The T-P’s Brendan McCarthy had all the skinny yesterday afternoon and not long after my email inbox started buzzing with activity related to the sentences handed down to the 5 NOPD officers convicted of killing innocent civilians on the Danziger Bridge after Hurricane Katrina. My good friend Editilla at the Ladder once termed the post Katrina NOPD as “feral lawmen” and that is as good a description of the whole deal as any. In their defense a NOPD officer was brutally shot in the head while attempting rescue operations just days after the storm but the response was classic NOPD in the indiscriminate use of blunt force brutality against the populace and the result of that were murders like happened to the innocent people on the Danziger Bridge, one of whom was back shot and stomped.
The activity in my email had nothing to do with any of the above though as everyone down here that knows anything about New Orleans understands how the NOPD has operated for generations. Rather the email universally dealt with the grandstanding McCarthy so well conveys in his article. Judge Engelhardt, Diaper David Vitter’ former campaign manager in particular had a good bit to say, some of which struck me as over the top, considering what happened on the bridge. Maybe I’m just a bit jaded after 4 years of moderating Slabbed but with due respect prosecutors have been cutting plea deals, approved by the court I might add, for longer than I’ve been on this planet so I found his outburst a bit odd. This of course does not count the on camera appearance of the local US Attorney after these high-profile type cases and Jim Letten certainly did not disappoint that way either.
In any event I know some of you folks want to flesh this topic out a bit more so have it.
sop