peace,
Jim Davis Ozark Bioregion, USA
http://stores.lulu.com/store.php?fAcctID=141735 http://www.amazon.com/Shia-Imami-Ismaili-Muslims-Introduction/dp/1430315628/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218913605&sr=8-2
--- On Mon, 10/6/08, Mitchel Cohen <mitchelcohen at mindspring.com> wrote:
> From: Mitchel Cohen <mitchelcohen at mindspring.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Report on killings during Katrina in New Orleans
> To: mitchelcohen at mindspring.com
> Date: Monday, October 6, 2008, 1:41 PM
> A while back, I was asked to produce evidence of killings by
> official
> personnel in New Orleans, which I mentioned in my article,
> "People of
> the Dome."
>
> As Cynthia McKinney has recently referred to these
> killings, more and
> more reports are becoming public, now. It would be great if
> Pacifica
> and other Indy journalists would follow-up. A friend who
> lives in New
> Orleans, Les Evenchick, has been compiling these stories.
> Here's what
> he has just written to me:
>
> --------------------------------
> From Les Evenchick, Oct. 6, 2008
>
> I have been talking and writing about killings since I
> returned from
> New York after Katrina in Nov 2005.
>
> When i first returned friends started to tell me stories
> about both
> individual and mass killings. I then started asking people
> I met if
> they had heard about any killings.
>
> Over the past 3 years, i have heard about 3 dozen stories
> from
> individuals who do not know each other and in the majority
> of cases
> supported the killings.
>
> I ran for city council and publicly raised the issue by
> calling for
> an investigation of the shootings of innocent people post
> Katrina.
>
> I received zero media coverage concerning this but several
> more
> persons contacted me during the campaign with additional
> stories.
>
> Here are a few of the stories I heard.
>
> 1. A medical officer I met said he worked at the St Gabriel
> Parish
> Prison morgue and said he saw 89 bodies that had been shot.
>
> 2. A former head of the local ACLU said while helping the
> police in 2
> districts he heard reports of about 100 persons killed by
> Navy Seals.
> He supported the killings.
>
> 3. A friend of a New Orleans police officer reported that
> her friend
> told her that he had been involved in a killing of 68
> persons. He
> said they had orders to "shoot anyone with a gun and
> everyone around them".
>
> The officer was reported as saying that the bodies were put
> in body
> bags and loaded onto trucks.
>
> 4. A person came up to me on the street and said he
> recognized me
> from my election campaign. He said that he met a Green
> Beret in
> Tangipahoa Parish who was head of all the paramilitaries.
> He was
> reported as saying that he(the Green Beret) had seen 4
> truckloads of
> bodies that had been shot.
>
> 5. A state police officer told another friend of mine that
> over 500
> persons were shot and killed in the New Orleans area. I had
> met that
> officer and was present when the statement took place but
> was too far
> away to hear it directly.
>
> 6. A musician told me that a national guard officer friend
> of his
> said that about 1000 persons were killed by the US airborne
> in the
> Woodmere subdivision after several days of battles with
> other
> military and police forces. The bodies were reported to
> have been
> placed in body bags and loaded onto trucks. The musician
> told me he
> supported the killings. (This is in the area where it was
> reported in
> the press that a local police station was taken over by
> locals).
>
> 7. I was told by another person that bodies were dropped to
> the
> bottom of the Mississippi or burned. This person also
> supported the killings.
>
> 8. I talked with a cab driver from Algiers who said he
> helped the
> local police and heard daily reports from them about
> persons they killed.
>
> 9. A person working at a local bar where prostitutes work
> out of told
> me that national guard members had told him that they did
> things that
> they would "have to take to their graves." The
> same person told me
> about an incident where 17 persons took over a fire truck
> and tried
> to leave the city but were all killed. He also supported
> the killings.
>
> 10. I heard several reports of police vigilante killings
> directed
> against 'criminals' the police had scores to settle
> with.
>
> 11. I also had numerous reports of single individuals being
> killed or
> wounded on suspicion of looting, refusing to obey orders,
> talking
> back to national guard officers and the like.
>
> In particular, in one case a women approached a police car
> near the
> convention center to ask for information. As she approached
> the
> officer shot her in the arm without warning. (Told to me by
> a cab
> driver who had the women as a passenger)
>
> Another person (a neighbor of a friend) was killed when he
> did not
> hear an order to stop as he was wading through water to get
> home.
>
> Another person was walking on Poydras St. with his family
> escaping
> from flooding when he saw a police car. He tried to flag
> down the
> police car by stepping out in the street and waving him
> down. The
> police officer just ran him down and killed him in front of
> his
> family and kept going. (This report I found on the
> internet)
>
> Also I found other persons' reports via internet
> searches who
> reported burnings of bodies at one of the Army forts in
> Mississippi.
>
> The above is just what I remember offhand.
>
> I originally left New Orleans on the Friday after Katrina
> because all
> I heard starting Thursday morning, first from Bush and then
> from
> Blanco and Nagin, was "shoot to kill" on
> "suspicion". I did want to
> be shot on suspicion so I tried to figure out a way to get
> out.
>
> I had heard lots of automatic gun fire from my apt on both
> Tuesday
> and Thursday nights.
>
> I was able to leave thanks to a former employer who was
> able to get
> his truck out of a flooded garage. We had to go past 2
> roadblocks to
> get out of the city. We were held at gunpoint by a large
> number of
> police/military and our driver interrogated for some 10
> minutes
> before we were allowed to pass.
>
> Local police had warned me and a friend on Thursday to get
> out of
> town by any means possible even if we had to hot wire a
> car.
>
> There have been local media reports that when the Army came
> it, its
> leader went to the police chief (Eddie Compass) and asked
> him where
> the 'hot spots' were and said his forces would
> "take care" of them.
>
> I personally saw state police on flatbed trucks heavily
> armed and
> looking scared. I kept my distance. I was also searched at
> the point
> of a huge hand held weapon that i had never seen before on
> the Thurs
> before I left.
>
> The only Blackwater persons I saw were security guards at
> FEMA
> locations after I returned to New Orleans. I received no
> reports of
> Blackwater personnel killing anyone. Reports of killing
> always
> involved local police, national guard, state police, Army,
> and Navy personnel.
>
> The Army Times had an article just after Katrina that
> referred to
> what was going on as an "insurgency".
>
> The only radio station broadcasting into New Orleans was
> WWL which
> had been taken over by FEMA.
>
> They promoted the idea that criminal gangs were taking over
> the city.
> They claimed armories were being raided. In one incident
> where a fire
> broke out in a chemical tank car (I could see the plume of
> smoke from
> my window), WWL was claiming that gangs were setting fores
> all over the city.
>
> I live in a third floor apt with an unrestricted view of
> most of the
> city and would have seen smoke from such fires if they
> existed.
>
> It seemed to me that FEMA created the fear among the
> national guard
> and other forces from outside the city that led to many
> killings on
> "suspicion".
>
> Food and water was withheld from those of us trapped in the
> city. Tap
> water was turned off by the Governor (Blanco) on Tuesday
> morning
> after the storm even though the water system was not shown
> to pose
> any problems.
>
> We were continually told to evacuate but no means was given
> to
> evacuate if you did not own a car or have a friend who did.
>
> Tourists were kicked out of their hotels with no
> alternative places
> to stay until they were told to go to the Convention center
> on
> Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon.
>
> I also heard reports from several persons who were in the
> Superdome.
> At one point the doors were locked and no one allowed to
> leave. One
> person reported to me that a group tried to break out and
> were shot
> by national guard members. Whether any were killed i
> don't know.
>
> My own opinion is that I doubt most shot and killed persons
> were
> dumped in swamps. It is more likely the bodies were
> systematically
> burned after being carried by trucks in body bags to
> military
> controlled locations.
>
> It is unlikely that most of those killed were prisoners
> from jails. I
> have had zero reports of such killings
>
> But persons did die in the Orleans Parish prison due to
> flooding. I
> met a man whose wife was told by a prison official that her
> cousin
> drowned in prison.
>
> I also met a women former prisoner who said she saw bodies
> floating
> when she was rescued by persons sent from Angola prison to
> which she
> was transferred.
>
> What actually happened needs a full investigation, that is
> clear, but
> I suspect it will be years before the truth comes out.
>
> Remember, during the Nazi mass murders, most knew nothing
> about them
> till the Nazi's were defeated.
>
> - Les
>
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