Is it legal for deputies to fire bullets over the heads of evacuees?

[rhett o rick]

During the Katrina debacle there was a story told by a San Francisco journalist about deputies firing bullets over the heads of hundreds of evacuees to keep them from crossing a bridge to get away from the flooding.
Does anyone know if any actions were taken related to this event?
Were the actions by the deputies legal?
Weren’t they threatening to shoot the evacuees if the crossed the bridge?
Would it happen the same if evacuation is necessary in the future?

[Kagemusha]

1. A lot's legal in an emergency but poor judgment remains poor

Even if it was legal, doesn't make it right. And that's a big if.

[Avalux]

2. You've got a lot of questions there.

I can't recall the incident. Remember, Google is your friend. :hi:

[michaelwb]

3. Memory jog

I still have this from when I first read about it and was e-mailing people about it.

Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans

[Avalux]

5. Amazing - I hadn't heard of this incident,

and it's obviously gone down the memory hole. The Gretna police should have been investigated for their actions; still should be. Would they have shot the evacuees if the had pressed to cross the bridge? Who knows. Luckily it never came to that.

Sounds like a story that needs to be resurrected.

[rhett o rick]

6. Google is only my friend as long as they don't give up records to NSA. nm

[rhett o rick]

Thanks for the responses. But was any action taken against the Sheriff or

deputies for preventing the evacuation? What is the plan next time?

[acmejack]

7. Gretna PD

They didn't want to allow the people into their town.

[kitp]

4. Here's part of the story

Link

So late Wednesday afternoon, the group set out for a bridge called the Crescent City Connection, where they would find the help they so desperately needed. But when they arrived atop the highway, the paramedics said, they were met by more police officers, this time from neighboring Gretna, La., who weren't letting anyone pass.

"If I weren't there, and hadn't witnessed it for myself, I don't think I would have ever believed this," Bradshaw said.

The officers fired warning shots into the air and then leveled their weapons at members of the crowd, Bradshaw said. He approached, hands in the air, displaying his paramedic's badge.

"They told us that there would be no Superdomes in their city,'' the couple wrote. "These were code words that if you are poor and black, you are not crossing the Mississippi River -- and you weren't getting out of New Orleans.''

And when exhausted hurricane victims set up temporary shelters on the highway, Gretna police came back a few hours later, fired shots into the air again, told people to "get the f -- off the bridge" and used a helicopter to blow down all the makeshift shelters, the paramedics said.

When the officers had pushed the crowd back far enough, one of them took the group's food and water, dropped it in the trunk of a patrol car and drove away.

Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson confirmed that his officers were under his orders to seal off the suburban city of 17,500 residents.

The story above is not all of it. Actually Mayor Nagin had gone on the radio and said that since FEMA wasn't able to get food and water to anyone at the Convention Center or the Superdome, they would have to help themselves and urged them all to walk across the Crescent City bridge. Hundreds did just that. The Gretna police fired over their heads and drove them back. Several times.

Of course this is criminal behavior. Human beings dying of starvation and dehydration stopped by the police from leaving a disaster area. As far as I know, nothing ever came of it.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Last I heard...

the whole scandalous bridge debacle was being sucessfully denied and then ignored.

Nothing happened, nobody was threatened, nobody was denied access to the bridge, no shots were fired... Nothing to see here, move right along.

The next time a bunch of black people try to get out of a disaster zone by going into a white suburb, the same nothing will most likely happen.

FWIW, I did hear an interview of one of the few whites in the crowd who said they took shelter and set up camps in several places, and were continually rousted. When they finally got to the bridge, only the whites were allowed across. The whole story was a bad one, but it's been been disappeared.

[NNN0LHI]

9. Only if they "snapped" I guess?

:eyes:

Don

[niallmac]

10. To quote Yakov Smirnov.

“You have such nice things in America. Like … warning shots!”

I consider NO and Katrina a warning shot about our futures in this country.

[rhett o rick]

11. Weren't there clear violations of civil rights? Possibly even the

commission of hate crimes?

[rhett o rick]

12. Aren't the ACLU or NAACP looking into this??? nm