Will There Be Justice in New Orleans?
That is a pretty darn important question Katrina vanden Heuvel asks writing in the Huffington post:
The investigation shows lawlessness, but also a stunning inhumanity. Thompson interviews unrepentant vigilantes, and a video accompanying the article includes footage of vigilantes joking that shooting blacks “was like pheasant season in South Dakota. If it moved, you shot it.” Thompson details the suspicious death of Henry Glover, who according to eyewitnesses was shot by vigilantes and then bled to death in his car while police beat his would-be rescuer. Most troubling in all of this is the role of law enforcement, as witnesses allege that New Orleans police covered up and destroyed evidence, authorized the shootings and savagely beat witnesses.
To date, not a single incident has ever been investigated. New Orleans police, Homeland Security and the State of Louisiana have refused to answer questions for over 8 months, and Thompson (with the invaluable support of the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute) had to sue to gain access to autopsy records. In total Thompson reviewed over 800 autopsies and state death reports, and amassed a pile of evidence that substantiate his report. “As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime,” he wrote, “I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom have ever been interviewed by police.”
The full extent of the disregard for poor African-Americans and the embarrassing failure of leadership laid bare by Katrina still remains unknown.
