Police Arrest Public Housing Activists in New Orleans, Federal Officials Try to Silence Attorney for Low-Income Residents

New Orleans police raided the Saint Bernard housing project this morning where activists had been occupying a building to prevent government plans to demolish it. Two people were arrested. Last summer, federal housing officials announced plans to demolish four large public housing developments even though tens of thousands of low-income New Orleans residents remain displaced. The move sparked one of the most intense struggles in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Just before the program we received a call from one of the two activists arrested this morning. Jamie “Bork” Loughner spoke to us from Orelans Parish Prison. She described what happened.

* New Orleans activist Jamie “Bork” Loughner, speaking from Orleans Parish Prison.

Well the battle over the future of public housing in New Orleans recently took an unexpected turn. A few days ago the Housing Authority of New Orleans sent a letter to one of the lead lawyers for the residents asking him to stop speaking to the media and to remove statements he made that appear in several online videos. The letter accused attorney Bill Quigley of making “prejudicial extrajudicial statements to the press and others.” The New Orleans Housing Authority also threatened to haul Quigley in front of the state’s Bar Association’s disciplinary board if he did not agree to stop discussing the case.

Bill Quigley joins me now from New Orleans. He is a law professor at Loyola University. We invited the New Orleans Housing Authority on the program. They did not respond to our request.

* Bill Quigley. Law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, also the director of the Law Clinic and Gillis Long Poverty Law Center at Loyola University.

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