Police Officers Indicted for Murder and Attempted Murder

Police Officers Indicted in New Orleans
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20061228/D8MA45FO0.html

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Seven police officers were indicted Thursday on murder or attempted murder charges in a pair of shootings on a bridge that left two people dead during the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The shootings took place under murky circumstances six days after the storm and became one of the most widely cited examples of the anarchy that descended after Katrina.

Two young men were killed and four people wounded on the Danziger Bridge, which spans the Industrial Canal.

At the time, the sweltering city was still littered with corpses as rescuers tried to evacuate stranded residents and looters ransacked stores.

Police initially said the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings occurred after shots were fired at Army Corps of Engineers workers.

According to a police report, several officers responded to a radio call that two fellow officers had been hurt. When they arrived, seven people were seen running, and four began firing at police, the report said. The officers returned fire.

The victims were Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally retarded man, and James Barsett, 19. The coroner said Madison was shot seven times, with five wounds in the back.

 

From a post at THR by a Louisiana resident:

What Happened on New Orleans' Danziger Bridge? [MP Note: The Gist Sheet, available at this link, quite clearly has somebody else's handwriting adding to the bottom that Mr. Madison shot at the officers and then threw his gun in the canal]

Lance Madison vs City of New Orleans et al. (pdf file)

You can find much information, including the autopsy report of Ronald Madison, and the New Orleans Police Department Gist Sheet describing the Danziger Bridge incident at the two links above. There is much more than meets the eye here. One innocent man, Lance Madison, was framed over a year for murder. Two innocent people were murdered as they cowered begging for their lives. Others were horribly maimed for life. None were shooting at relief workers, as was claimed by the NOPD. They had no guns. They had no means of defense.

The main complainant on Sept 4, 2005 was a man named David Ryder who was posing that day as a St. Landry Parish deputy sheriff. He is the person who identified Lance Madison as a sniper. But David Ryder isn't an officer of the law. He's a private citizen from Opelousas, La., who drove to New Orleans after Katrina to help out with rescues.

One of the dead, Ronald Madison, a 40 year old retarded man, was shot five times in the back, and twice more, equalling seven times, not once as the New Orleans police claim. Jose Holmes was shot twice in the abdomen, at close range, while he cowered behind a concrete barricade with a wounded arm. He now wears a colostomy bag and has limited use of one arm. Susan Bartholomew states: "When I look, we're all on the ground and all you can see is blood. Everywhere. You can hear everybody hollering, moaning, everybody been shot and in pain. My right arm was on the ground lying next to me. The only thing that was attached to it was a piece of skin. It had been shot off." It is believed she lost that arm to a close range shotgun blast. It did not fall off on it's own.

What crime had these people committed? Trying to reach safety after a natural disaster.

Disagree if you like, paint the incident anyway you chose. The shooters on the Danziger Bridge are finally going to trial, and not even Police superintendent Warren Riley can prevent it.

 

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/frontpage/ ... xml&coll=1

Seven New Orleans police officers were indicted Thursday on an array of murder and attempted-murder charges stemming from a shooting on the Danziger Bridge six days after Hurricane Katrina, which victims have portrayed as an ambush by police that left two dead and four wounded.

The state grand jury refuted the New Orleans Police Department account of what happened on Sept. 4, 2005, which had been portrayed by officers as an appropriate response to reports of both sniper fire and people shooting at police officers near the bridge, on Chef Menteur Highway in eastern New Orleans.

The grand jury separately cleared Lance Madison, a man whom police arrested that day and booked with attempted first-degree murder for allegedly shooting at law enforcement.

. . .

Four pages long.

No bond on the murder counts, $100,000 on the attempted murder counts?

Prosecutors talking about the death penalty.

 

And guess who was not even in uniform?

" . . . the people on the bridge were confronted by a hail of gunfire coming from a group of men in "dark clothing" who had emerged from the back of a rental truck at the foot of the bridge, the lawsuits said.

These men turned out to be the seven heavily armed, out-of-uniform police officers indicted on Thursday, although in the lawsuits, the victims say they never identified themselves as such.

In his lawsuit, Jose Holmes Jr. describes jumping behind a concrete barrier to escape the bullets. Officers shot Holmes several times even though he lay prone on the ground, the lawsuit alleges, One officer stood over him and shot him twice in the abdomen, according to the suit."


Of course, those are just allegations in a lawsuit.

 

What is this?

"But according to documents gathered by the attorneys representing Madison and the other victims, Ryder was not in fact a sheriff's deputy, from St. Landry or anywhere else. Indeed, he has a criminal record that includes a conviction for false imprisonment, arrests for battery on a police officer and possession of cocaine, according to court documents from Nacogdoches County, Texas."

 

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 09,00.html

Hundreds of people today gathered at a New Orleans jail in support of seven police officers charged in relation to a deadly shooting in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The officers, who are accused of murder and attempted murder, arrived at the jail this morning to face the charges. They were greeted by a crowd of more than 200 - including many other police officers - who applauded them and chanted: "Heroes, heroes"




What is so particularly "heroic" about shooting an unarmed retarded guy in the back multiple times?

As for the fact that they stayed in the city - that is not heroic. That is their job. Heroism requires going beyond what one is obligated to do.

 

Yes, it is a racial slur, but foshizzle is just quoting Mayor Nagin. Do an internet search. Mayor Nagin made this statement after Katrina. He then later issued an apology, saying he did not mean it and white people were welcome, too.

 

What? You must be kidding. From every indication, these officers appear to have committed some rather heinous crimes.