Thread: Police Shoot 8 on New Orleans Bridge

Sep 04 6:20 PM US/Eastern


NEW ORLEANS


Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six of them, a deputy chief said.

Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said the shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which connects Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

He said he had no other details.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/09/04/D8CDN6C00.html

I just tuned into Fox's news and they were reporting that the contractors on the bridge were shot....then they retracted that story and reported that the bad guys that were shooting at the contractors were shot by the police.

Lets hope the second version turns out to be the correct one.

This is stunning, it sounds like Iraq not America.

Whoa. Is ZERO TOLERANCE kicking in

Yea bad guys were shooting at the corp. people. Police smoked bad guy butts. Instant justice.

www.10news.com

Police Kill 5 Or 6 After Engineers Fired At
Texas Prepares For Evacuee Airlift

UPDATED: 4:20 pm PDT September 4, 2005

NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans police said they shot and killed some gunmen who had fired upon a group of contractors traveling across a city bridge while on their way to make repairs.

New Orleans Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six of them.

A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said there were 14 contractors on their way to repair a canal. They were traveling across a bridge under police escort when they were fired upon.

The Associated Press had reported that New Orleans police shot and killed Corps of Engineers contractors. But that report was later retracted.

The contractors were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to fix the 17th Street Canal.

The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, which spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River.

Texas Prepares For Evacuee Airlift

Texas Gov. Rick Perry ordered emergency officials to begin preparations to airlift Hurricane Katrina evacuees to other states that have offered to help. About 225,000 evacuees are now in Texas -- 19,000 of them in the Houston Astrodome alone.

A Perry spokeswoman said aid centers will be set up at airports in Houston and Dallas where incoming evacuees can be given food, water and medical care. They will then be flown to Michigan, Utah, West Virginia and Iowa.

West Virginia has sent C-130 cargo planes to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio to pick up more than 200 people.

Perry's office announced three Texas-based airlines -- American, Southwest and Continental -- have agreed to help with the airlift.

Signs along major highways are encouraging buses to head to Arkansas instead.

However, officials in Houston said they would continue to accept the elderly, people with medical needs and families.

Medical clinics at the three largest shelters in Houston are seeing about 50 patients every hour.

More than 120,000 evacuees are in 97 shelters in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and dozens of smaller cities. Another 100,000 are in hotels and motels, with still more in churches or private homes.

Houston's Roman Catholic archbishop joined a Muslim cleric, a rabbi, and a leading Baptist minister in visiting with evacuees in the Astrodome and the Reliant Center on Sunday.

The religious leaders told the evacuees that people in Houston and elsewhere will stand with them as they try to put their lives back together.

An ecumenical church service and a Catholic Mass had been planned for Sunday, but one minister said that, given their ordeal, the evacuees might not need long sermons.

'Ugly Scene'

Rescuers continued their seemingly endless task Sunday as once-vibrant New Orleans began to turn its attention to what government officials now expect to be a death toll in the thousands.

Uncovering people who died hiding in houses or who got caught in floods is going to be "as ugly a scene as you can imagine," said Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff.

The recovery of bodies is just getting under way and the government needs to focus on the future and "prepare the country for what's coming," Chertoff said.

Despite complaints about the government's sluggish response to death and misery in the Gulf Coast region, Chertoff said it's too soon to start blaming people for perceived mistakes in how hurricane relief has been handled. And he defended the performance of Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown.

No one really knows yet how many people were killed during and after the storm, but Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco have both said they expect thousands of casualties.

In the first official count, Louisiana authorities have verified 59 deaths

A top U.S. Public Health Service official said one prison morgue alone is expecting as many as 2,000 bodies.

With the living now mostly evacuated from the Louisiana Superdome and New Orleans Convention Center, the dead are more evident. Bodies are floating among flooded ruins, crumpled on wheelchairs and abandoned on highways. Paramedics have begun carting away the bodies and a once vibrant city more closely resembles a sodden tomb.

It's hard on the people trying to help. New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said some firefighters and police officers are traumatized, and there have been two suicides.

Recovery Response Ramps Up

Nearly a week after Hurricane Katrina battered the Gulf Coast, the federal government continues to ramp up its response.

President George W. Bush has ordered more than 7,000 soldiers and Marines into the region. Another 10,000 National Guard troops are being added to 30,000 already there.

On Monday, the president will visit the region for a second time. His administration has been taking considerable heat for what's seen as a sluggish response to a disaster that has killed countless thousands and left tens of thousands stranded in abject misery.

Bush cabinet members have also flown to the Gulf Coast to help coordinate the response and to lend moral support.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice toured her home state of Alabama Sunday. Rice has been tasked with managing the more than 60 pledges of international assistance that have come in since Katrina destroyed the coastal region.

She attended a church service Sunday and got a first-hand look at some of the storm's devastation. She also told reporters she disagreed with some black lawmakers, community leaders and celebrities who have said racial injustice has been a factor in the government's response to the tragedy.

"Americans don't want to see Americans suffer," Rice said.

Louisiana Sen. David Vitter said Sunday having the National Guard and active duty military on the ground is, "Making all the difference in the world." Vitter, who lost his home in the storm, said the relief effort has turned a big corner since Friday, when he offered scathing comments about the federal response to the devastation.

He made his comments while surrounded by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, FEMA chief Brown and other federal officials who toured the devastation. Rumsfeld made it clear that recovery will take years.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Richard Myers made a point of praising not only federal, but also state and local officials for their response. He called it "pretty remarkable."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., was in New Orleans Saturday. A physician, he witnessed and helped some of the thousands being treated at the airport.

"The hallways are filled, the floors are filled," he said. "A lot more than eight to 10 people are dying a day."

Superdome Empties; Bodies Remain

The Superdome was empty and the convention center is now almost completely evacuated.

The last 300 evacuees in the Superdome climbed aboard buses bound for new temporary shelters on Saturday evening.

They left behind a darkened and stinking arena strewn with trash.

The sight of the last person leaving -- an elderly man wearing a Houston Rockets cap -- prompted cheers from members of the Texas National Guard who were guarding the facility.

Inside and outside the Superdome there was a sea of trash up to 5 feet deep.

At the convention center, paramedics began carting away the dead.

Most of the hurricane survivors were taken away by bus and helicopter.

Many of those who filed onto the buses had to walk past corpses to make their escape. Conditions were so crowded that many refugees had to leave bags full of belongings at the side of the road.

One woman who had been stuck at the convention center for five days said, "Any place is better than here."

Mississippi Suffers In Silence

Nearly a week after the hurricane blasted its coastal region, Mississippi continues to suffer, often in silence.

It felt the full force of the storm but the destruction and misery in Mississippi have been overshadowed by media coverage of the catastrophic aftermath in New Orleans, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.

"Until people see it on TV, they don't think it's real," he said.

The Mississippi Emergency Management Agency counts 161 people dead from the storm and fears the number will go far higher.

An editorial in The Sun Herald newspaper in Biloxi-Gulfport faults poor planning for the mayhem wrought by the storm. The people of South Mississippi aren't asking the state and nation to make life more comfortable for them but "to make life here possible," the editorial said.

Evacuees who became sick after apparently using contaminated water prompted the closing of a shelter in Biloxi, Miss., Saturday.

About 30 people became ill and were treated for vomiting and diarrhea, according to health officials. The shelter held about 400 people, and had been without water or power since Monday. Most of the patients were treated with antibiotics. Some were taken to a hospital in Mobile, Ala., others to Thomasville, Ga.

Some running water came back late Friday, but a doctor at the center said it was not safe to use. People may have ignored the warning and used the water anyway.

On Friday, Bush walked through one Biloxi neighborhood hit hard by Katrina, trying to console people who lost their homes, and everything else but their lives, to the storm.

Rays Of Light

There are a few slivers of light in the storm-ravaged region.

A $62 million National Emergency Grant was announced Saturday by Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, to fund about 10,000 temporary jobs for Hurricane Katrina clean-up and recovery in Louisiana.

Chao said the temporary jobs will mean paychecks for thousands of dislocated workers and will help to clean up, rebuild and repair their communities.

Federal officials said all 64 Louisiana parishes will take part in providing work sites for displaced individuals until evacuation orders are lifted.

Also in Louisiana, Jefferson Parish emergency management leaders announced a plan to allow residents to go back to their homes on Monday.

People will be allowed back starting at 6 a.m. Monday and continuing indefinitely so they can collect personal papers and other items.

Parish leaders recommend residents carpool into the parish to save gas and time, and that they appoint one person per household to secure valuables and assess damage.

Parish President Aaron Broussard suggested people plan on staying outside the parish until at least Sunday, Sept. 11.

There may also be signs of light in New Orleans' once-boisterous French Quarter, where Johnny White's Sports Bar has reopened on Bourbon Street.

Only a handful of patrons were there Saturday night, all of them residents of the immediate neighborhood. Locals make a joke about Johnny White's: They say it was built without a door because it never closes.

Afghanistan Pledges Aid

Help comes from unusual places in times of tragedy.

Afghanistan, with a government propped up by other countries, is pledging $100 dollars for U.S. victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul said the pledge came in a letter from Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Afghanistan relies heavily on financial aid from the U.S., and Ambassador Ronald Neumann said Afghanistan's compassion and generosity bears testimony to the strength of the ties between the two countries.

The European Union and NATO said the U.S. asked for emergency assistance. Both said they're ready to help.

More than 60 countries have pledged assistance of some sort for the recovery effort. Among them:

A half-billion dollars is coming from Kuwait, the country the U.S.-led coalition liberated from Iraqi occupation in 1991.

Another $100 million is coming from Qatar.

The 22-member Arab League is calling on Arab nations to provide hurricane relief.

Austria, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Luxembourg, Finland, Italy, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden, Spain and The Netherlands have pledged assistance.

China has offered $5 million and pledged logistical and other assistance.

South Korea is sending $30 million. North Korea, which views the U.S. as its main enemy, has sent a message of sympathy through the Red Cross.

And don't forget the American people!!

Shhhhh Don't let the American people know they are also providing FEMA money to people who are and have been in the U.S. illegally.

Shhhhhhhhhhhh