It became a national disgrace that prompted a landmark federal lawsuit, and led to the passage of legislation in several states to make sure nothing like this ever happened again on American soil: the unilateral disarmament of law-abiding citizens in the wake of a disaster.
And now the story has taken an even darker turn than it did in the months following Hurricane Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans, when police and National Guard units illegally and unconstitutionally seized, often at gunpoint, firearms held by private citizens who had done nothing wrong. No police or public official has ever been held accountable for that outrage, and that possibility will likely take a distant back seat to holding several police officers responsible for gunning down unarmed citizens on the Danziger Bridge on Sept. 4, 2005.
When another police investigator told Lieutenant Lohman that he was going to plant a gun under the bridge to bolster the story that the officers were being fired at, Lieutenant Lohman went along, and even asked if the gun was traceable, the authorities said.
Those who would support the confiscation of private firearms by police with no probable cause and without due process—regardless whether there has been a natural or man-made disaster—should explain their logic to the families of James Brissette, then 19, and Ronald Madison, a mentally-disabled 40-year-old, both of whom were killed. Four other people were wounded and on Wednesday, a retired New Orleans police lieutenant pleaded guilty to covering up the circumstances of the shooting.
Days after former Police Supt. Eddie Compass announced during a post-hurricane press briefing that nobody but police would be allowed to have firearms, the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association joined forces in a landmark federal court maneuver that forced police and national guardsmen to stop confiscating firearms. For months afterward, the City of New Orleans stonewalled, stalled and outright lied about the confiscations until attorneys for SAF and NRA were literally heading into the courtroom to demand a contempt citation against Mayor Ray Nagin and the city. The city’s attorney ultimately was ordered by the judge to repay, out of his own pocket, certain court expenses racked up by SAF and NRA to pursue their case. All of this became the subject of a book, The Great New Orleans Gun Grab, which details the outrage from beginning to end. SAF and NRA eventually got the city to settle the case, but not without months of legal arm-twisting.
The shootings occurred after several officers, responding to a call for assistance, drove to the bridge and encountered six civilians who were walking across it to get food and supplies, the indictment says. The officers fired, killing one person -- later identified as 19-year-old James Brissette -- and wounding four others, according to the indictment.
In an environment where police are dispatched to seize the arms of private citizens when they have no legal right or authority to do so, a lot of very bad things can happen. The Danziger Bridge shooting is just such a case.
The Pacific Northwest does not experience hurricanes, but at some point, at least according to the experts, the region is due for one big, ugly, nasty earthquake that will – if it is of the predicted magnitude – literally result in a breakdown of the social order. That is hardly the time for, say, the mayor of Seattle to start dispatching police officers to disarm people. They just might discover that citizens in these parts have no intention of being disarmed when it would be obvious that police are incapable of responding to emergencies because, a) there are not enough officers available, and, b) communications are minimal or non-existent. Then where will we be, huh?
Fortunately, from my conversations with police and sheriff's deputies in the years since Katrina, it is a safe bet that they would ignore such an order because they know it would be illegal.
Survivors of the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings on the Danziger bridge have said the officers fired at unarmed people who were crossing to get food at a grocery store. Madison and Brissette were shot and killed by police; four other people were wounded.
In the aftermath of the Katrina case, New Orleans officials have never apologized for the gun confiscations. That sort of arrogance should not go unpunished.
Perhaps now that the Danziger Bridge scandal is unravelling, the probe will expand well beyond this case, and ultimately find out who issued the illegal confiscation order. Would it be asking too much that the person or persons responsible, along with the officers who conducted those seizures at gunpoint, be held accountable?
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Comments
With Mayor Kennedy’s appointment in 1865 authority was granted by the governor to purge the police department of undesirable officers. Many officers who were originally recruited by the army for their loyalty to the Union were fired. The size of the force was also reduced from 450 to 400. Considering
that many of these were “beat” policemen on walking circuits, there were barely enough to watch the city in quiet times, let alone real disturbances.
When America flushes the toilet, it always has landed in New Orlean's.
Headquarters Department of the Gulf
Major General Benjamin Butler issued General Order Number 28.
It simply stated that any woman who insulted a member of the United States Army would be treated from that point as a prostitute, in the midst of plying her trade.
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