top
US
US
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

New Orleans police ordered to stop saving lives and start saving property

by wsws (reposted)
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered nearly the entire active police force in the flood-ravaged city to abandon rescue operations Wednesday night and focus on efforts to halt looting. The decision came in response to mounting pressure from sensationalized media coverage which is increasingly placing emphasis on the property damage done by looters, suggesting that it has become nearly as significant a social problem as the virtual destruction of the city by Hurricane Katrina.
Nagin said that looters “are starting to get closer to heavily populated areas—hotels, hospitals, and we’re going to stop it right now.” He assigned 1,500 police to anti-looting duty. The Associated Press reported, “The number of officers called off the search-and-rescue mission amounts to virtually the entire police force in New Orleans.”

The order came only hours after Nagin warned that the death toll in New Orleans might rise to the “thousands” once the bodies of those trapped in their homes by the flood waters begin to be recovered. Thousands of people have been rescued from rooftops and attics over the past two days, but efforts to save other survivors will be drastically curtailed as a result of the new focus on saving property.

Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco said she would order National Guardsmen redeployed to stop looters as soon as federal emergency personnel were on scene to take over evacuations and rescues. “We will restore law and order,” the Democratic governor declared. “What angers me the most is that disasters like this often bring out the worst in people. I will not tolerate this kind of behavior.”

The media focus on the looting escalated throughout Wednesday, with the cable television networks, in particular, broadcasting and rebroadcasting the same footage of looters, mainly young black people, emerging from flood-damaged stores, goods in hand.

There is a definite social significance to such coverage, which grossly distorts the reality of the worst natural disaster in American history. It demonstrates that under the profit system, private property counts for far more than human life.

The sensationalized press coverage has an obvious political purpose: to demonize the victims of Hurricane Katrina and whip up the basest sentiments, including racism. In this way, the media helps justify the policy already decided on by the American ruling class and the Bush administration—to carry out only the most perfunctory recovery efforts and leave the vast majority of working class victims of the catastrophe to fend for themselves.

It is noteworthy that only 12 hours before he ordered the police mobilization, Mayor Nagin brusquely rejected a question about looting from Matt Lauer, host of NBC’s Today program, telling him the media was grossly exaggerating the significance of a relative handful of people taking television sets and other electronic goods. The bulk of the “theft,” he pointed out, was desperate people taking food, bottled water and clothing to meet their immediate needs.

In a subsequent press interview, Nagin said, “It’s really difficult because my opinion of the looting is it started with people running out of food, and you can’t really argue with that too much. Then it escalated to this kind of mass chaos where people are taking electronic stuff and all that.”

A report in Wednesday’s New York Times confirmed this account, describing the scene at the Super Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, where dozens of people were taking goods from the store with the tacit consent of both the store management and local police and firefighters. The store initially opened its doors to supply food to the rescue workers, but was then invaded by local residents, most of them in search of food and clothing.

One woman, accompanied by her teenage daughter, told the Times, “Ain’t nobody stealing anything. They said, ‘Take what you need,’ because the levee is a-busting. It’s about to flood and everything is going to be ruined anyway.” A young man told the newspaper, “We need clothes and food. The police are letting everybody go in and get what they need. They’re not letting you get TV’s and stuff, but the people are overpowering them.”

Read More
http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/loot-s01.shtml
Add Your Comments

Comments (Hide Comments)
by deanosor (deanosor [at] comcast.net)
Take What You Need. Ain't Nobody Steaing Anything.

Or to quote an early anarchist. Property is Robbery.
by pooter
i've been following the hurricane coverage, and i do think the corporate media started off focusing far too much on the looting (coverage of people stealing beer, etc.) i saw fox news interviewing the Louisiana attorney general, who basically said that, hello, people are dying, we need to focus on search and rescue, not people stealing food and water.

HOWEVER, it appears to me that the looting has turned into scary stuff like armed gangs roaming the streets (no, i'm not talking about the cops and national guard here), breaking into homes and apt. buildings (currently occupied by trapped people), shooting people, carjacking (including carjacking trucks of supplies going to hospitals), etc.

see http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001053452

i'm pretty disgusted by all this. and the idea of people stealing dvds and make-up (also reported in the times-picayune) while people are drowning and dying of dehydration? what kind of world is this? (well, that's obvious - a fucked-up one with little regard for life, from the ruling class on down to the bottom.) i feel like i sound really right-wing here, but talk about a moral breakdown.

anyway, i'm really sad for new orleans, for the people of new orleans, for everyone suffering right now. (and in the other areas of the gulf coast affected). it's really, really bad.
by tkat
"Or to quote an early anarchist. Property is Robbery."

Um, yeah that is what is going on. If it was just food or stuff, I doubt most people would care. But groups of armed people trying to access hospitals and stealing aid from trucks delivering it to other hospitals, is no type of anarchist principal. Perhaps the thugs are experiencing a post civilization savage revelation where you can do whatever you want without regard for other people, isn't that also what some people would say is anarchy?, horray for individualism. I have been reading blogs about people seeing 12 year olds dead of bullet wounds. NO has always been known as a very violent city, across race and class lines with a corrupt police force to boot.
If you or other leftish want to herald thugish behavior as a rebellion cause police and rescue workers are being shot or shot at, go ahead and distance yourself even furthur from humanity. Where is your compassion.
by Aaron Aarons
Certainly, people shouldn't let issues of "property rights" prevent them from taking what they need. As for taking things from stores or abandoned homes that aren't useful now, who cares?

On the other hand, it is part of the sickness of United Snakes individualism and social cleavages based on race and class that people and groups may be fighting each other for necessities rather than cooperating. But why the hell the U.S. military han't been able to at least airdrop or otherwise bring in adequate supplies of food and water, as well as inflatable boats and life jackets is mind-boggling!

Cuba was hit a few months ago by an extremely powerful hurricane that cut across the island and did enormous physical damage. But the total number of dead was, IIRC, 10!

While a certain number of desperate people in New Orleans may be engaging in anti-social behavior, don't let it distract us from the really dangerous criminals -- the capitalist bloodsuckers who run this country!
by yezbok drahcir
New Orleans disaster this year could have been averted by the actions of yesteryear, if those accountable had accepted the responsibility to reinforce the city upon warning. So once again neglect causes chaos. It seems a bunch of bumbling fools are at the helm of administration.

Just like Pat Robertson tests the microphone to demonstrate what pseudo-Christian politicians can get away with saying, this disaster demonstrates what elected leaders can get away with neglecting.
by bay area leftists
"While a certain number of desperate people in New Orleans may be engaging in anti-social behavior, don't let it distract us from the really dangerous criminals -- the capitalist bloodsuckers who run this country! "
by Bob
The threat is not the looting, but the violence that comes with it. A number of people are being assualted and murdered in the city by people that feel empowered to do whatever they feel like. That's why rescue operations are slowing.

Title Misleading - Can't Perform Rescue Ops While Being Shot At
Resuce Operations did not halt until Coast Guard chopper at Charity Hospital began taking hostile fire. Even if Mayor Nagel had not halted Rescue Operations, they had no choice. Can't fire back into a civilian population.
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network