New Orleans’ mayor says a dark chapter of the city’s history has closed with $13.3 million in settlements to relatives of four men killed by police.
They include a man beaten to death in the month before Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans and three men shot in the chaotic days immediately after the storm.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu says he is “intensely sorry” that those slain were looking for people to protect and serve them, and instead got the opposite.
Members of the men’s families said they forgive the city.
The mayor says it took more than 11 years to settle the lawsuits because criminal cases had to be completed first.
Kim Lampkins reports …
In an article which appears in a March 2010 edition of The Economist, ‘A week after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, on September 4th 2005, police shot six civilians as they were crossing a bridge over New Orleans Industrial Canal. The shooting left two dead, and two others seriously wounded. It would be several months after Katrina when a high-ranking, career police officer pleaded guilty to his efforts to cover-up what really happened.
Lieutenant Michael Lohman admitted that he had immediately recognized the Danziger incident as a “bad shoot”, put the moves in motion to cover it up by portraying the incident as a victory over “lawlessness.”
Read the complete article here.
Source: AURN/AP
