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http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2010/08/28/guest-post-racial-violence-in-the-aftermath-of-katrina/

Good grief, what happened here? In this day and age, in the worlds most affluent and powerful nation? Were people really shot for being black in a white neighbourhood or were there hordes of looters descending on areas like the vikings?

Was this militia group committing mass homicide or defending their homes?

They probably thought they were defending their homes, and no doubt some looting did occur in New Orleans so there would have been some justification if they observed it taking place.

To shoot all black people, though, who would have made their way to the neighbourhood just because it wasn't under water, would seem to be racially motivated. The fact that it was an all white group apparently shooting only black people, reinforces this impression.

As the matter is under criminal investigation, it would be foolish to speculate further.

Just...wow.

Now I totally get their right to protect their property, and given the circumstances, I'd say all bets were off as to 'reasonable' force.

But the anecdotal evidence of some suggests Race played a major part in sorting the Looters from Refugees. Mind you, it was much the same in the papers. I remember a juxtaposition (sp) of two pictures from the same report. Picture of white folks 'bravely scavenging to feed their families' Picture of black folks 'looting'. Now both were doing exactly the same thing in my eyes, and no doubt both sides decided a big old telly and kick ass stereo increased their chances of immediate survival somehow, but the latent racism in the report (note I did not say media, just this single report!) is clear to see in their choice of words.

Looters were shot. Who cares?

Show me proof, this article is bs.

On the positive, New Orleans is one of the few cities to ever have serial killer in the ranks (officially). You have to respect that.

That's why you need to wait for the result of the criminal investigations going on.

If it turns out that looters weren't shot, and people were murdered, you should care.

New Orleans post Katrina was a free fire zone in a post Apocalyptic sort of way. You can sugar coat it however you want but there was massive looting going on for days. When they sent in the Guard, even the Guard was getting shot at intiially, until the Guard responded in kind, and that was that.

Thats why Houston was different with Ike. People here are heavily armed. We don't arrest rioters here. We haven't had a riot last more than an hour since...ever.

Edit: Mississippii, which was actually hit worse by the direct impact of the storm, also did not suffer riots.

We're not talking about riots. The article is about the white inhabitants of an island who formed a vigilante group and apparently were shooting black people who got onto the island.

That is not the whole story, of course. We need to know if the black people who were shot were actually looters. We need to know if any white people were looting and were shot. And so on.

These things will no doubt be brought out through the criminal investigations.

The occurrence of a natural disaster and consequent breakdown of law and order doesn't absolve any crimes which might be committed during the breakdown.

Boy I'm glad I live In Australia

Kilkrazy wrote:We're not talking about riots. The article is about the white inhabitants of an island who formed a vigilante group and apparently were shooting black people who got onto the island.

That is not the whole story, of course. We need to know if the black people who were shot were actually looters. We need to know if any white people were looting and were shot. And so on.

These things will no doubt be brought out through the criminal investigations.

The occurrence of a natural disaster and consequent breakdown of law and order doesn't absolve any crimes which might be committed during the breakdown.

Yea we are. We are talking about a total loot situation and the neighborhood cordoned itself off. Lots of neighborhoods did that, and do that in those circumstances. hell we do that every 7/4 so we can have a right proper Frazzled sponsored block party and burger burn.

Everything else is blah blah hearsay and not much of it.

Well, it isn't hearsay. There is eye witness evidence, unless they are lying.

But let's not prejudge the case. Let's wait for the results of the criminal investigations. It may all come to nothing.

I am a combat veteran of an elite fighting unit with experience in North Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.

But shooting looters is just insane.

s7 ap4 d3 shots 48 inch range?

feth that!

Kilkrazy wrote:Well, it isn't hearsay. There is eye witness evidence, unless they are lying.

But let's not prejudge the case. Let's wait for the results of the criminal investigations. It may all come to nothing.

one supposed witness. A two paragraph story. No counterpoint. I call shenanigans.


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mattyrm wrote:I am a combat veteran of an elite fighting unit with experience in North Africa, Afghanistan and Iraq.

But shooting looters is just insane.

s7 ap4 d3 shots 48 inch range?

feth that!

well they were working under the "gets hot" rule.

Kilkrazy wrote:

The occurrence of a natural disaster and consequent breakdown of law and order doesn't absolve any crimes which might be committed during the breakdown.

This trial may prove otherwise. A cunning lawyer could probably argue self-defense, given the tremendous civil unrest present in New Orleans post Katrina. Even in an unaffected area, if you could hear gunfire in the night, and knew that your island was safe and unaffected by the looting, would you be reasonably defending your property if you shot any strangers? Personally, I think it is far too extreme of a response, but I can see a jury of their peers from New Orleans being swayed by the prevailing conditions. Proving this was murder beyond a reasonable doubt seems extremely difficult to me. Indeed, proving anything in the wake of a complete breakdown of social order would be challenging with our standards of guilt.

In a literal martial law situation all bets are off. Its a prima facae case for reasonable belief of imminent severe harm or death to yourself or others.

Or in the words of the immortal bard: time to go shopping for a new tv!

Then the alleged murderers will either easily evade indictment, or will be found innocent.

To assume that this is so certain that no investigation is warranted is prejudging the issue.

I didn't say that.
I said its going to be an easy standard to meet. Very easy.
Put some slack jawed yokel on youtube for the amusement of yankees just shows a slackjawed yokel on youtube.

EDIT: yes I am prejudging. Its Mad max time, neighborhoods are going to protect themselves. Absent facts to the contrary the rest of the world can politely off unless they've been in that circumstance.

OT but that area really is a bunch of rednecks or coonasses in the local vernacular...

I have to say I see Frazz in a new light. Mocking the slaying and murder of black people?

I'm not saying that they were looters or weren't, but the total lack of empathy you show for potential innocent victims of the mob is appalling.

The least you could say is that if they did indeed shoot innocent people they should be tried for murder. But no... you mock them and seem to immediately kneejerk to defending the mob.



GG

Does anyone know anything about the source 'The Society Pages'? I've never heard of it but the language is triggering my 'crazy leftists' alarm bells.

I did a quick look for any other news source covering an FBI investigation of racially motivated shootings during Katrina and couldn't find any... if such an investigation was real, or even vaguely real, we'd have seen a whole lot of coverage. I can't find anything so I'm tempted to think there's no substance to this story.


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generalgrog wrote:I have to say I see Frazz in a new light. Mocking the slaying and murder of black people?

I'm not saying that they were looters or weren't, but the total lack of empathy you show for potential innocent victims of the mob is appalling.

The least you could say is that if they did indeed shoot innocent people they should be tried for murder. But no... you mock them and seem to immediately kneejerk to defending the mob.

You're just noticing this now? That's basically fraz's schtick.

sebster wrote:

You're just noticing this now? That's basically fraz's schtick.

I don't know, I hadn't seen that level from him yet. That's kind of new low. IMO

GG

generalgrog wrote:I have to say I see Frazz in a new light. Mocking the slaying and murder of black people?

I'm not saying that they were looters or weren't, but the total lack of empathy you show for potential innocent victims of the mob is appalling.

The least you could say is that if they did indeed shoot innocent people they should be tried for murder. But no... you mock them and seem to immediately kneejerk to defending the mob.



GG

1. I didn't mock anyone. WTF are you on about? Read it again. I am mocking the rednecks. Algiers point is a redneck enclave-the blog is right about that.
2. No mob. Locals closing off their neighborhood to outsiders during martial law. Its what you do during periods of looting.
3. Do I take a blog as anything more than someone's edited propaganda about what happened as anything more than that? No. There's a long history of others making fun of rednecks. I have a healthy suspicion about what the facts are. You should too. As you say, its under investigation. You're the one jumping the gun based on someone's blog. Get real. I've heard nothing about this besides this blog from...who again?






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sebster wrote:Does anyone know anything about the source 'The Society Pages'? I've never heard of it but the language is triggering my 'crazy leftists' alarm bells.

I did a quick look for any other news source covering an FBI investigation of racially motivated shootings during Katrina and couldn't find any... if such an investigation was real, or even vaguely real, we'd have seen a whole lot of coverage. I can't find anything so I'm tempted to think there's no substance to this story.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

generalgrog wrote:I have to say I see Frazz in a new light. Mocking the slaying and murder of black people?

I'm not saying that they were looters or weren't, but the total lack of empathy you show for potential innocent victims of the mob is appalling.

The least you could say is that if they did indeed shoot innocent people they should be tried for murder. But no... you mock them and seem to immediately kneejerk to defending the mob.

You're just noticing this now? That's basically fraz's schtick.

Are you calling me a racist?

In all fairness Frazzled, you do believe that one race is better than all others. Well, if you consider 'Texan' a race of course.

Frazzled wrote:Looters were shot. Who cares?

On the positive, New Orleans is one of the few cities to ever have serial killer in the ranks (officially). You have to respect that.

You flippantly say "who cares" when you know good and well, that article was about potentially innocent people getting shot and forced sent away. You basically lumped the innocents with the guilty, the same way the redneck mob did. And you defended them. And then respect serial killers?

Frazzled wrote:New Orleans post Katrina was a free fire zone in a post Apocalyptic sort of way. You can sugar coat it however you want but there was massive looting going on for days.

So in your mind free fire zone includes potentially innocent people?

Maybe you didn't mean it that way, but your post certainly wasn't very smart.

GG

Gitzbitah wrote:In all fairness Frazzled, you do believe that one race is better than all others. Well, if you consider 'Texan' a race of course.

More of a religion.


I think this about sums it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apMyjOAacyA


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generalgrog wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Looters were shot. Who cares?

On the positive, New Orleans is one of the few cities to ever have serial killer in the ranks (officially). You have to respect that.

You flippantly say "who cares" when you know good and well, that article was about potentially innocent people getting shot and forced sent away. You basically lumped the innocents with the guilty, the same way the redneck mob did. And you defended them. And then respect serial killers?



GG

The same could be same of those accused by some blogger from BFN.

Mr Mystery wrote:Just...wow.

Now I totally get their right to protect their property, and given the circumstances, I'd say all bets were off as to 'reasonable' force.

But the anecdotal evidence of some suggests Race played a major part in sorting the Looters from Refugees. Mind you, it was much the same in the papers. I remember a juxtaposition (sp) of two pictures from the same report. Picture of white folks 'bravely scavenging to feed their families' Picture of black folks 'looting'. Now both were doing exactly the same thing in my eyes, and no doubt both sides decided a big old telly and kick ass stereo increased their chances of immediate survival somehow, but the latent racism in the report (note I did not say media, just this single report!) is clear to see in their choice of words.

I remember that article, and the photographer who actually took the pictures and his comments.

The white people "scavenging to feed their families" were one of several dozen people(black, white, yellow, red, all colors and shapes) coming out of a grocery store that was underwater with a waterproofed bag filled with Coca-Colas, bread, and bottled waters.

The black people who he labeled as "looters" were coming out of a Best Buy with several big bags full of cell phones, small flatscreen TVs, camcorders.

It's all about context.

With a larger search I'm seeing a lot of lefty blog nonsense, but any real news reports on this?

I don't recall, but I know I found it on the BBC.

I wish I remember the photographer's name, but it got printed in the Washington Post and NY Times.

sebster wrote:Does anyone know anything about the source 'The Society Pages'? I've never heard of it but the language is triggering my 'crazy leftists' alarm bells.

I did a quick look for any other news source covering an FBI investigation of racially motivated shootings during Katrina and couldn't find any... if such an investigation was real, or even vaguely real, we'd have seen a whole lot of coverage. I can't find anything so I'm tempted to think there's no substance to this story.

"Please welcome Guest Blogger, Caroline Heldman, PhD. Heldman is an Associate Professor of Politics at Occidental College."

You can see her pissing into the wind against the 'professional journalists' on Fox here:

So she's not a reporter or anything, just someone not shmoozy enough to get proper tenure. Gotcha...

Wow its in LA. Lived for years there and never heard of it. 1,800 students, liberal arts college, ah never mind.

Frazzled wrote:I didn't say that.
I said its going to be an easy standard to meet. Very easy.
Put some slack jawed yokel on youtube for the amusement of yankees just shows a slackjawed yokel on youtube.

EDIT: yes I am prejudging. Its Mad max time, neighborhoods are going to protect themselves. Absent facts to the contrary the rest of the world can politely off unless they've been in that circumstance.

OT but that area really is a bunch of rednecks or coonasses in the local vernacular...

There were serious floods in German in 2002, the UK in 2007 and France this year. So a lot of Europeans have been in that situation.

MeanGreenStompa wrote: ....powerful nation?

you mean china?