Just in from the Times-Picayune:
Five New Orleans police officers have been convicted in the deaths of two people and the injuring of four others on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina.In all, 25 counts were charged, ranging from using a firearm to violate civil rights, to conspiracy to violate civil rights, to making false statements (the cover-up).
The jury also ruled that while the "use of a firearm" guilty verdicts caused the deaths of several defendants, that use did not rise to the level of "murder."
For background, here's a little about what's been reported about the Danziger Bridge incident:
Three federal civil-rights lawsuits charge that a group of New Orleans police officers gunned down unarmed, innocent citizens in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.Looks like the jury believed the civilians. If you accept the verdict as fact, it's apparent that New Orleans was something of a free-fire zone (very Iraq-like) in the days following Katrina. Rules of engagement–collateral damage territory. (Did you know? Even Blackwater showed up.)
The lawsuits focus on an incident that happened on a bridge in east New Orleans. Two people were killed, including a mentally retarded man shot in the back; two others were maimed.
The police say they were firing in self-defense. Now, a grand jury has begun looking into the shooting. ... At 9 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 4, six days after Katrina, police received a Signal 108: Two officers down, under the concrete lift bridge that spans the Industrial Canal.
Seven officers rushed to the scene.
Police say when they arrived, at least four people were shooting at them from the base of the bridge. Officers took positions and returned fire. The official police report identifies two sets of gunmen going up the east side of the half-mile-long bridge.
The investigation hinges on whether these people were the shooters, as the police maintain, or whether they were innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the lawsuits claim.
Without that murder charge, though, I'm not sure what changes will be made. I don't see anyone dealing with the structural problem — the militarized police and the rules of engagement themselves.
GP
