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Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans
excerpts from a report by Rogers Cadenhead. September 9, 2005
As the situation grew worse in New Orleans last week, any crowd that tried to leave on foot was met by suburban police, some of whom fired guns to disperse the group and seized their water.
Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans after the storm banded together for self-preservation, making sure the oldest and youngest among them were taken care of before looking after their own needs.
They camped out beside a police command center on Canal Street, believing it was the best place to get aid, protection, and information. They were told they could not stay there and should leave the city on foot over Highway 90, which crosses the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the suburb of Gretna, a city of 17,500 people.
Running out of food and water, they walked to the bridge, growing in number to around 800 people as word spread of a safe way out:
excerpts from a report by Rogers Cadenhead. September 9, 2005
As the situation grew worse in New Orleans last week, any crowd that tried to leave on foot was met by suburban police, some of whom fired guns to disperse the group and seized their water.
Around 500 people stuck in downtown New Orleans after the storm banded together for self-preservation, making sure the oldest and youngest among them were taken care of before looking after their own needs.
They camped out beside a police command center on Canal Street, believing it was the best place to get aid, protection, and information. They were told they could not stay there and should leave the city on foot over Highway 90, which crosses the Mississippi River from New Orleans to the suburb of Gretna, a city of 17,500 people.
Running out of food and water, they walked to the bridge, growing in number to around 800 people as word spread of a safe way out:
As we approached the bridge, armed Gretna sheriffs formed a line across the foot of the bridge. Before we were close enough to speak, they began firing their weapons over our heads. This sent the crowd fleeing in various directions. As the crowd scattered and dissipated, a few of us inched forward and managed to engage some of the sheriffs in conversation. We told them of our conversation with the police commander and of the commander's assurances. The sheriffs informed us there were no buses waiting. The commander had lied to us to get us to move.You have been reading excerpts from "Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans" by Rogers Cadenhead. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/a84oo. Thanks to Rogers Cadenhead at cadenhead.org.
We questioned why we couldn't cross the bridge anyway, especially as there was little traffic on the 6-lane highway. They responded that the West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and there would be no Superdomes in their City.
