Justice is Blind.... and Slow.... Just Like Everything in the Big Easy

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**Easy E**

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/04/20/five_new_orleans_police_officers_plead_guilty_to_katrina_shootings_ending.html

The decadelong legal odyssey over a police shooting of six unarmed people in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina appears to have finally come to a close Wednesday with five former officers pleading guilty to lesser charges as part of a plea deal. The officers killed two people during the 2005 shooting and then orchestrated an elaborate cover-up that included planting a gun. They pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and civil rights charges that will net them prison terms ranging from three to 12 years, a dramatic reduction from the decades they were originally sentenced to in a 2011 federal jury verdict that was subsequently thrown out because of prosecutor misconduct. Seven officers involved in the case were also indicted on state charges in 2007, but those, too, were thrown out because of misconduct, this time relating to the grand jury.

Here’s more on the events that took place on Danziger bridge from the New York Times:

The case began on Sept. 4, 2005, in a city still without order and drowning in floodwaters. Two groups of families and friends, all of them black, were crossing the Danziger bridge in search of food and relatives when police officers rushed to the scene in a Budget rental truck. The officers, responding to a distress call, opened fire with shotguns and AK-47s, sending those on the bridge, all of whom were unarmed, diving and running for cover. Four people were severely injured—one woman lost part of her arm—and two were killed: James Brisette, and Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old developmentally disabled man who took a shotgun blast in the back.

“Four of the former officers have been locked up for nearly six years while the fifth has been out on bond,” according to the Associated Press. “The plea deal calls for them to get credit for time served and they could be released from prison anywhere from the next one to six years.”

Police and Shootings have been in the news a lot, and then this old tale from the Bush era rises to the surface.

**LordofHats**

Damn. Misconduct for everyone @_@

**Silent Puffin?**

Easy E wrote:
when police officers rushed to the scene in a Budget rental truck. The officers, responding to a distress call, opened fire with shotguns and AK-47s

?!?

It sounds like a really gak Steven Seagal film.

**Disciple of Fate**

I wonder what call they were responding to. Regardless, this is crazy, 12 years for gunning down a crowd(?) of people and then trying to cover it up? Also ak-47s? This is all kinds of messed up.

**Easy E**

The call they thought they were responding to was an "Officer Down" IIRC.

**A Town Called Malus**

Yeah, that is crazy.

And they wonder why people are mad at the police and accuse them of a lack of accountability? I think ordinary people would kill to get a plea bargain which gets them only 12 years for killing two people, making another person lose an arm and then trying to cover it all up.

**Chongara**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yeah, that is crazy.

And they wonder why people are mad at the police and accuse them of a lack of accountability? I think ordinary people would kill to get a plea bargain which gets them only 12 years for killing two people, making another person lose an arm and then trying to cover it all up.

Wouldn't the plea bargain be for 3 people at that point?

**feeder**

Fething AKs? Really? What a gakshow

**A Town Called Malus**

Chongara wrote:
A Town Called Malus wrote:
Yeah, that is crazy.

And they wonder why people are mad at the police and accuse them of a lack of accountability? I think ordinary people would kill to get a plea bargain which gets them only 12 years for killing two people, making another person lose an arm and then trying to cover it all up.

Wouldn't the plea bargain be for 3 people at that point?

Only if they get caught for the third one

**Breotan**

At least these guys did time. So many other stories have the officers not being prosecuted despite seemingly egregious misconduct.

**Buttery Commissar**

Sincerely curious, under what circumstances is it permissible for an officer to shoot someone in the back?

**Chongara**

Buttery Commissar wrote:
Sincerely curious, under what circumstances is it permissible for an officer to shoot someone in the back?

You'll find a range of answers on this forum from "Never" to "Whenever he feels spooked" to "Depends on what I think of the guy he shot".

**A Town Called Malus**

Chongara wrote:
Buttery Commissar wrote:
Sincerely curious, under what circumstances is it permissible for an officer to shoot someone in the back?

You'll find a range of answers on this forum from "Never" to "Whenever he feels spooked" to "Depends on what I think of the guy he shot".

Though a common one I've seen in multiple gun threads is if the officer feels that to let the suspect get away will put people at risk. So if the officer had just seen the suspect gun down a person and then run, they might be justified to shoot them as they run as they could believe that if the suspect escapes, they would kill another person.

**Kilkrazy**

The police are allowed to shoot you anywhere to prevent you from harming someone else.

**Frazzled**

Buttery Commissar wrote:
Sincerely curious, under what circumstances is it permissible for an officer to shoot someone in the back?

Every time-first rule of gunfighting: cheat.

**Easy E**

Buttery Commissar wrote:
Sincerely curious, under what circumstances is it permissible for an officer to shoot someone in the back?

Only when their back is turned.

**Buttery Commissar**

A Town Called Malus wrote:
Chongara wrote:
Buttery Commissar wrote:
Sincerely curious, under what circumstances is it permissible for an officer to shoot someone in the back?

You'll find a range of answers on this forum from "Never" to "Whenever he feels spooked" to "Depends on what I think of the guy he shot".

Though a common one I've seen in multiple gun threads is if the officer feels that to let the suspect get away will put people at risk. So if the officer had just seen the suspect gun down a person and then run, they might be justified to shoot them as they run as they could believe that if the suspect escapes, they would kill another person.

That makes some sense.
I'm fairly undecided toward gun culture, and without really encountering them as a consideration in day to day life, I am pretty ignorant of legality.
It's probably also fairly naive of me to expect there to be a countrywide policy or law, my point of reference is very small.

**d-usa**

feeder wrote:
Fething AKs? Really? What a gakshow

If I remember right, and without reading if it is covered in the article in the OP, officers responded with their personal weapons. I don't remember if they were encouraged to carry their personal weapons (especially long arms) due to the state of affairs in the city at the time or if it was something they decided themselves though.

As for the plea deal: sometimes you do the plea deal not because it's the right thing to do, but sometimes it's just the easiest way to make sure that everybody gets some sort of punishment instead of risking that nobody gets off. If the government isn't 100% sure that they can get a conviction, and the defense isn't 100% sure that they will get their verdict, then you plead. The backlash from "not enough of a sentence" will always be smaller than the potential backlash of having these guys walk out of a court after a not-guilty verdict.

**Relapse**

New Orleans was pretty messed up at that time with uncollected bodies of drowning and murder victims in the streets.