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Inmates Used Grandmother’s Coffin To Smuggle Marijuana, Police Say August 31, 2014 Sheriff’s deputies in Georgia say they foiled a bizarre smuggling scheme in which two jailed inmates used their dead grandmother’s casket to help them smuggle drugs and other contraband back into the jail. Jailers escorted Henry Ison Rouse, 27, and Nekoase Antwan Vinson, 30, in handcuffs and leg restraints to the Bentley Brothers funeral home Thursday evening to bid farewell to their grandmother. Emma Mae Faulk of Macon died last Sunday at age 74 and the prisoners were allowed a private viewing. “One of them stayed in there...

In the first months after Hurricane Katrina, when subsiding floodwaters gave way to an eerie calm, residents returning to New Orleans were treated to a virtually crime-free landscape, a strange but welcome change in an era of over-amped violence. Police officers would go entire shifts without a hot call, spending most of their time filling out paperwork for looting complaints. National Guard troops grew bored manning checkpoints in empty neighborhoods. If there was a reminder of homegrown violence, it was a distant one, seen mostly in headlines from evacuee-swollen cities like Houston. Newly elevated Police Superintendent Warren Riley, even as...

Blanco To Send State Police, National Guard into New Orleans June 19, 2006 04:20 PM In the wake of a shooting that left five people dead this weekend, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco pledged Monday afternoon to send additional law enforcement resources into the city of New Orleans, WAFB 9 NEWS Capitol Correspondent Marie Centanni reported. Blanco said the additional law enforcement presence, to be made up of Louisiana State Police and National Guard troops, will be in place for an initial commitment of two-and-a-half months, Centanni reported. The governor did not disclose an exact number of personnel she will deploy....

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Black lawmakers walked out of the Louisiana House in protest Monday after failing in an attempt to end the special session four days early — a dramatic indicator of disputes that have marred much of the session and stalled many of the governor's key initiatives. The walkout came during a debate on levee oversight, but was a protest of what black lawmakers said was the Legislature's failure to protect the voting rights of New Orleans residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Rep. Cedric Richmond, chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, tried to adjourn the session early...

BATON ROUGE -- In a seven-hour meeting that ended Friday at 1:48 a.m., the House transportation committee reduced the scope of the governor's levee board consolidation plan from an eight-parish region down to pieces of four parishes in a zone around Lake Pontchartrain. Advertisement The committee then passed its own version of a levee system overhaul with several bills that form separate levee authorities for the east and west banks in the New Orleans area, plus an enhanced role in levee oversight by the state Department of Transportation and Development. Although the committee left intact some of the core of...

NEW ORLEANS)- Today, Judge William A. Morvant, 19th Judicial District Court, set a hearing date of December 23 regarding the delay of the February 4th New Orleans municipal elections. Rob Couhig, attorney representing the petitioning voters, argued that Governor Blanco stepped beyond the limit of Louisiana law when she signed an executive order indefinitely delaying the elections. MORE VOTERS JOIN THE EFFORT Today Couhig also announced that 60 more voters have joined the legal battle to stop the delay of the municipal elections. The amended petition including the names of additional voters was filed today. The amended petition states: “The...

WASHINGTON -- A single sentence in the mountain of e-mails released last week by Gov. Kathleen Blanco sparked media interest Wednesday in the Louisiana governor's sleeping habits just before Hurricane Katrina hit. An e-mail exchange on the afternoon of Aug. 28, the day before Katrina slammed into the state, indicated that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff was trying to reach Blanco by telephone. Chertoff's agency led the federal response to the impending storm and an aide was trying to patch through a call. "Your assistance would be much appreciated," Homeland Security senior intelligence analyst Mark Fischer wrote in a 12:30...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, who have raised about $110 million for Hurricane Katrina victims, announced $90 million worth of grants here Wednesday, including $30 million for higher education institutions along the Gulf Coast. Another $40 million will be divided among the three states hardest hit by Katrina - Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama - and $20 million will go to faith-based organizations. "Donations we got ranged from the smallest - $16 from a child's lemonade stand - to multimillion-dollar ones from foundations and corporations. Even foriegn governments have given us money to help...

New Orleans officials think they have found a way to show that the devastated city still can throw a wild party: selling the rights to be "official sponsor" of the next Mardi Gras for $2 million. For the first time since New Orleans began holding Mardi Gras parades 150 years ago, the city government is planning to aggressively solicit corporate sponsorship to cover the costs of police overtime, street cleaning and other city services that make Mardi Gras possible, as well as help pay for a national advertising campaign. Within the next few days, New Orleans officials are expected to...

FEDS ASKING TOUGH QUESTIONS OF NOPD: INDICTMENTS PREDICTED XXXX DECEMBER 03, 2005 5:27 PM **EXCLUSIVE! MUST CREDIT THE DEAD PELICAN!** In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Feds are asking a number of very specific questions of the NOPD, source tell The Dead Pelican. Among the questions that the Feds are asking, one stands out: "Where are all these officers that we were paying you for?" As reported earlier, it is widely known that NOPD's real troop strength has never been more than approximately 1000 commissioned officers but the "official" number (that is, the number given out by the Superintendent's...

WASHINGTON — After battling in Congress for months to get more federal money for their hurricane-ravaged state, some Louisiana officials have come to believe they are up against something more than concerns about the budget deficit or conflicting visions of reconstruction. Maybe, they speculate, their colleagues just don't trust them. What is clear is that the initial outpouring of sympathy for victims in the state hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina has been replaced on Capitol Hill by a climate of suspicion — even resentment — toward what is seen as an increasingly demanding supplicant. Sen. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) echoed...

E-mails detail effort to ensure feds took blame for slow response Saturday, December 03, 2005 By Jan Moller Capital bureau BATON ROUGE -- Gov. Kathleen Blanco and the Bush administration were locked in a pitched political battle to shape public opinion about the response to Hurricane Katrina at the same time they were trying to manage the rescue operation, documents released late Friday by the governor's office show. E-mails turned over by the state to the congressional committees investigating the hurricane response show that the governor's senior staff was deeply involved in trying to preserve the governor's political standing and...

Track the hurricane from its birth in the open ocean through its catastrophic encounter with the Gulf Coast.

Governor Blanco had a three-word response to a stinging designation she's received in a major national news magazine. Questioned by reporters at the capitol today, blanco told them, "Watch my results" and then she walked off. Time magazine has declared Blanco one of the three worst governors in the nation. The magazine quotes pollster Bernie Pinsonat who describes Blanco as appearing "dazed and confused" after Hurricane Katrina. Time hits blanco for slowness in calling a special legislative session, and slowness in appointing a recovery commission. At the bottom with Blanco is Ohio governor Bob Taft and Mark Sanford of South...

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The state's elections commissioner is recommending that the February election scheduled for New Orleans be delayed because of the complications caused by Hurricane Katrina, which displaced thousands of the city's residents and demolished polling places. "It would be too problematic. We're not ready," Commissioner of Elections Angie LaPlace told a House committee on Monday. LaPlace said she will recommend to Secretary of State Al Ater, Louisiana's top elections official, that the Feb. 4 mayoral primary scheduled for New Orleans, which includes city council races and referendums, be postponed. If Ater agrees with LaPlace's assessment, the...

Coming this week... The state of the City of New Orleans. It's been two months since Katrina devastated the (insert over-used moniker here, Big Easy, Crescent City, etc., etc., etc.) city, who has returned, what businesses are operating, infrastructure and crime. Look for the story later this week

Benson opposes return to New Orleans Web Posted: 11/04/2005 12:00 AM CST Tom Orsborn Express-News Staff Writer New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson remains deeply skeptical about the franchise's future in New Orleans, despite mounting pressure from the NFL to bring the team back to Louisiana for the 2006 season, sources close to the situation say. The sources, who requested anonymity because of the sensitive nature of discussions between the Saints and the NFL, describe Benson as outraged by the intervention of league commissioner Paul Tagliabue in the matter and hardened in his desire to explore relocation options, including San...

<p>Flood-ravaged Louisiana can't pay the $3.7 billion that the U.S. government says is its share of hurricane relief, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathleen Blanco said Thursday.</p> <p>"You can't squeeze $3.7 billion out of this state to pay this bill. Period. That would be difficult for us on a good day," the spokeswoman, Denise Bottcher, told USA TODAY.</p>

Gov. Me-Maw (Kathleen Blanco) to be on Moon Griffon's statewide radio broadcast at 10 AM CST, today, Nov. 1, 2005

Saturday, October 29, 2005 When the State Bond Commission got the chance Tuesday to fix a grievous mistake, an overwhelming majority of members decided to blow it. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita visited untold misery upon South Louisiana, the Bond Commission voted Oct. 20 to postpone $45 million in projects in storm-ravaged areas and redirect the money to 73 projects in other parts of the state. In humanitarian terms, that vote was unconscionable. And at a time when Louisiana is seeking a huge infusion of help from Washington -- and when members of Congress are questioning the state's ability to...