Cops on Trial (New Orleans)

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oldbillthundercheif

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So here's what I have heard so far:

A radio call goes out that there is an officer down under a particular bridge (more like an overpass, really).

Police come running from all over the city and spot some people on the bridge crouched behind a car.

The cops do a more-or-less textbook military-style fire-and-maneuver assault on the position despite the fact that none of them have seen the crouching parties fire or do anything shifty.

Result: One unarmed handicaped fellow dead, another unarmed young guy with his digestive system scattered all over the road, and a few more wounded. The cops go on trial for murder.

Aside from the fact that the folks on the bridge were unarmed (pretty dim judgement considering the state of the city at that time) does anything about this situation seem fishy to you folks? There must be more to this story...

If anyone can add some detail to the above information, that would be great. News reports just can't cram all the info into their 2 minute stories and the papers are not much more informative.

What do y'all think about putting these cops on trial for murder?
 
I think that NO was a screwed up place before the great flood, and whats left after is no less than amazing.

I would love to think the cops are Innocent, and will be exonerated in the trial. However, I feel that there is a good chance they did this as described, for whatever reason. God knows it was a stressful time, I am not sure I could have handled the hell the officers who were man enough to stay went through.

I also think that there were far greater wrongs done in the disaster, but the cops were an easy target upon which to lay the wrongs of the government. With these few officers, the government, mainly the failed city government, feels as though they can be exonerated. If they did this, then I hop they get what they deserve, but the courts should also take into consideration what these men went through, what they did by staying when others fled their posts. If these officers are innocent, God help their souls, because I feel they are going to jail regardless.
 
Given the scenario described, these officers were at best negligent in not identifying their targets properly. Add to the fact that the citizens were completely unarmed and had done nothing suspicious, other than crouch behind a car. What the story doesn't say is were there other officers that perhaps had a more advantageous line of sight, did the officers attempt to get the crouchers out from behind the car, or did they just start their attack with no real idea who they were dealing with.

Regardless of the environment in NO at the time, basic identifying tactics should have been tried before any assault. The fact that worse things happened in NO at the time is irrelevant, and should even have served to make the officers more insistent on identifying the threat level.

All considerations aside, if this went down as stated, and the officers killed an unarmed civilian, they can look forward to a long visit to the local prison. Shooting an unarmed handicapped civilian is no big challenge.. any thug can do that. Police are supposed to, under ALL circumstances, be more professional, more careful of their power than that.
 
When you put cops, who are civilians, in what amounts to a war zone, without proper training, this is what you get. Honestly if the same thing happened in Iraq is would be treated as an accident (well, maybe not by the media...), no charges filed. How can cops be held to a higher standard, in a worse situation, with less training?
 
Being from New Orleans, I've been watching this one closely. It's really hard to say what really happened. Both sides seem to be covering up something.

For instance, the media and D.A. Eddie Jordan's office was saying that the autopsy report shows that the victim who the cops say they only shot once has seven bullet holes in his back. The attorneys for the cops say that the seven holes are from 00-buck out of a shotgun.

It's totally possible that those people were armed and that their guns just weren't recovered. I find it strange, though, that those officers were responding to a shots fired and an officer down call, but there were no officers down when they got there.

It's a big mess. It's probably just a big political stunt.
 
If cops are civilians then why are they allowed CCW priveleges we are not?
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I don't know what them being civilians has to do with it, military members do not get CCW privileges. Actually that should read, are not, along with every other citizen, allowed to exercise their constitution right to bear arms. But that's not really relevent to this.

U.S. Marines charged with Haditha murders.
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I'm not sure how you can compare the two cases. Those Marines systematically executed over 300 people, according to you article: "One woman…was bending over her child, pleading for mercy, and they shot her in cold blood." That's not exactly the same thing as being in a combat situation and firing without identifying your target.

Maybe you could use some non-red herring arguments to make your point?
 
Old Bill,

I'm sorry to have to rain on your thread. But it seems we have some people who are hell-bent to make any thread that deals with the police, just another cop-bashing thread.

Haterade, you have mail.
 
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