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The New Orleans Police Department has identified 249 officers who left their posts without permission during Hurricane Katrina and the storm's chaotic aftermath, and is now trying to distinguish out-and-out deserters from those who had compelling reasons to be AWOL. The announcement puts a number to a phenomenon that was of uncertain magnitude when first revealed by angry police brass as looters swept through New Orleans in Katrina's wake. Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said he will assemble a tribunal of his four assistant chiefs to hear the circumstances of each officer unaccounted for during the first weeks after the storm...

NEW ORLEANS — Police Superintendent Eddie Compass resigned Tuesday after four turbulent weeks in which the police force was wracked by desertions and disorganization in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. "I served this department for 26 years and have taken it through some of the toughest times of its history. Every man in a leadership position must know when it's time to hand over the reins," Compass said at a news conference. "I'll be going on in another direction that God has for me." As the city slipped into anarchy during the first few days after Katrina, the 1,700-member police department itself...

Police Superintendent Eddie Compass resigned Tuesday after four turbulent weeks in which the police force was hit by desertions and disorganization in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. "I served this department for 26 years and have taken it through some of the toughest times of its history. Every man in a leadership position must know when it's time to hand over the reins," Compass said at a news conference. "I'll be going on in another direction that God has for me." As the city slipped into anarchy during the first few days after Katrina, the 1,700-member police department itself suffered a crisis....

After announcing his retirement Tuesday, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass told several high-ranking officers that he had been forced out by Mayor Ray Nagin, the officers said Wednesday. They said Compass told them the decision came on the heels of a heated confrontation with the mayor. The officers spoke only on condition that they not be named. Reached Wednesday by e-mail, Nagin said that those accounts were "inaccurate." Compass could not be reached for comment. At a hastily called news conference Tuesday with Nagin in attendance, Compass announced that he was retiring. When asked by a reporter whether Compass...

As the city's murder rate escalates, the NOPD is "bleeding police officers," states the new Police Foundation study. The first major study of the New Orleans Police Department under Mayor Ray Nagin's administration promised to be what one source called a "blockbuster." Requested by the mayor, commissioned by the private New Orleans Police Foundation and conducted by scholars at the University of New Orleans, the detailed report on NOPD's manpower crisis would, a second source predicted, "send shock waves through this city." It didn't happen. Ironically, the police study, released on Jan. 8, became quickly swallowed up in a 24-hour...

Live conference...

<p>Hours before New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass announced his resignation, Tony relayed some hot information he had heard from his Capitol Hill sources. It regarded an FBI investigation currently under way.</p> <p>You can go to the source above and listen to that segment of his radio show.</p>

Did anyone just see the exchange between Anderson Cooper and Eddie Compass? He tried to pin the chief down on the evacuation issue and the chief about blew a circuit breaker.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Fed up with the criticism, New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass said Monday that his officers held their ground without food, water and even ammunition in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "In the annals of history, no police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we (were) asked," Compass said with a mix of anger and pride. Two police officers killed themselves. Another was shot in the head. Compass said 150 had to be rescued from eight feet of water and others had gotten infections from walking through the murky soup...