Orleans Parish DA on Racial Stereotyping, Police Looting and Private Military Contractors

Last week a flurry of news reports came out showing that earlier news reports of multiple murders and criminal mayhem in the days after Katrina hit, were exaggerated and may have hampered rescue efforts in New Orleans. Gruesome rumors of killings and rapes at the Superdome and the Convention Center and reports of roving gangs looting and terrorizing tourists, flew in the chaos of those first days. Local officials like Mayor Ray Nagin and the former Police

Commissioner Eddie Compass repeated those rumors to television news outlets, while Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco instituted a shoot-to-kill policy. All of this seemed to confirm these reports. As it turns out the Coroner's office, which, has conducted autopsies on the 650 bodies recovered in the city so far, has only seen seven victims of gun shot wounds. And Nagin and the police department have admitted that they were repeating unsubstantiated information.

* Eddie Jordan, District Attorney of Orleans Parish. He is the first African-American D.A in New Orleans.

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