shot at while trying to flee, but I didn’t remember them in detail.
I could hardly believe some of the things that the survivors reported – routine lying on the part of federal, state, and local officials regarding the arrival of buses to take people away – outright hostility towards people who were just trying to survive – actively taking steps to prevent people from saving themselves.
This isn’t much of a pitting, but I’m just horrified at the behaviour of people whose job it is to protect our lives. And I hope that these people are facing charges, or at the very least losing their jobs.
You would think, but I don’t have any faith that any kind of consequences or positive change will come out of this.
I was horrified by Frontline last night. I know Brownie was ultimately vilified, and thank god for that. But, Christ, what a fuck. Hell, they all sucked. Not one single person interviewed had the balls to stand up and take any responsibility for anything.
I was thinking about this after watching Spike Lee’s documentary on HBO. One woman was very upset about not being able to cross a bridge into St. Bernard Parish, IIRC, it was blocked by the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Department. I can understand why she was upset. Then I started to think about the situation in St. Bernard Parish after Katrina and it seemed more likely that the problem wasn’t racism, although that may have been a contributing factor, it was that the parish had been obliterated by Katrina and would have been unable to cope with any more refugees from New Orleans. By many accounts, the parish was in worse shape than New Orleans, with two homes that were untouched by the flood waters.
I think you hit it bang on the head. I had a front row seat to this mess and, like most of us here in Louisiana, was glued to the televeision for 5 days. It’s hard to appreciate the panic and rumor-mongering that was occuring, with each new pronouncement generating yet more hysteria. Examples would be New Orlean’s police chief announcing on the public airwaves that babies were being raped in the Super Dome (not true), gangs of looters trying to break into Memorial Hospital (not substantiated), and general lawlessness (kinda sorta, in certain areas).
What I picture is Gretna’s chief of police, or mayor, or somebody hearing about a huge riot crossing the bridge, threatening to spread the vandalism and chaos to an already devastated area that was barely under control.
What is wrong? Yeah, we can see that now. But it was very, very human.
Not to minimize or make light of the various levels of hell and insanity that descended on my fair city during and after the storm, but the police of Gretna - - and I have first- and second-hand accounts from people who worked the storm - - were acting in the best interest of the people who were attempting to cross the bridge. They were sent back to protect their own safety.
Apparently many of the people who did not evacuate the West Bank portions of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes were very intent on protecting their property from looting. Also, there were no services available to the people attempting to cross the river. No shelters. No buses. No stockpiles of food and water. No additional police protection. No medical facilities. No place to go. Not enough police.
Allowing the crowd from the Convention Center access to the areas on the West Bank of the river would have resulted in mass chaos and most likely a number of shootings. More people would have died. There probably would have been a riot before it was all over.
Was firing over their heads in an effort to turn them back the right way to go about it? Probably not. Is it still a symbol of government failure? Certainly. Is it justified to make it a racist rallying point? Probably not.
Was destroying the temporary ecampment they built on the NO side of the Crescent City Connector also in the refugees best interests? It seems to me that you’re saying that the police were bstards, but the people of Gretna are even worse. So bad, that the police needed to force refugees back into a drowning city in order to protect them from people who would rather just shoot them.
This sounds good from the distance of a year and a hope that people forget what actually happened, but the sheriff’s department actually crossed into New Orleans, drove people away from their own rescued belongings, then destroyed that property (while still outside their own jursidiction).
One of the great crimes of the Katrina aftermath has been that no one among the Sheriff or deputies has ever been preosecuted for their riot.
People are speculating that rumors about lawlessness and thuggery are why the Katrina evacuees were not allowed to exit the town into neighboring parishes. It wasn’t racism, they say. It’s because people were afraid. Because of the rumors.
And this is what I have to say to that: the rumors had a life of their own because of racism. So if the reason people weren’t allowed to cross the bridge was due to all these crazy, mostly unfounded rumors, then yes, racism was to blame. That’s how racism works. It exploits our fears and causes us to behave in irrational, unethical ways.
Would anyone have ever seriously given credence to rumors about blood-thirsty cannibals if the evacuees had been mostly white? Not likely. Would little ole white ladies been turned away just because of some rumors about baby raping thugs? Even less likely.
This is the first I’ve ever heard of a temporary encampment on the East Bank near the Crescent City Connection. Please enlighten me.
I’m not saying that police were bastards or that the people in Gretna are worse than bastards. There’s really no need to attempt to read between the lines in my post.
I am saying that there are two sides to this story.
And for the record, the story is that people who were stranded in absolutely deplorable conditions at the Convention Center were encouraged by authorities to cross the Crescent City Connection bridge to the West Bank portions of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes to seek relief. These people were turned back by the Gretna Police. Witnesses reported that police fired shots over the heads of the bridge walkers.
Perspective #1: Gretna police should be vilified for preventing a crowd of evacuees from seeking shelter and relief. Furthermore, the actions of the Gretna police were racially motivated.
Perspective #2: Gretna police acted in the best interests of the people crossing the bridge and of the people on the West Bank by preventing a crowd of evacuees from crossing the bridge. Since there were no relief centers in the West Bank portions of Orleans and Jefferson Parishes, evacuees would have had little other choice than to disperse into the community to seek relief. Such conditions would undoubtedly have further deteriorated public safety, and likely increased the number of crimes, injuries, and deaths.
Please provide your cite for this, Tom. I’m not saying I know everything about Katrina in New Orleans, but I have never heard any version of the ‘bridge story’ include the Gretna cops crossing the bridge to the East Bank as you’re presenting it here, and I worked with fire and law enforcement on both sides of the river after the storm.
“Act Two” of the radio program referenced in my OP is an interview with people who were in a group trying to cross the bridge. Listen to the story – they say that after they were unable to persuade the Gretna deputies to let them cross, they set up camp on the freeway – built toilets, shelters, with whatever they could. The cops chased them away and then flew in a helicopter low to intentionally scatter all their stuff.
If it was their intention to protect the refugees, they could have fired a shot over the heads of those local sociopaths who feel that the correct response to refugees is to shoot them.
I cannot listen as I’m at work and that would disrupt my colleagues more than my sneaking in here to post. If I have time tonight I’ll do so, but I’m the father of four kids and home life is hectic.
That said, I have good friends who were here during and immediately after the storm. Some work for law enforcement (New Orleans police; State police), some for the press (AP). I worked with fire and police departments on both sides of the river in late September and early October. Not one of these people has ever related the “bridge story” and included reference to the event you’re describing as quoted on the NPR show.
Also, numerous searches on Google news fail to find mention of the helicopter event. Maybe my google-fu is weak. Maybe my friends are not fully informed. Maybe there wasn’t a camp on the bridge.
If there was a camp on the bridge, maybe the Gretna police really did break it up, but as they don’t have a helicopter, it would have had to have been another police force’s asset or a state or federal asset. In that case, would it have been a Gretna decision to clear the camp, or would it have been made by another agency and executed by Gretna police in conjunction with other law enforcement agencies that have a helicopter?
Where exactly on the bridge was their encampment? East side, west side, middle? I can see that helicopters conceiveably could be used to blow away camp materials on the bridge approaches, particularly on the West Bank, but if it was on the main span I think it would be a little difficult given the metalllic structural supports.
Also, I can see the need for clearing the camp given that it could have been an impediment to getting buses and other relief to the Convention Center by taking assets from I-10 across the Huey Long Bridge, across the West Bank Expressway, and over the CCC Bridge. This round-about way would have been necessary due to the flooding along I-10 in New Orleans.
As such, I’m going to be skeptial until we can find other independent sources to collaborate the claim apparently made on “This American Life”. It’s just not very plausible to me as described.
I will finish by saying that I’m not trying to defend the Gretna police or condone the bad things that governments did after the storm. I am saying that we cannot view all the actions that occurred after the storm as absolutes of good or evil, or as racist/not racist.
I’m glad to see that the events are finally going to be investigated. It is entirely possible, of course, that the reports of police misconduct were as overblown as the reports of citizen misconduct in the arenas.
Here is one report from a couple of EMS volunteers. It is not clear from this story whether it was a New Orleans or Grtna cop that confiscated their goods.
This CNN story describes a policeman taking supplies from the people after driving up in a Gretna patrol car.
