No. This is not Hallowe’en night masking on New Year’s Eve.
Several people have spoken of this phenomenon, most notably former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia on an episode of Bill Maher’s Real Time. Smoke and Mirrors pointed this out thusly on October 17:
It’s reported that there is a warehouse of bodies recovered, after being delivered at Charity Hospital in New Orleans with bullets to the back of their heads. The discovery has lead to former Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff Foti – mentioned in these pages in past articles – who is now Attorney General of the State of Louisiana, asking for an independent investigation.
Well, now the curtain is rising on those 21 bodies. And wouldn’t you know that only some backwater newspapers are reporting it via the Associated Press?
Not WaPo, not the San Francisco Chronicle, the Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times.
From unexplained gunshot wounds to stabbings and fatal blows to the head, these unidentified victims are now the main characters in a real-life version of “CSI.”
[…]
With evidence that’s washed away, witnesses who fled the state and overworked police, at least one official says the mysteries may never be solved.
“We don’t know if they are suicide or murder or accident,” says New Orleans coroner Dr. Frank Minyard.
And many of the bodies were so badly decomposed and compromised that there was no blood or organs extant.
Out of the over 1,000 corpses in the St. Gabriel mortuary, if coroners found anything that looked remotely suspicious–a bullet lodged near a bone or a deep wound that looked as if it was made with a knife–they notified the police and the district attorney’s office.
New Orleans police spokesperson Captain Juan Quinton denied that there was any appreciable back log of unexplained deaths and refused to discuss the details of any ongoing investigation. However, the Orleans Parish DA is investigating four murders that occurred after the hurricane: one at the Dome, one at the Convention Center and two that took place on the street.
I cannot believe that there are only four official deaths to investigate, just as there are only four reported rapes recorded in contrast to the dozens of rapes that were said to have occurred throughout New Orleans. I know, however, that what has given some Katrina survivors flashbacks and nightmares–and possibly an adamant refusal to return–have been their witnessing random acts of violence, not just the losses of life by flooding. Violence not only perpetrated by civilians but by the very police, either in uniform or in plain clothes, that were supposed to protect them from harm in the days following the hurricane and during the flooding.
Included in the morgue’s mysterious 21 – but not among the four on the DA’s homicide list – are the police-shooting deaths of two men in September. Police say the two opened fire on contractors traveling across the Danzinger Bridge on their way to make repairs. The family of one of the dead disputes the men shot at anyone, and Jordan’s office is investigating.
In late October, a prominent forensic pathologist, Dr. Cyril Wecht, coroner of Pittsburgh, PA, came to assist Minyard with 30 Katrina-related autopsies, including one involving a shooting death. Wecht too could not rule whether the deaths were accidental or intentional. The coroners could only make sure that each victim had pieces of their leg bones removed for DNA analysis for final identification.
And Louis Cataldie, the state medical examiner, said in another story yesterday that a precise casualty count of hurricane and flooding victims might never be known. So far, there are 1,100 dead statewide, with some 6,000 unaccounted for.
I suspect that we might never get the full truth about all the death and negligence associated with Katrina. What a horrible stain on our country and a horrible burden for the survivors.
When are we going to start referring to those missing 6000 as “presumed dead”? It’s been four months, and a number of agencies have worked very hard during that time to reconnect family members who were separated in the chaos. A small portion of those 6000 may be people who took advantage of the disaster to voluntarily disappear, but almost certainly the vast majority are dead. This means the death toll from Katrina is around 7000, a number that the media and government appear to be trying very hard to keep very quiet. It’s more than twice the number we lost on 9/11, which, you may remember, “changed everything.”
“Katrina” that usually I cannot post reply. Rage boils up inside of me.
yes
When are we going to start referring to those missing 6000 as “presumed dead”?
It’s probably a larger number than 6000. I mean missing people have to have someone, usually a family member, to report them missing and that would not be true of all sorts of marginalized people. As just one example, what do you suppose happened to the homeless population of NO?
That said, it’s obvious that the same governments (on all levels and both political parties) which so shamefully failed to fulfill it’s most basic functions is now focused on and concentrating on making sure that the full story is never know. The spin appears to be that what we saw on our TV screens (which is, after all, only a small portion of the immensity of the devastation) was a ‘myth’. Meanwhile I was watching a forum on Katrina coverage and photojournalism on C-Span yesterday and the participants admitted that they did not publish most of the photos, the worst ones.
It’s like the photos from Abu Grahib, we’ve only seen the least damaging ones.
When are we going to start referring to those missing 6000 as “presumed dead”?
Not before January 20, 2009, unless we get lucky, I’m afraid… 🙁
Perhaps that could account for a rash of suicide by bullet to the back of the head.
I keep thinking that I could do more- but when the money goes-I have No Idea where it goes-I still think we are a re a very generous bunch- -but I have not clue one where the $ goes- I do know that there are people there who are doing selfless work-but when I offered my house to refugees- there were no takers- good grief- it was FREE-We had it paid off- there was no answer- I do understand that people want to go home-rather than to VA-
but a home is a home .A place to lay your head down.
I’ll hazard a guess. Whoever heard about it probably didn’t believe it was a true offer. My state’s newspapers often have stories of people with “big hearts”, willing to help others in an emergency. I’d bet many city dwellers are somewhat more unfamiliar with that possibility.
I’ve lived in areas (N CA, to name one)where folks seemed to have some suspicion with regards to an offer of good will. For example: the cultural milieu here in ND, within which I live; this sort of suspicion is much less likely. We generally have an overwhelming tendency to take things at face value, unless, or until observations warrant otherwise.
There are still people who could use it. Try contacting Common Ground.
when I arrived back in New Orleans, 3 weeks after Katrina, was an African American man from the Treme area. The Treme is right outside of the French Quarter, and one of the oldest African American neighborhoods in the country.
This man, who stayed behind for the storm, said that when Rita threatened, and Nagin gave the order to get out of the city, a bus drove into Treme with a truck load of cops; he assumed they were NOPD.
They ordered everyone in the neighborhood onto the bus at gun point. One man refused to go, and began arguing with the cops. The cops shot him, and drove off with his body.
This man doesn’t know who was shot, or what happened to him.
There were police killings of citizens before the storm, murderous and illegal. Assume that there were killings during the storm as well.
get onto the bus at gunpoint?
“Evacuated”.
prison? heaven?
they were forced out of the city at gun point, exactly as I said. I believe the man I spoke to said he wound up in Baton Rouge. I have no idea what happened to the other men, because I didn’t speak to them.
has been allowed access to the kidnap victims being held in the forced labor camp formerly known as the New Orleans jail.
Many of the thousands of missing cleansees will have perished, but some of the “don’t know what happened to thems” may be alive, even if barely so.
I’ve wanted to dig into, but…no time. I focused on one issue here, hoping to do that well, and so far…we’ve had some success. I intend to write on this and share the good news that the lumbering system known as public housing in New Orleans is beginning ro reopen, in no small measure due to the tenacity of residents and activists.
I’m beginning to turn my attention to low-income home owners, particularly from the lower ninth, who I believe are deserving of grants to help them to rebuild in this very man-made disaster.
The issue concerning the prison here is in sore need of attention. During a recent town hall meeting here, a woman questioned Nagin about OPP. I wish I had caught her name, I was watching it on TV, because apparently there are people concerned, and active. We just need more of them. But so does every community, no?
to address the mountain of critical and urgent issues there.
Is there a program (preferably a local, grass roots one) that people can donate to?
I’m not sure if rebuilding is exactly up Habitat for Humanity’s alley, maybe there is a wealthy celebrity who could be recruited to spearhead such an effort?
And yes, this is one of those no good answers situations, it is not at all certain that even the air down there is safe to breathe.
Michael Moore continues to do updates and articles on Katrina on his website. I know he spent quite a bit of time their helping direct some relief efforts and getting generators and such to people. I don’t know if he still has an active donation site. If I was going to trust anyone with money for Katrina he would be one of the people I would. I have also read he may be doing a documentary on Katrina after he finishes his one one the insurance/health industry.
People’s Hurricane Relief Fund
and
Commonground
I wondered if they might be branching out into some rebuilding efforts, they have been doing just everything!
I’m not sure about actual rebuilding, but they are helping with gutting, and, they have a community center set up in the ninth ward, and another on St. Claude Ave in the 9th…they’ve been a steady presence since the storm, and have done wonderful work.
The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund is run by evacuees.
This is a bit tangential to what you are concerned with, but I was underwhelmed at the continual statements about buildings in the 9th ward being unsalvageable in any form – rotted to the core, etc.
It is certainly true that the housing stock there was not in great shape as a whole before the flooding. However, the wood of the oldest houses is often cypress heartwood, built from old growth cypress trees. Cypress heartwood is that most valuable of wood – practically indestructible, tougher in water than teak. Termites, also a big problem in NOLA, do not like cypress heartwood, but they love most other kinds of wood which are commonly used in buildings today. Quite a number of those houses could be repaired, rebuilt, refurbished, etc. and be better built than newer construction.
Wealthy developers, including Canizaro and Kabacoff, were placed at the head of Mayor Nagin’s bring back New Orleans Commission.
I have a theory as to why they are pushing so hard, so fast, to “shrink” neighborhoods. This will inflate the value of those areas not flooded or with minimal flooding, and they will profit imensely. There is also an effort afoot to cleanse the city of it working poor, because in their vision of a 21st century New Orleans, there is little space for the working poor.
Canizaro and Kabacoff never saw a public housing development that they didn’t want to destroy and build condos in its place. They are responsible for the destruciton of St. Thomas, and had their hearts set on Iberville, which is downtown.
However, residents and activists did not roll over and cede a single development since the storm. I think people will put up a fight for the lower ninth.
I keep thinking of one of my students this past term. She was a Detroit cop, laid off in the recent budget crisis of our city. Somehow she got an offer to come to NO for 2-3 weeks as a cop “temp”, in the middle of the term. Apparently this is one of the ways they are dealing with the shortage of police there post-Katrina. She was a strong student, broke, so I encouraged her to go).
When she returned, she wouldn’t talk about her experience except to say that she had had to draw and fire her weapon more in 2 weeks in NO than in her 3+ years in arguably the toughest precinct in Detroit. She is one tough young woman; not easily rattled in my opinion, and she was clearly upset.
I’ve been meaning for a while to post and say just how much I admire your incredibly dedicated and insightful diaries on New Orleans and Katrina. Your writing and coverage of so many different aspects, and so eloquently documenting the (IMNSHO) undeniable race-based implications of the whole terrible tragedy is simply exceptional.
I strongly urge you to consider, if you haven’t already, putting these together as a book and finding a publisher. This is work that deserves to be seen not just in sequential diaries, but brought together as a whole for as wide an audience as possible.
bravo.
I’m writing a literary novel right now, and the nonfiction work I have in mind has nothing to do with Katrina.
Most of my diaries, however, are based on news stories, and are liberally taken from these stories. That’s why you see the little golden squares around some relevant paragraphs. They’re not completely my work. My analyses are usually short and sweet. To write a book about and to take credit for articles that were written by others is, in a word, plagiarism. It would not make a good book.
But thanks. I am happy to know that people are getting a lot out of seeing these articles that the MSM usually buries, including post-Katrina stories.
Pax.
Hmm, rather interesting reply. I think you’re selling yourself short – it’s not like I don’t notice the little yellow boxes! A media-based anaylsis would be quite legitimate, and I think you’ve rather underestimated the level of analysis you have brought overall, and could flesh out.
But, whatever. 🙂 good luck with the novel and other work.