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Just as Katrina's receding waters revealed acres of ruined houses, flooded cars and pockets of bodies, the post-storm cleanup also raised the curtain on a trail of mass looting that left even the most jaded New Orleans police officers awestruck. As search and rescue crews staged house-to-house searches for survivors during the past two weeks, they repeatedly stumbled upon stacks of merchandise -- from large appliances still in the box to knotted tangles of hastily pilfered jewelry. Much of the loot is being recovered from the drier areas of Uptown and Central City in the 6th Police District. "At first,...

The man approached her at the school bus stop Monday afternoon. The 14-year-old freshman had just gotten off the bus from Eastern Hills High School. The man tried to talk to her. She ignored him and walked away, but he followed. Police say the girl called 911 and kept the operator on the phone during the chase that followed. Her quick thinking helped them catch the man. Glenn E. Holloway, 28, an evacuee from New Orleans, remained in the Mansfield Jail Tuesday night facing a charge of unlawful restraint of a person younger than age 17. The man chased her...

COMMERCE, Calif. - The parents of a Navy sailor slain while on leave from the war in Iraq pleaded Thursday for the public's help to find the gunman who also shot the man's pregnant wife in the stomach and wounded his teenage brother. "I need justice for my son," said Jorge Hipolito, who sobbed at a press conference surrounded by video stills of the shooting. "I have too much pain." Osiel Hipolito, 20, was shopping for a television Saturday at a strip mall near Compton with his 16-year-old brother and 21-year-old wife, Lizveth Valdivia, when two men confronted him, said...

New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compas said "In the annals of history, no police department in the history of the world was asked to do what we (were) asked," He also said the Federal goverment should bring in a Cruise Ship for his police officers for some relaxation...

http://www.infowars.com/articles/new_orleans/police_loot_walmart.htm

NEW ORLEANS -- There are reports from New Orleans of shots being fired at cell phone workers on towers trying to restore service. Authorities have been going door to door at nearby apartment buildings, sometimes forcing doors open in their search for snipers. Some pawn shops in the area are federally licensed gun dealers that were looted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The operation includes dozens of New Orleans police, Louisiana State Police, ATF and other law enforcement members. Most are wearing flak jackets. No shots have been heard during Wednesday morning's operation and no one has been pulled...

Evacuee charged in sexual assault Plano: Man staying with relatives accused of attacking girl, 13 12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 7, 2005 By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News A Hurricane Katrina evacuee staying with a Plano family was arrested Tuesday and accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, police said. Freddie Murray, 48, of New Orleans was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child. Mr. Murray is a distant relative of the girl, police said. Police didn't know the exact relationship. "The guy is an evacuee staying with distant relatives, and he allegedly assaulted a 13-year-old...

The story that isn't shown on TV. Scratch the surface in San Antonio and you find people who deeply resent the idea of their law-abiding city with its NBA basketball champion team being forced to accommodate people from a city known for its lawlessness well before Hurricane Katrina. The fear here is that the evacuation of New Orleans will see chaos and gang violence spiral outwards to the communities at the front line of the relief effort. "SWAT police don't normally get assigned to jobs like this but a lot of these people are carrying guns," he said. "We've been...

NEW ORLEANS - Rapists, an attempted murder suspect and dozens of men who looted New Orleans after hurricane Katrina huddle in a temporary jail set up as police try to regain city streets which were lawless last week. The scrawled cardboard sign on the front door of the Greyhound Bus Station, now a makeshift jail reads simply, "We Are Taking New Orleans Back." Inside the accused, almost all black men aged 18 to 35, are herded out of confinement into buses by heavily armed officers from Angola State Penitentiary. They stand handcuffed, disheveled and filthy, many with torn clothes, waiting...

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. A well-known Florida newspaper says one of its reporters was shot and wounded while covering the hurricane aftermath in Baton Rouge. The St. Petersburg Times says Marcus Franklin was shot Monday night while on his way back to a motel. The newspaper says the reporter was at a stop sign in a dimly-lit area when a man with a revolver walked up to the car and asked for his money. Franklin says he heard a pop but didn't realize he'd been shot in the stomach until he started driving off. The 34-year-old journalist called 9-1-1 and was...

LET ME START by saying that if I had my life to live over a thousand times, the one thing I would not change would be my race. I am proud to be a black man. There are times however, when I wish that certain people and I did not share that trait. For the past few days, the whole world ... well, at least those who have access to satellite and cable television, have been seeing pictures of the virtually total devastation of the cities of the U.S. Gulf Coast by Hurricane Katrina. An estimated 90 per cent of...

Troops find grisly scenes in New Orleans NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 6 (UPI) -- Troops scouring New Orleans for survivors and victims reported finding at least 40 mutilated bodies in the Convention Center refugee center. Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the New Orleans Times Picayune many of the dead were elderly, or showed signs of trauma. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut," he said. As the searches became more organized since the Aug. 29 onslaught of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said repair crews had patched the ruptured levee along the...

NEW ORLEANS - A two-year veteran of the New Orleans Police Department was arrested Wednesday in connection with the sexual assault of a woman he stopped on the street, according to investigators. Investigators said 5th District Officer Keith Griffin, 37, was working the night shift July 11 at about 3 a.m. when he stopped a 37-year-old woman riding a bicycle in the area of St. Claude Avenue and Flood Street. The woman was detained, driven to Flood and Deslonde streets and sexually assaulted, investigators said. Rest of story: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9066602/

In a broadcast yesterday, Air America radio talk radio host Randi Rhodes repeatedly urged listeners in the hurricane-devastated Gulf Coast to go out and loot, insisting the poor should be allowed to steal goods at will. The leftist host, who has sparked controversy in the past for advocating the assassination of President Bush, said hurricane victims should avoid discount centers such as Wal-Mart and focus their looting on higher-end stores in order to get good quality products, according to Ned Rice, a contributor to National Review Online's weblog "The Corner."

"We started taking fire out of Treme...," Crespo said... "They were shooting at us, they were shooting at military helicopters. So one of the guys said this is just like Fort Apache in the Bronx... "They were shooting at the helicopters that were bringing them food," added another officer. He said there was no obvious explanation why the gunmen should do this. For a couple days, around 80 New Orleans police officers were trapped in the station -- pinned down on one side by sniping from gangs in the barrio... The New Orleans police force has come under severe criticism...

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...

CBS) NEW ORLEANS Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six. Fourteen contractors were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers. They were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal, Hall said. None of...

What I report here is obviously hearsay. It comes from someone I have only met once, and through a third party. The source is/was a volunteer with the Sheriff's Dept in New Orleans. He was asked not to leave and did not, at least for a while. He talked about his group of eight dealing with armed and hostile gangs roving wherever he was. Apparently these gangs would attack people with boats attempting to help others and take them over. He said his group of eight killed EIGHTY people. Apparently one of his group is in critical condition from a...

Five people killed by New Orleans Police Last Updated Sun, 04 Sep 2005 18:59:47 EDT CBC News New Orleans police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors travelling across a bridge on their way to make repairs. Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people, killing five or six. John Hall of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said fourteen contractors were travelling across a bridge that spans a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River, under police escort, when they came under fire. The contractors...

Talk show host, newspaper columnist, and now-book-author Howie Carr has a site up (offering free fridge magnets, for a limited time) to promote his upcoming book on "The Brothers Bulger" http://www.thebrothersbulger.com ("...hello?...hello?") "...two brothers from South Boston who grew up to control a state. With political corruption on one side and a deadly force on the other, the Bulgers shared a diabolic and destructive alliance for decades." There's also an interview with Howie. The gangster and the Mass. Senate President. One robs with a gun, one with a pen, as they say.