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More on Gretna
So, that post I made about folks who were peaceable assembling, and trying to walk out of New Orleans being shot at... The Cheif of Police in Gretna admits it, with a touch of pride.
According to UPI
Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.
An eyewitness account from two San Francisco paramedics posted on an internet site for Emergency Medical Services specialists says, "Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot."
"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.
"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said.
The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.
Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river.
He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx.
"There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people.
"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."
But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.
"The only way people can leave the city of New Orleans is to get on (the) Crescent City Connection ... authorities said," reads a Tuesday morning posting on the Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, which kept reporting through the storm and the ruinous flooding that followed.
Yep. With no declaration of Martial Law the township of Gretna's Police Dept. decided it had the right to overide the governor of Louisiana's declaration of emergency, and mandatory ecavuation of the city of New Orleans.
I wish I new a lawyer in Louisiana, because I'd love to see a big-assed lawsuit (what with the abuse of power, assault with deadly weapons, assault under color of authority, and whatever other laundry list of charges one can think of to make a civil suit out of) leveled against the chief, and the city.
Because, by their own words, this was deliberate. They sent, by way of gunfire, a host of people back to a place where their lives were in danger.
Lawson says that his officers "acted in the manner they were instructed to" and defends the order to close the bridge as "the right decision."
According to UPI
Police from surrounding jurisdictions shut down several access points to one of the only ways out of New Orleans last week, effectively trapping victims of Hurricane Katrina in the flooded and devastated city.
An eyewitness account from two San Francisco paramedics posted on an internet site for Emergency Medical Services specialists says, "Thousands of New Orleaners were prevented and prohibited from self-evacuating the city on foot."
"We shut down the bridge," Arthur Lawson, chief of the City of Gretna Police Department, confirmed to United Press International, adding that his jurisdiction had been "a closed and secure location" since before the storm hit.
"All our people had evacuated and we locked the city down," he said.
The bridge in question -- the Crescent City Connection -- is the major artery heading west out of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.
Lawson said that once the storm itself had passed Monday, police from Gretna City, Jefferson Parrish and the Louisiana State Crescent City Connection Police Department closed to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge closest to the West Bank of the river.
He added that the small town, which he called "a bedroom community" for the city of New Orleans, would have been overwhelmed by the influx.
"There was no food, water or shelter" in Gretna City, Lawson said. "We did not have the wherewithal to deal with these people.
"If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."
But -- in an example of the chaos that continued to beset survivors of the storm long after it had passed -- even as Lawson's men were closing the bridge, authorities in New Orleans were telling people that it was only way out of the city.
"The only way people can leave the city of New Orleans is to get on (the) Crescent City Connection ... authorities said," reads a Tuesday morning posting on the Web site of the New Orleans Times-Picayune newspaper, which kept reporting through the storm and the ruinous flooding that followed.
Yep. With no declaration of Martial Law the township of Gretna's Police Dept. decided it had the right to overide the governor of Louisiana's declaration of emergency, and mandatory ecavuation of the city of New Orleans.
I wish I new a lawyer in Louisiana, because I'd love to see a big-assed lawsuit (what with the abuse of power, assault with deadly weapons, assault under color of authority, and whatever other laundry list of charges one can think of to make a civil suit out of) leveled against the chief, and the city.
Because, by their own words, this was deliberate. They sent, by way of gunfire, a host of people back to a place where their lives were in danger.
Lawson says that his officers "acted in the manner they were instructed to" and defends the order to close the bridge as "the right decision."
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It apalled me. I can imagine how it feels to be a citizen of New Orleans and read something like that. I can only imagine it because of things like Dilawar, where similar violations of the things I expect of my fellow men, those who swore to the same things I have sworn.
I'm sorry.
TK