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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — French Quarter bar owners frustrated with the slow pace of recovery in New Orleans won a partial victory Friday when the city pushed back its curfew from midnight to 2 a.m., allowing a little more partying into the wee hours. Bars on or near Bourbon Street had been threatening to defy the midnight curfew, complaining it was putting a damper on the famously raucous neighborhood and the city's economy, too. City Hall announced that the streets in recovering neighborhoods will be off limits to pedestrians and vehicles between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. The city put...

(AP) NEW ORLEANS The Associated Press on Thursday released the full video of police officers repeatedly punching a retired teacher as they tried to arrest him on New Orleans' Bourbon Street.

One of the three New Orleans police officers suspended and charged in connection with the videotaped beating of a retired teacher in the French Quarter received psychiatric treatment after an apparent suicide attempt in the mid-1990s, but was hired as a cop about a year later when he passed the department's psychological tests, according to his attorney and three people who worked with the officer before he joined the force. Lance Schilling, charged with simple battery along with fellow 8th District officers Robert Evangelist and Stewart Smith, was treated after he fell ill from self-inflicted carbon monoxide inhalation, according to...

MANATEE - Getting shoved around, handcuffed, manhandled and witnessing a police beating - these are the memories two young hurricane relief workers from Manatee County say they took away from Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Saturday night. After about a month of volunteer work in areas hit hard by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Manatee County residents Calvin Briles and Mike Monaghan decided to take it easy in the Big Easy for an evening. The two men, program consultants for the Volunteer Center of Manatee County, had spent the day buying chain saws and delivering them to volunteer reception centers...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — French Quarter bar owners say the Big Easy's soul can never be restored if a midnight-to-6 a.m. curfew continues to be enforced, so they plan to challenge it the only way New Orleans knows how: with a party. Jim Monaghan said his Molly's at the Market bar will return Friday to its normal operating hours of 10 a.m. to 6 a.m. regardless of a curfew police have enforced more aggressively over the past week or so. His goal, he said, is to demonstrate that New Orleans is on the mend and it's open for business. "We'll...

New Orleans was beloved for its nightlife in the days before Katrina, and giving visitors and returning residents something to do is crucial to the city's recovery. So it was jarring early Tuesday when, just after midnight, police officers began moving down Bourbon Street and shutting down bars. The sweep was part of a new effort to enforce the city's midnight-to-6-a.m. curfew more strictly. Many business owners in the Quarter view the crackdown as a reaction to the beating Saturday of a 64-year-old former teacher by New Orleans police officers. But strict enforcement of a midnight curfew does nothing at...

Silence swept across Bourbon Street on Tuesday shortly after midnight as a blue line of police officers advanced down the street, shut down bars and ushered people out. The first night after the city announced a curfew crackdown in the Quarter, businesses and patrons decried it as a strain on profits and a confusing signal from a city trying to restore its crippled economy. Earl Bernhardt, owner of Tropical Isle and five other French Quarter establishments, said Monday night's curfew sweep was "disastrous" to his bottom line. He said he opened his tourist-oriented watering holes -- including Bourbon Street fixtures...

NEW ORLEANS — Two days after the New Orleans Police Department suspended three officers without pay for allegedly assaulting 64-year-old Robert Davis and an Associated Press cameraman on Bourbon Street, two NOPD officers threatened workers from a charitable organization cleaning a park and providing free food and medical care to the needy. A CityBusiness reporter was forcibly ejected from the park while taking photos. NOPD public information officials did not answer phone calls to comment on the incident. On Monday, a coalition of nonprofits and community groups officially opened Welcome Home New Orleans, a makeshift camp in Washington Square in...

There are rumors that the NOPD retirement fund is in question, Rogers has learned, and that the story could break at any time... Developing...

NEW ORLEANS - A retired elementary teacher who was repeatedly punched in the head by police in an incident caught on videotape said Monday he was not drunk, put up no resistance and was baffled by what happened. Robert Davis said he had returned to New Orleans to check on property his family owns in the storm-ravaged city, and was out looking to buy cigarettes when he was beaten and arrested Saturday night in the French Quarter. Police have alleged that the 64-year-old Davis was publicly intoxicated, a charge he strongly denied as he stood on the street corner where...

New Orleans Police Struggle With Upheaval Tuesday October 11, 2005 1:46 AM By MARY FOSTER Associated Press Writer NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Their homes are gone, their families scattered, their reputations sliding by the day. Home for most New Orleans police officers is a cramped cruise ship, and work is 12- to 14-hour days in a wrecked city. When time off does come along, there is nowhere to go and no one to spend it with. Experts say the personal and professional upheaval is catching up with the New Orleans police force in the form of desertions, suicides, corruption and...

Business owners are complaining that looting is continuing in many areas of the city, even with so few people in New Orleans. If crimes are being committed with a reduced population, assistance from other police forces and the National Guard, what is going to happen when more people come back to the city and all this help leaves? It could be that there is a severe lack of officers. Beside the 249 who have been dismissed for desertion, there are allegations surfacing that hundreds more are on the payroll as “phantom officers,” people who are receiving checks and used to...

Three charged with battery on 64-year-old man Monday, October 10, 2005; Posted: 11:58 a.m. EDT (15:58 GMT) NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Three New Orleans police officers pleaded not guilty Monday to battery charges based on a videotape showing two patrolmen repeatedly punching a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication and a third officer grabbing and shoving an Associated Press Television News producer who helped capture the confrontation on tape. After a brief hearing, at which trial was set for January 11, the officers were released on bond. They quickly left in cars without commenting. They were suspended without pay...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations. There will be a criminal investigation, and the three officers were to be suspended, arrested and charged with simple battery Sunday, Capt. Marlon Defillo said. "We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This department will...

AOL News State authorities are investigating allegations New Orleans police officers broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars - including 41 new Cadillacs - as Hurricane Katrina closed in. "It is a very, very active investigation," Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general, said Friday. "We expect developments quickly." Wartelle would not comment on why the officers may have taken the cars or whether they were used in the line of duty. However, the cars may have been taken before the hurricane even roared into town Aug. 29, according to the president and general manager...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - At least one police officer repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations. There will be a criminal investigation, and three New Orleans Police Department officers will be suspended Sunday, arrested and charged with simple battery, Capt. Marlon Defillo said. "We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This department...

State authorities are investigating allegations New Orleans police officers broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars -- including 41 new Cadillacs -- as Hurricane Katrina closed in. ''It is a very, very active investigation,'' Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general, said Friday. ``We expect developments quickly.'' Wartelle would not comment on why the officers may have taken the cars or whether they were used in the line of duty. However, the cars may have been taken before the hurricane even roared into town Aug. 29, according to the president and general manager of the...

Dozens may have fled in 'commandeered' cars Cops turned up in Baton Rouge after storm Acting New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday that as many as 40 officers from the department's 3rd District, including the commanding captain, are "under scrutiny" for possibly bolting the city in the clutch and heading to Baton Rouge in Cadillacs from a New Orleans dealership. . Asked if Capt. Donald Paisant, who replaced Capt. James Scott as the 3rd District commander, was a part of that review, Riley said, "Certainly the commander of that district is under scrutiny." Last week, after reports surfaced...

Acting New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday that as many as 40 officers from the department's 3rd District, including the commanding captain, are "under scrutiny" for possibly bolting the city in the clutch and heading to Baton Rouge in Cadillacs from a New Orleans dealership. "It is a subject that is under review," Riley said, stopping short of saying he has launched a formal investigation. Asked if Capt. Donald Paisant, who replaced Capt. James Scott as the 3rd District commander, was a part of that review, Riley said, "Certainly the commander of that district is under scrutiny." Last...

COMPASS CHANGES DIRECTION As you know, on September 22, NRA filed a motion in United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to block authorities from confiscating law-abiding citizens' firearms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. On September 23, the Court sided with NRA and issued a restraining order to bar further gun confiscations from law-abiding victims of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The controversy over gun confiscations erupted when The New York Times reported that the New Orleans Superintendent of Police Eddie Compass directed that no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to have guns and...