The real reason for the 2nd Amendment

[hollowdweller]

No wonder so many people were left in the city! If these guys had had guns they could have shot the cops and walked to safety

Cops trapped survivors in New Orleans
http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20050908-112433-4907r.htm

By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
Sep. 9, 2005 at 10:48AM

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.

Similar announcements appeared on the Web site of local radio station WDSU and other local news sources.

"Evidently, someone on the ground (in New Orleans) was telling people there was transport here, or food or shelter," said Lawson. "There wasn't."

SNIP

XXXX


Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans
http://www.cadenhead.org/workbench/news/2748

As the situation grew steadily worse in New Orleans last week, you might have wondered why people didn't just leave on foot. The Louisiana Superdome is less than two miles from a bridge that leads over the Mississippi River out of the city.

The answer: Any crowd that tried to do so was met by suburban police, some of whom fired guns to disperse the group and seized their water.

Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans after the storm banded together for self-preservation, making sure the oldest and youngest among them were taken care of before looking after their own needs.

Two San Francisco paramedics who were staying in the French Quarter for a convention have written a first-hand account that describes their appalling treatment at the hands of Louisiana police, a story confirmed today by the San Francisco Chronicle, UPI, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

When buses charted by the group to escape New Orleans never showed up, they camped out beside a police command center on Canal Street, believing it was the best place to get aid, protection, and information. They were told they could not stay there and should leave the city on foot over Highway 90, which crosses the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the suburb of Gretna, a city of 17,500 people.

Running out of food and water, they walked to the bridge, growing in number to around 800 people as word spread of a safe way out:

As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.

We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.

In an interview with UPI, Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson confirmed that his department shut down the bridge to pedestrians: "If we had opened the bridge, our city would have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned and pillaged."

The increasingly desperate group set up camp on the New Orleans side of the bridge, where they were seen by several media outlets, until they were chased off at gunpoint by Gretna police:

Reduced to a small group of 8 people, in the dark, we sought refuge in an abandoned school bus, under the freeway on Cilo Street. We were hiding from possible criminal elements but equally and definitely, we were hiding from the police and sheriffs with their martial law, curfew and shoot-to-kill policies.

The paramedics believe that race played a factor in the decision to block evacuees on foot. Gretna's population is 56 percent white and 36 percent black, according to the 2000 U.S. Census. "

I heard these people and another person interviewed last night and they said they were more (or equally) afraid of the cops shooting them than of criminals.

Also one lady in the Superdome said that the only help and protection she and the old people she was setting with in the Superdome got was gang members who were armed set up a security patrol around them and then went out and looted a Rite Aid and brought water and stuff back to them. She said the gov't just passed her by. She said her opinions of gangbangers had totally changed after that experience.

 

[stevomiller]

Thank you for posting this information. It once again shows that in all things it is best to be prepared to be self sufficient, and never trust or wait for the the government to take care of you. The officials from that town should rot in prison. Damn I'm mad about this! I saw on TV when Geraldo was reporting at the dome, and he was telling the various officials "Open up these bridges and overpasses to let these people out of here. You don't need to even bring them busses, just let them walk out!"

 

[Azis]

Why is it that having authority sparks a spiraling reduction in intelligence?

 

[Thomas Linton]

Why is it that having authority sparks a spiraling reduction in intelligence?

I don't think it does. I DO think that obtaining political power is often a matter of chance and low cunning, rather than intelligence, merit, or honor.

I also believe that power is corrupting in many, if not most.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

More and more we are finding that the Katrina disaster was not the hurricane, but the inhumanity and the inefficiency of authority. FEMA had little to do with it; FEMA performed pretty much up to spec. Federal forces, notably the Coast Guard and the Navy, were on-site immediately after the storm.

The New orleans mayor failed miserably to provide order and coordination on the ground, to implement his own city's plan for busing people out of town, and to pre-position supplies and security at central points for those who didn't or couldn't leave.

The governor of Louisiana presided over a total failure to coordinate with the Federal government or the non-governmental agencies ready to help. She failed to summon and position her state Guard and refused to allow out-of-state Guard assistance. She refused to allow the Red Cross and the Salvation Army to come in and provide for the people at the major gathering points.

By the time the Federal level realized how much was not being done, days had been wasted, but the Federal response was immediate and effective after that.

The majjor Federal then, would have been in reconnaisance. We should have had helicopters up reporting on physical conditions, and coordinators from homeland Security AND FEMA in the mayor's and governor's offices from before the storm, critiquing their response, and overriding what they had to.

Next time ...

Meanwhile, we are also learning that the disaster may not have been as bad as we first thought. We still don't know how many died -- in a city like New Orleans, a certain number die on a normal day. Storeis of rape and murder, the same -- probably not out of line with the norm, if that much. Lots of stories, some already contradicted. We did have materials and personnel ready to rescue the survivors, unfortunately, with that coordination problem of getting them all into the city.

The biggest problem was the helplessness of the mass of people trapped -- and now we see some of them were trapped by suburbanites afraid of getting their lawns trampled. People can put up with a lot of privation if they know help really is on the way.

 

[munk]

That was the best summation I've read, and I listen to the talking heads and follow opinion columns, and am a admirer of Thomas Linton besides.

Thank you, Esav.



munk

 

[mtngunr]

primarily so a population could rise up and overthrow tyranny, and also to defend against mob rule, and to truly make men equal....what I have a problem with in this situation is that I believe the Gretna PD's assessment was correct, and that the small community which had nothing to offer footbound refugees except what could be obtained by looting was defending itself from being decended upon by what amounts to a horde of locusts...I have been to these areas many times and can tell you that little Gretna would have been overwhelmed literally....there was no safety waiting in Gretna...they would have had to have walked passed Baton Rouge for that, and that is swamp until past Lafayette...the scale of damage from a hurricane I think still escapes most folk who have never lived through one...it is not as if by walking to Gretna there would have been a supply of food, water, electricity, gas and transportation awaiting, except what would have been taken from locals in that town by force....look at what lack of control the relief efforts had over the situation in New Orleans, even when there in fairly large numbers and well armed...I think the time for people to have attempted walking out was before the storm hit, when there was plenty of food, water, and transportation available....advocating killing the law enforcement of a community trying to prevent itself from being raped and pillaged by a mob with nothing and nothing to lose is takes the 2nd amendment and turns it on its head...it was defense against such mob rule that the 2nd was in part included.....

Those of us who live in rural areas know full well that any calamity which drives the masses from the city will mean an influx of folk who normally never give the time of day to non-megopolis dwellers and whose attitude ultimately will be "I saw something that I wanted, and I took it," the day after the bread trucks stop rolling. It is ugly, as the truth often is when applied to humanity....

 

[arty]

More than 30 people died in the convention center and the dome while the authorities, federal and local did nothing for them.
We will never know how many were killed by the gangs in the Convention center.
But we do know that by the time that babies were dying from dehydration, Chertoff was saying that food and water was being delivered to the Convention Center. I heard him say this on NPR, and he repeatedly denied that anyone was starving or suffering from thirst there - This was on Thursday(after the hurricane hit).
It was unreal.
The NPR guy kept saying that their people on the ground (their reporter) saw mayhem and death, and hunger and thirst in the Convention Center, and Chertoff kept denying it.
This was on Thursday as I drove home from work - after 5.

It was if he thought that he could invent reality.
All he had to do was watch TV or read the paper.

They had to carry babies out of the dome on Friday(dehydration was killing them), and people died walking to buses. Old people died in nursing homes, while our Federal officials lived in some other world.

FEMA sent loads of the Guard to Atlanta and wouldn't let them go down to NO, all the while arguing with the Gov. of LA.

All of them were dysfunctional.
We need better in the future.

Chertoff and Brown were both living in a fantasy land, and that does not work in a crisis.
We need better than this if were to have another crisis - and isn't that why we have a dept. of homeland security and FEMA?

People in the White House have been making fun of people who think that reality matters. They seem to think that they can invent their own reality.
I find it scary - to think that we have people like Chertoff "protecting" America against foreign terrorists.

We can do better.

 

[DannyinJapan]

The governor of Louisiana presided over a total failure to coordinate with the Federal government or the non-governmental agencies ready to help. She failed to summon and position her state Guard and refused to allow out-of-state Guard assistance. She refused to allow the Red Cross and the Salvation Army to come in and provide for the people at the major gathering points.

Is this true? Its awfully hard to believe...
(im not saying it isnt, its just incredible)

 

[Esav Benyamin]

1) You are following the sensationalist, clueless mainstream media in exaggerating the details of the problem.

2) You are ignoring the value of the rule of law, wherein each level of government is responsible for its own level of response to disasters like this.

3) The Federal government should have been the overall coordinator, and should have known better than to accept any information from city and state (not just NO and LA, but any city and state, during any disaster) without its own verification.

4) C L Wilkins posted a slide show in Whine & Cheese that ought to be required viewing for anyone who cares about what happened and how real people reacted. See it here: One of the best slide shows I have seen.

 

[Thomas Linton]

mtngnr, if you change the facts, you change the result. Invoking, "truth," you have tried to change the facts to fit your conclusions and beliefs.

The story presented here is that 800 people -- young, old and between, were proceeding along the emergency hurricane evacuation route designated by the State of La. -- a public highway, urged to do so by the City of NO, when "law enforcement" officers of that area (the population of one part of which is 17,500) used the threat of deadly force to turn back those 800 people by discharging firearms in their general direction.

Issues of morality aside, such action was most probably a serious felony under state law and may be a serious federal felony.

Under John Bad Elk v. United States, one is priveleged to use deadly force to resist unlawful arrest if deadly force is being used to effectuate the arrest. It has been argued, but never decided, that John Bad Elk also applies to an unlawful order to disburse. Personnaly, I think is a bum move to decide such issues at gunpoint.

Talk of rape and pillage and images of waves of urbanites sweeping over the countryside is great stuff. Totally irrlevant on the facts presented, but a nice "red herring."

And please tell me that this was not a case of White cops shooting over the heads of Black folks. Please.

Changes because: damn I wish I could type.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Danny, we should all apologize for using shorthand to point to the source of problems. Who knows what Governor Blanco did or didn't do? She's been hiding throughout most of this disaster, the counterbalance to Mayor Nagin being out front with his nervous breakdown.

Of course what we should be saying is not "Bush" but "the Federal government", not "the governor" but "the state government or agency", not "the mayor" but "the city council, services, police, etc."

Nevertheless, the state government failed to coordinate entry for Guard, Red Cross, and Salvation Army. They flat-out forbid them to come in.

Sometimes I feel like slamming my fist through a wall !!! :grumpy: If we told McDonalds and Burger King and Wendys to feed the people, they'd have done a MUCH better job! And mopped up after, too, and kept the bathrooms clean.

 

[Esav Benyamin]

Thomas, can you imagine if the police had -- instead of illegally blocking US citizens from passing on public roads -- escorted these people to the nearest fast-food joints, fed them, got city buses and drove them to whatever shelters or destinations had already been set up?

I bet the chief of police is liable for charges in this incident.

 

[munk]

If we told McDonalds and Burger King and Wendys to feed the people, they'd have done a MUCH better job! And mopped up after, too, and kept the bathrooms clean>>>>>>>>> Esav Benyamin


It's pretty reckless and irresponsible for you to refer such high fat, high cholesteral foods to people already in crisis.



munk

 

[mtngunr]

it is a matter of keeping what is yours....the same survival instinct that drives folk to loot is the same one that drives folk to resist looting...this is all well and good when it is not a mob headed your way to glean what they can...once that gate had opened, there would have been no turning back the tide of folk trying to find someplace better....anywhere within hundreds of square miles of New Orleans would not have been better...instead, you would have had refugees in the 10's of thousands stewn all down the highway with no water, food or anything else they were looking for but taking what they could find....I feel confident the Gretna PD would have done the same thing had the crowd been all white and doing what was being done in the city...they had nothing to offer the refugees...nothing....so what was denied was exactly that.....nothing....to insist that somehow a locality just over a bridge has everything that mob needed is to deny the reality of the the destruction a hurricane wreaks...they would have found the same thing over the river as what they just left...this was NOT a line of white cops beating black people into a river to drown...I suppose you think Gretna is some mountain that arises just outside the flooded city of New Orleans, and that the stores were open, the gas was flowing, and that the city of New Orleans was picked clean of food and that folk were shooting their pets to eat...such is not the case anywhere near where the eye of a storm makes landfall....the evacuation route is for BEFORE the storm hits....it is not designed as an egress point for all the folk who decided to stay until the food, water and civilization ran out....

 

[munk]

Unfortunately for the Police, people have a right to walk upon a public road.


>>>>>>>>>>


I'm glad this thing is over the hump and looking better. Short term, anyway.

Do we really have to rebuild New Orleans?




munk

 

[Esav Benyamin]

High fat, high cholesteral foods? Wendys chicken sandwiches aren't bad! I like their baked potatoes myself.

 

[munk]

You think Peta winces every time they see the US government pass a steak out to a flood victim?

...probably get sued some day.




munk

 

[Thomas Linton]

"The racist charge"

I made no charge. I didn't know the answer to my question. After all, there were White folks trapped in NOLA and there are Black LEO's in La. I know nothing about this incident except what is alleged as facts in this thread.

You are seeming to present yourself as knowing more, and I take it by your reaction that the police and sheriffs deputies were White and the folks trying to evacuate were Black.

This country has a history most of us are trying to escape. White cops unlawfully -- feloniously -- shooting over the heads of Black seniors, women, kids, and men trying, however unwisely, to follow government advice to escape via that highway, does not help one single bit.

it is a matter of keeping what is yours.... the same survival instinct that drives folk to loot is the same one that drives folk to resist looting...

No facts given that the people were looting. Change the facts, and you change the result.

once that gate had opened, there would have been no turning back the tide of folk trying to find someplace better

So you say. So the first 800 could be stopped by shooting but the next 800 would have been - what? -- bullet-proof? The guys with the guns weren't running a debate. You present the "parade of horribles."

I feel confident the Gretna PD would have done the same thing had the crowd been all white and doing what was being done in the city.

The evidence that these people -- older, babies, women, other -- had been doing "what was being done in the city"? I suspect you have none.

so what was denied was exactly that.....nothing

They were denied passage on a public highway. They were denied freedom from threats of deadly violence if they dared to proceed upon their lawful business on that public highway.

to insist that somehow a locality just over a bridge has everything that mob needed is to deny the reality of the the destruction a hurricane wreaks

More red herrings. No one here has insisted such a thing. There is no evidence the people assaulted with guns were a "mob" -- a loaded term designed to give weight to your argument.


But I have a couple of questions, since you seem to know a great deal about this city and parrish, as I emphatically do not. Was the power to the water system(s) in Jefferson Parrish down? Do the water system run on gravity (from water towers)? If so, were the towers empty?

I suppose you think Gretna is some mountain that arises just outside the flooded city of New Orleans, and that the stores were open, the gas was flowing, and that the city of New Orleans was picked clean of food and that folk were shooting their pets to eat

No, I don't.

the evacuation route is for BEFORE the storm hits....it is not designed as an egress point for all the folk who decided to stay until the food, water and civilization ran out....

On what basis do you make that statement? The facts given are that the City of NO was telling people to use that route because it was the only road open out of NOLA. I recall repeatedly seeing that highway referred to as the only land route to evacuate NOLA.

 

[mtngunr]

from even a cursory watching of the Tee Vee live and in color from the comfort of our armchair general outrage and for your ratings and entertainment, there are no "rights" except those secured by one's self...not a "right of way" where death could meet you on a dark sidewalk, not "human rights" where gangs can rove and rape and kill, nor "property rights" where looters can plunder...and we also saw what a wonderful guardian of rights the state is....and a very real cause of much of this misery was (and apparently IS) an inordinate belief by folk that the state would protect them, and then rescue them...arguing legalities in the face of the end of the world (which for this area it nearly was) and after such a catastrophic breakdown of civilisation, is much like courts that convene after a war to decide the legalities of some method of wholesale slaughter...it would be funny if it weren't so pitiful and so divorced from reality...that is one of my pet peeves about the www ...everyone has an opinion....whether they know what they are talking about, or not....folk who have never been to the Greater New Orlean Area debating on whether the city should be rebuilt....folk who have never faced mob violence second guessing scared cops trying to prevent what they knew was happening across the river....folk who have never been in any service branch decrying the slowness of reaction time....folk who have never been in an area hit by a hurricane and not understanding that there is nowhere to run to unless you get a flight or bus out of there and how improbable that is with no power to anywhere and not understanding you could DRIVE for an entire day and not get out of it, and that's if the roads aren't covered with debris, downed lines and trees...and that there is no water supply in reserve somewhere that doesn't depend on electricity to pump, clean or otherwise service it, and that thousands of pipes get broken and pressure drops and mains wash away...and that folk on the coast grow up being taught what to do in case of a hurricane and ignore it at their own peril...as a professor of mine once said, there are two types of opinions you can have..those you are entitled to, and those that you aren't....

PS...the original article DOES state they were denied crossing the bridge to "safety"....I have no idea of the racial make-up of the 800 and growing not-a-mob-that wouldn't have been followed by anyone else...and they were not assaulted with firearms...the bridge would have been littered with evidence had that ocurred...warning shots were fired by law enforcement personel trying to maintain law in their jurisdiction, and there clearly was no law where the not-a-mob was coming from....