Blacks Prevented from Leaving New Orleans During Disaster: Bridge blockade goes to grand jury
/From The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
Times-Picayune (New Orleans)
By Matthew Brown, West Bank bureau
A grand jury is launching a criminal investigation into the blockade of the Crescent City Connection after Hurricane Katrina, when hundreds of people trying to flee New Orleans on foot were turned back by West Bank law enforcement agencies, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Eddie Jordan said.
Separately, the U.S. attorney's office is reviewing the racially charged case for possible civil rights violations, a federal official said Friday. Most of those fleeing from the city were African-American. That led to allegations of bias on the part of the law enforcement agencies that enforced the blockade.
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti turned over the case to Jordan and federal officials Thursday, ending Foti's monthslong probe.
"A few hundred people claim they were trying to cross the Crescent City Connection to safety, and they were prevented from doing so by certain members of law enforcement," district attorney's spokeswoman Leatrice Dupre said. "They also said shots were fired into the air, and we're just looking into those allegations. The grand jury will look into what laws apply and what laws might have been violated."
The federal investigation of the complaints will be carried out in conjunction with the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Mann in New Orleans.
Voluminous report
Mann said Foti turned over to her office an extensive "fact-finding" report comprising several volumes. She declined to discuss particulars.
"All I can say is we're going to review it and decide what to do, as we monitor what the DA is doing," Mann said.
Officials from the agencies involved in the blockade -- the Gretna Police Department, the Crescent City Connection police and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office -- have stood behind their actions.
They contend their jurisdictions had no resources to offer the storm victims and that the residents were better off returning to the city to wait for help to arrive.
A spokeswoman for Foti's office, Jennifer Cluck, declined comment Friday.
The bridge, which spans the Mississippi River, was blocked to pedestrians for at least 24 hours beginning Sept. 1, at the height of the crisis that engulfed New Orleans after Katrina.
Mixed message
At the same time, New Orleans officials were encouraging residents to flee to the West Bank, which remained relatively dry after the storm, former City Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson has said.
"It was easy for New Orleans to try to pass them off to somewhere else, but that was not a solution," Randy Paisant, assistant executive director of the Crescent City Connection, said Friday. "If they were telling them there was food and water over here, that was a false statement. That was just getting rid of a problem as far as they were concerned."
Allowing pedestrians to cross, Paisant said, would have put them in danger, as emergency vehicles were speeding back and forth across the bridge. He added that "there were no facilities over here" to serve the evacuees.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee declined comment on Friday. Gretna police officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Other jurisdictions also blocked fleeing New Orleans residents after Katrina. In Plaquemines Parish, busloads of evacuees being transported to the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station were turned back by sheriff's deputies at the parish border. In St. Bernard Parish, wrecked vehicles were stacked as a barricade along North Claiborne Avenue to keep out storm victims from New Orleans' 9th Ward.
But it was the actions on the Crescent City Connection that garnered widespread media attention and prompted Foti to launch a criminal probe late in September.
The decision to block the bridge was made after Oakwood Center shopping mall, near the foot of the bridge in Terrytown, was set on fire by looters.
Shots acknowledged
Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson has acknowledged his officers fired shots into the air during the blockade in an attempt to quell what he described as unrest among the evacuees. Lawson also said that before shutting down the bridge to pedestrian evacuees, West Bank officials loaded thousands of New Orleans residents onto buses and brought them to a staging area in Metairie to be evacuated.
Dupre, Jordan's spokeswoman, offered no new details about the case. But she did say the allegations of impropriety on the part of law enforcement officials came from the victims, not from the various civil rights groups that had demanded West Bank officials be held criminally accountable.
The American Civil Liberties Union has pressured Foti in recent weeks to release the results of his investigation. Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Joe Cook said Friday he was disappointed Foti had not made his report public. Cook added that he was "skeptical" about whether the case will get the attention it deserves from Jordan because the district attorney's office already has a backlog of criminal cases.
A federal lawsuit over the blockade was filed in December against the city of Gretna, with the plaintiffs represented by state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge. The lawsuit seeks compensation for physical pain, mental anguish and loss of life. Fields has said he believes one or more evacuees may have died as a result of the blockade.
Fields said Friday that more than 300 people have signed onto the lawsuit. Fields also speculated that the case being turned over to Jordan and the U.S. attorney's office signaled Foti had found enough evidence to support a criminal prosecution.
"People were in water that was rising by the hour, and they were seeking refuge," Fields said. "For them to be turned around by local authorities or any law enforcement agencies is not only inhumane, it's unconstitutional. You can't get much more egregious than that."
Dupre said "it may take weeks, it may take months" for the grand jury to complete its investigation. The process will begin as soon as next week, she said.
A grand jury is launching a criminal investigation into the blockade of the Crescent City Connection after Hurricane Katrina, when hundreds of people trying to flee New Orleans on foot were turned back by West Bank law enforcement agencies, a spokeswoman for District Attorney Eddie Jordan said.
Separately, the U.S. attorney's office is reviewing the racially charged case for possible civil rights violations, a federal official said Friday. Most of those fleeing from the city were African-American. That led to allegations of bias on the part of the law enforcement agencies that enforced the blockade.
Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti turned over the case to Jordan and federal officials Thursday, ending Foti's monthslong probe.
"A few hundred people claim they were trying to cross the Crescent City Connection to safety, and they were prevented from doing so by certain members of law enforcement," district attorney's spokeswoman Leatrice Dupre said. "They also said shots were fired into the air, and we're just looking into those allegations. The grand jury will look into what laws apply and what laws might have been violated."
The federal investigation of the complaints will be carried out in conjunction with the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, said First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Mann in New Orleans.
Voluminous report
Mann said Foti turned over to her office an extensive "fact-finding" report comprising several volumes. She declined to discuss particulars.
"All I can say is we're going to review it and decide what to do, as we monitor what the DA is doing," Mann said.
Officials from the agencies involved in the blockade -- the Gretna Police Department, the Crescent City Connection police and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office -- have stood behind their actions.
They contend their jurisdictions had no resources to offer the storm victims and that the residents were better off returning to the city to wait for help to arrive.
A spokeswoman for Foti's office, Jennifer Cluck, declined comment Friday.
The bridge, which spans the Mississippi River, was blocked to pedestrians for at least 24 hours beginning Sept. 1, at the height of the crisis that engulfed New Orleans after Katrina.
Mixed message
At the same time, New Orleans officials were encouraging residents to flee to the West Bank, which remained relatively dry after the storm, former City Councilwoman Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson has said.
"It was easy for New Orleans to try to pass them off to somewhere else, but that was not a solution," Randy Paisant, assistant executive director of the Crescent City Connection, said Friday. "If they were telling them there was food and water over here, that was a false statement. That was just getting rid of a problem as far as they were concerned."
Allowing pedestrians to cross, Paisant said, would have put them in danger, as emergency vehicles were speeding back and forth across the bridge. He added that "there were no facilities over here" to serve the evacuees.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee declined comment on Friday. Gretna police officials did not respond to a request for comment.
Other jurisdictions also blocked fleeing New Orleans residents after Katrina. In Plaquemines Parish, busloads of evacuees being transported to the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station were turned back by sheriff's deputies at the parish border. In St. Bernard Parish, wrecked vehicles were stacked as a barricade along North Claiborne Avenue to keep out storm victims from New Orleans' 9th Ward.
But it was the actions on the Crescent City Connection that garnered widespread media attention and prompted Foti to launch a criminal probe late in September.
The decision to block the bridge was made after Oakwood Center shopping mall, near the foot of the bridge in Terrytown, was set on fire by looters.
Shots acknowledged
Gretna Police Chief Arthur Lawson has acknowledged his officers fired shots into the air during the blockade in an attempt to quell what he described as unrest among the evacuees. Lawson also said that before shutting down the bridge to pedestrian evacuees, West Bank officials loaded thousands of New Orleans residents onto buses and brought them to a staging area in Metairie to be evacuated.
Dupre, Jordan's spokeswoman, offered no new details about the case. But she did say the allegations of impropriety on the part of law enforcement officials came from the victims, not from the various civil rights groups that had demanded West Bank officials be held criminally accountable.
The American Civil Liberties Union has pressured Foti in recent weeks to release the results of his investigation. Louisiana ACLU Executive Director Joe Cook said Friday he was disappointed Foti had not made his report public. Cook added that he was "skeptical" about whether the case will get the attention it deserves from Jordan because the district attorney's office already has a backlog of criminal cases.
A federal lawsuit over the blockade was filed in December against the city of Gretna, with the plaintiffs represented by state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge. The lawsuit seeks compensation for physical pain, mental anguish and loss of life. Fields has said he believes one or more evacuees may have died as a result of the blockade.
Fields said Friday that more than 300 people have signed onto the lawsuit. Fields also speculated that the case being turned over to Jordan and the U.S. attorney's office signaled Foti had found enough evidence to support a criminal prosecution.
"People were in water that was rising by the hour, and they were seeking refuge," Fields said. "For them to be turned around by local authorities or any law enforcement agencies is not only inhumane, it's unconstitutional. You can't get much more egregious than that."
Dupre said "it may take weeks, it may take months" for the grand jury to complete its investigation. The process will begin as soon as next week, she said.
