Property over life?

Apparently property trumps life in Gretna.  How shameful.  Gretna could never look like New Orleans.  Not much charm spread around there.  I grew up in NO, but I have not lived there for over 40 years.  I remember Gretna as a lower middle-class area inhabited by mostly white folks.  I really don't know what it is like now, but that behavior by the sheriffs is unconscionable.

Except for the fact that Bush intentionally left tens of thousands of human beings to suffer and die in the most horrible conditions imaginable, this is the single most disgusting act in a week of dispicable acts.

I for one will never spend a dime in Gretna, La.

Let them know how you feel:

Headquarters  (504) 366-4374  (Not for emergencies)

Sick Bastards.......

This appears to be a clearcut violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 241:
"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or

* * *    

"They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section * * * they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death."

One obvious right of which the refugees were deprived is the constitutional right to travel. I'm sure there are other rights conferred by federal statutes and constitutional provisions, since the bridge and highways were built at least in part with federal funds.

This is serious stuff. The sheriff might very well have caused death by his actions. There is no "emergency" exemption for turning back refugees on the public roads.

From a policy perspective what's most appalling is that the sherrif of Gretna was allowed to make this criminal decision and then enforce it for nearly a week!  This is EXACTLY the sort of situation that FEMA and DHS were created to keep from happening.  

This guy illegally deployed men on a bridge who for days kept tens of thousands of people trapped without food and water.  And the people who were supposed to be managing this disaster not only let him do it, but they allowed the conditions that made this sort of showdown inevitable to fester for nearly a week!  

Preventing shit like that is why we declare a disaster area and we have disaster planning.  This is why we have a goddamned federal agency of about 200,000 people at DHS--so the people running the show are experienced experts who have the experience and resources to solve problems and save lives while protecting property and infrastructure, not racist southern sherrifs who even if they wanted to, don't have the resources to help tens of thousands of desperate Americans.

I mean, what the hell?  People shouldn't have been festering at the squalid Superdome without food and water for days!  We're shocked that there was a showdown between desperate people who were literally dying of thirst and hunger and the people who were in pretty bad straits but who had some food and water?  

Hi, this is crisis planning 101--if you don't make sure people have what they need, they will not quietly sit and watch their children die, they will do something desperate to get it.  And racist southern sherrifs who do not have the resources or the ability (or, perhaps even the inclination) to feed them will say, "screw this, I've got to protect the people I CAN help and that I'm responsible for, the people of my town who still have food and water and shelter."

FEMA's job is to make sure it doesn't come to showdowns on bridges, that we're getting people what they need and we're getting them outta there and to safety.  It's their job to, um, READ THEIR OWN REPORTS that predicted EXACTLY this problem and figure out how to solve it and then, um, SOLVE IT!    

FEMA had what Gretna didn't have--the resources to get these people fed and taken to a safe place.  FEMA failed to do it, and then they failed to keep the Sherrif of Gretna from apocalyptic fantasies and choosing "his people" over "those people."  

What happened on that bridge is horrible, but entirely expected and it would have been prevented with federal leadership and competence.

I hope that "little incident" won't be forgotten because it was by no means, a little incident.  It might well have been the greatest civil rights tragedy of the modern era.  It was disgusting to read about and dissapointing, too, as I thought we were beyond that sort of thing.

It's jsut so sad.  Honestly, of all the "trying to be prophetic sci-fi" out there, I never would have fingered "Escape From New York" as likely to come true.  It's so dissapointing.  I don't have a better word.  I'm dissapointed.

Honestly, of all the "trying to be prophetic sci-fi" out there, I never would have fingered "Escape From New York" as likely to come true.

I would have never guessed when I first saw that movie that it would end up being art imitating life...For me it is disappointing too destor, but even more so scary...

The people that got through before the bridge was closed were taken to a shelter in buses that the Sherriff “commandeered.” Why didn’t they use those buses to transport the others past their precious little town to the shelter?

Im not defending the people of Gretna, but there is the possibility that word may have gotten out about the criminal behavior by some of the blacks in the Superdome, specifically the rapes that appeared to be targeted against White women. An account by a British White man confirmed these reports. I could see why they'd be concerned about allowing them to run rampant their town. Though they should have found a better solution, i guess. Looks like people on both sides are guilty in this mess.

I'm NOT defending the people of Gretna. I'm just saying that there's blame to be placed all around. And those "race-based" allegations are NOT unsubstantiated. Check out this link -http://www.cnn.com/video/partners/clickability/index.html?url=/vi
deo/us/2005/09/08/davies.katrina.diary.itv.affl
White people WERE being targeted. So if people are so quick to condemn the people of Gretna, shouldn't we be condemning the racists at the Superdome as well?

As do we all, Kevin Drum wonders what authority the Gretna City PD and Jefferson Parish SD had in keeping people from walking across the Crescent City Bridge.

If this map is accurate, I'm wondering what authority they had to be anywhere on the bridge other than that small triangle at the West Bank.  Maybe, in consideration of an undefended evacuated city in an emergency, the local constabulary could have denied pedestrians (especially, non-residents) the right to leave Rte 90 and enter Gretna and Jefferson.

But Rte 90 crosses the river, spends a couple hundred yards in Jefferson Parish, and then, leads back into Orleans Parish, the people's own home parish, doesn't it? 

Reading Ann-Marie Slaughter's post about the Texas Republican Party's 200 Platform saying that emergency response should be in the hands of local volunteers (ie, we should do away with FEMA, it is the problem, everything should be handled locally, mostly by volunteers) I think it is a logical conclusion that we would have Gretna's all over the place if we followed Republican policy recommendations.  But perhaps they see nothing wrong with that -- has anyone seen any comments on this in the right wing blogosphere?  Maybe Gretna is the right wing ideal of how emergency managment should be handled?

Moreover the sherrif was actually impeding a state and federal ordered evacuation. Surely there are legal charges that could be brought against him?

mrkoz,

Just in case your opening sentence; 
"I posted the same thing at washington monthly, but no one paid attention in the rush to accuse southerners of racism."

might be intended to refer to my comments above, I hope you will take note that I haven't accused anyone of racism, not the Gretna Police and not the author of the comment to which I initially responded.

Forget "criminal charges" for a moment, and bring the shame to Grenta's Sherrif that he deserves. Letters to the editor or every news paper and television station in America, stating "The Sherrif of Gretna denied simple drinking water and dry land to people fleeing the flood. This is the most shameful and unamerican act I have ever heard of."  Get a photo of this sheriff and post his face for all to see.  No mention of race required, or even interesting here. This is a man who without humanity, without morals, and without soul and we all need to tell him that.

I don't see this as being about either race (though a quick look at the Gretna Police website shows that at least all the commanders are indeed white) or about protection of property (what property was being threatened?) but about America's abiding anti-urban bias, which of course is strongest among those who live just outside our large cities.

New Orleans more than any other American city puts the lie, by virtue of its history, to the American perception of a clearly binary racial demarcation -- but als, by virtue of its geography, marks more clearly than nearly any other city our fascination with the distinction between "city" and what in the eighteenth century would have been called "country" and for the latter half of the twentieth would have been called "suburbs," but which most Americans, sadly, simply think of today as "normal."

Remember Trent Lott's response when he visited Lower Manhattan shortly after 9/11; Sen Clinton told him that several tens of thousands of people had been displaced from their homes and he asked "where? I don't see any homes here at all?" He had never seen a high-rise appartment building in his life.

<span class="Apple-style-span">Lets put the blinders on, ignore  the corrupt Democrat run cesspool what is Louisiana and say :
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">it all Bush fault, evil Republicans, the corporatins, the capitalist system, the Man, everybody else but the politicians and their administrative cohorts that run the state.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They are keeping me down.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They kept me without food and water.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They made me behave like a barbarian.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They blocked my escape route.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They took away from me any chance of real education.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They forced me to vote for incompetent, self-serving racist, liars and thieves, who now run the cities, parishes, the state of Louisiana and represent it at the federal level.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They forced me to ignore the facts.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">They made to repeat all the nonsense that I am spouting now...
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">BTW.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">That Sherif is a Democrat.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">The Parish President who authorized this policy is a Democrat.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">The state Governor who kept the Red Cross out of New Orleans is a Democrat.
</span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">Blame it on Bush... </span&gt<span class="Apple-style-span">
</span&gt

There's plenty of blame to go around at all levels.

On the flyover photos of the now-flooded New Orleans, I was struck by the appearance of dozens upon dozens of yellow school buses, all set for the new school year, now sitting in some feet of water.

Why weren't these mobilized for evacuation by Hizzoner?

 I have no doubt that when the impecunious refugees from New Orleans have been safely ensconced in far-flung internment camps, much of the poorer sections of New Orleans will have been bulldozed and property siezed for the rebuilding of a safe, clean and white Disney-New Orleans.  The refugees, on the other hand, will be left to fend for themselves.

The MSM will call it a "miracle".