Posted on 09/10/2005 7:02:27 PM PDT by TERMINATTOR
NEW ORLEANS -- The Algiers Point militia put away its weapons Friday as Army soldiers patrolled the historic neighborhood across the Mississippi River from the French Quarter.
But the band of neighbors who survived Hurricane Katrina and then fought off looters has not disarmed.
"Pit Bull Will Attack. We Are Here and Have Gun and Will Shoot," said the sign on Alexandra Boza's front porch. Actually, said the woman behind the sign, "I have two pistols."
"I'm a part of the militia," Boza said. "We were taking the law into our own hands, but I didn't kill anyone."
She did quietly open her front door and fire a warning shot one night when she heard a loud group of young men approaching her house.
About a week later, she said, she finally saw a New Orleans police officer on her street and told him she had guns.
"He told me, 'Honey, I don't blame you,' " she said.
The several dozen people who did not evacuate from Algiers Point said that for days after the storm, they did not see any police officers or soldiers but did see gangs of intruders.
So they set up what might be the ultimate neighborhood watch.
At night, the balcony of a beautifully restored Victorian house built in 1871 served as a lookout point.
"I had the right flank," Vinnie Pervel said. Sitting in a white rocking chair on the balcony, his neighbor, Gareth Stubbs, protected the left flank.
They were armed with an arsenal gathered from the neighborhood: a shotgun, pistols, a flare gun and a Vietnam-era AK-47.
They were backed up by Gregg Harris, who lives in the house with Pervel, and Pervel's 74-year-old mother, Jennie, who lives across Pelican Street from her son and is known in Algiers Point as "Miss P."
Many nights, Miss P. had a .38-caliber pistol in one hand and rosary beads in the other.
"Mom was a trouper," Pervel said.
The threat was real.
On the day after Katrina blew through, Pervel was carjacked a couple of blocks from his house. A past president of the Algiers Point Association homeowners group, Pervel was going to houses that had been evacuated and turning off the gas to prevent fires.
A guy with a mallet "hit me in the back of the head," Pervel said. "He said, 'We want your keys.' I said, 'Here, take them.' "
Inside the white Ford van were a portable generator, tools and other hurricane supplies. A hurt and frustrated Pervel threw pliers at the van as it drove off and broke a back window.
Another afternoon, a gunfight broke out on the streets as armed neighbors and armed intruders exchanged fire.
"About 25 rounds were fired," Harris said.
Blood was later found on the street from a wounded intruder.
Not far away, Oakwood Center mall was seriously damaged in a fire caused by vandals.
"We were really afraid of fires. These old houses are so close together that if one was set afire, the whole street would all go up," Harris said. "We lived in terror for a week."
Their house is filled with antique furniture, and there's a well-kept garden and patio in back.
"We've been restoring this house for 20 years," Harris said.
There are gas lamps on the columned porch that stayed on during the storm and its aftermath. The militia rigged car headlights and a car battery on porches of nearby houses. Then they put empty cans beneath trees that had fallen across both ends of the block.
When someone approached in the darkness, "you could hear the cans rattle.
Then we would hit the switch at the battery and light up the street," Pervel said. "We would yell, 'We're going to count three, and if you don't identify yourself, we're going to start shooting.' "
They could hear people fleeing and never fired a shot.
During the days, the hurricane holdouts patrolled the streets protecting their houses and the ones of evacuees.
"I was packing," Robert Johns said. "A .22 magnum with hollow points and an 8 mm Mauser from World War II with armor-piercing shells."
Despite their efforts, some deserted houses in the neighborhood were broken into and looted, Pervel said.
Now the Algiers Point militia has defiantly declared it will not heed any orders for mandatory evacuation. The relatively elevated neighborhood area is across the Mississippi River from the city's worst flooded areas and has running water, gas and phone service.
"They say they're going to drag us kicking and screaming from our houses. For what? To take us to concentration camps where we'll be raped and killed," Ramona Parker said. "This is supposed to be America. We're honest citizens. We're not troublemakers. We pay our taxes."
"It would be cruel for the city to make us evacuate after what we've been through," Pervel said.
The roof was damaged on her house, and the rains left "water up to my ankles," Boza said. So she moved into her mother's home nearby.
She said she still has 42 bullets to expend before she'll be forcibly evacuated.
"Then I hope the men they send to pull me out are 6 feet 2 inches and really cute," she said. "I'll be struggling and flirting at the same time."
an unsung hero capable of the MOST accurate followup shots
Make mine .308...arguably MORE accurate, and who needs a followup shot ;o)
Shotgun Sean - Posterboy for NRA/Second Amendment
Wonder if anyone in the MSM will ask him about packin' heat like that. Naaaah...
Kewl.....thanks for the ping, this is the way the system is supposed to work !
"and who needs a followup shot ;o)"
If you got it , flaunt it.
Armed law-abiding citizens protecting their families and their property. Nothing wrong with that. But I'm sure this story will never make any of the networks.
Thanks for the ping! Great story. Just shows you what armed citizens can do.
Anybody care to guess the probability of the rumors of the levee being blown up is originating FROM the insurance companies?
That looks like the work of owners who aren't even there. Nevertheless, I bet it's effective. Who would want to take a chance on breaking down the door and standing face to face with a woman who is so ugly that even the guy sleeping with her admits it?
As I read it, the 2nd Amendment alludes to the state militia. One can infer an individual right, but it would be hard to enforce against a state government.
WARNING
The occupant of this house has over $50 of ammunition !
A house a block over from ours had a sign in the window that said something to the effect of: The house is guarded with a rifle 4 days out of the week. You guess which four.
I was sure it was from the NRA and I loved it.
You read it wrong.
I'm out of state on a clunky borrowed webtv at 115AM, and about to hit the rack, or I would give you an education.
Damn good thing you can't read.....
We can find out next week, after the NOPD, and maybe the Guard, disarm these folks and force them from their homes.
Wow, I didn't know John Kerry had a home in New Orleans! ;^)
Hahaha! STFU! :)
Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!
The People ARE the Militia, not the National Guard.
What part don't you understand?
You're dead wrong. It specifically states it's a "right of the people". The militia is just all persons, originally all males, able to bear arms. But never mind that. What about this provision of the Louisiana Constitution?
"The right of each citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person." Article 1, Section 11.
Think that the Louisiana Constitution can't be enforced against it's government?
Or if you live in Texas, as about 250,000 Louisianans now do
"Every citizen shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the State; but the Legislature shall have power, by law, to regulate the wearing of arms, with a view to prevent crime." Article 1, Section 23.
Or should you find yourself in Nebraska
All persons. . . have certain . . . rights, among these are . . . the right to keep and bear arms for security or defense of self, family, home, and others, and for lawful common defense, hunting, recreational use, and all other lawful purposes, and such rights shall not be denied or infringed by the state or any subdivision thereof." (Article 1, Section 1).
I've already started on it. I'm sure that you could be more specific on many things than me but since it looks like we are dealing with a simpleton I'll start slowly on him and see what happens.
Any sort of explosive would have caused a catastrophic failure with a hugh gush of water all at once, and that didn't happen. It seems as though it started leaking from below, then collapsed up on itself along that almost 200' stretch of wall.
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