5 Officers Indicted in Katrina Killing

[lord_feldon]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/12/us/12orleans.html

A federal grand jury has charged five police officers in connection with the shooting death of a civilian in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

[Four Kitties]

Six current or former police officers have been charged in connection with shootings on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina that left two dead and four wounded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/us/14justice.html

[lord_feldon]

http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/...ziger_bri.html

Jury selection in the high-stakes Danziger Bridge shootings case has begun, with U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt questioning a pool of about 75 potential jurors throughout the morning.

Engelhardt asked the group a series of questions, ranging from whether any of them stayed in their homes for Hurricane Katrina and what their views on law enforcement are.

[snopes]

A former police detective testifiedthat he participated in a plot to fabricate witnesses, falsify reports and plant a gun to make it seem police were justified in shooting unarmed residents on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...shootings.html

[AnglRdr]

A federal jury convicted five current or former police officers Friday of civil rights violations in the deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina, but decided they were not guilty of murder.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44035946...me_and_courts/

[Ryda Wong, EBfCo.]

Faulcon, the only defendant to testify, said he was "paralyzed with fear" when he shot and killed a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, Ronald Madison, as he chased him and his brother, Lance Madison. Faulcon didn't dispute that he shot an unarmed man in the back, but he testified that he had believed Ronald Madison was armed and posed a threat.

One would think that a person paralized by fear wouldn't be able to chase and shoot a man.

[DesertRat]

While I respect that the situation in New Orleans was chaotic and that people can make legitimate mistakes in that kind of uncertainty, any potential sympathy I might have had for the accused pretty much dried up upon learning the efforts they took after the fact to obscure the facts and obstruct justice. If their actions were an honest mistake, they would presumably have the moral courage and confidence to stand up and face scrutiny. Their actions strongly suggest they knew what they were doing was wrong at the moment they were doing it; moreover, since they'd established a pattern of dishonesty, why should I believe them now?

F**k 'em. The jury made the right call.