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Pastimes : Lake New Orleans -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jack Russell who wrote (948)	9/27/2005 4:14:17 PM
From: paret	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1118

Leader of New Orleans Police Resigns Journal News ^ \| September 27, 2005 \| JULIA SILVERMAN 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 suffered a crisis. Many officers deserted their posts, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. Two officers Compass described as friends committed suicide. Neither Compass nor Mayor Ray Nagin would say whether Compass was pressured to resign. "It's a sad day in the city of New Orleans when a hero makes a decision like this," Nagin said. "He leaves the department in pretty good shape and with a significant amount of leadership." Lt. David Benelli, president of the union for rank-and-file New Orleans officers, said he was shocked by the resignation. "We've been through a horrendous time," Benelli said. "We've watched the city we love be destroyed. That is pressure you can't believe." Benelli would not criticize Compass. "You can talk about lack of organization, but we have been through two hurricanes, there was no communications, problems everywhere," he said. "I think the fact that we did not lose control of the city is a testament to his leadership." Earlier in the day, the department said that about 250 police officers — roughly 15 percent of the force — could face discipline for leaving their posts without permission during Katrina and its aftermath. Each case will be investigated to determine whether the officer was truly a deserter or had legitimate reasons to be absent, Deputy Chief Warren Riley said. "Everything will be done on a case-by-case basis. The worst thing we could do is take disciplinary action against someone who was stranded in the storm or whose child is missing," Riley said. Sally Forman, a spokeswoman for the mayor, said it is not clear whether the deserters can be fired. She said the city is still looking into the civil service regulations. Benelli said true deserters should be fired. "For those who left because of cowardice, they don't need to be here," Benelli told the paper. "If you're a deserter and you deserted your post for no other reason than you were scared, then you left the department and I don't see any need for you to come back." But Benelli said he believes only a small fraction of the officers will wind up being deserters. "We know there were people who flat-out deserted," he said. "But we also know there were officers who had to make critical decisions about what to do with their families." Riley said some officers lost their homes and some are looking for their families. "Some simply left because they said they could not deal with the catastrophe," Riley said. Also on Tuesday, the state Health Department said Katrina's death toll in Louisiana stood at 885, up from 841 as of Friday. Tuesday marked the second day of the official reopening of New Orleans, which had been pushed back last week when Hurricane Rita threatened. Nagin welcomed residents back to the Algiers neighborhood on Monday but imposed a curfew and warned of limited services. Nagin also invited business owners in the central business district, the French Quarter and the Uptown section to inspect their property and clean up. But he gave no timetable for reopening those parts of the city to residents.

To: Jack Russell who wrote (948)	9/28/2005 8:28:51 AM
From: paret	Respond to of 1118

Mayor Nagin in Secret Sitdown with Farrakhan NewsMax.com ^ \| Sept. 27, 2005 \| Carl Limbacher Racially polarizing Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan revealed on Friday that he had a private meeting with New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, where Nagin gave him information suggesting New Orleans' levees were blown up by the Bush administration. Speaking to a gathering of his supporters in Memphis while promoting his upcoming Millions More March, Farrakhan said he met with Nagin in Dallas, Texas where the New Orleans mayor has relocated his family. "We did a whirlwind tour where we hired a chartered jet, we flew to Dallas, Texas - members of the Millions More Movement - where we met with Mayor Nagin," Farrakhan claimed, in videotape of his Memphis speech posted to his Millions More Movement web site Tuesday. It was during that meeting, Farrakhan said, where he obtained evidence that he would later use to claim New Orleans' levees were blown up. "Mayor Nagin told us there was a 25-foot crater under the levee," Farrakhan explained, before cautioning that the New Orleans Democrat "didn't say there was a bomb. He just said there was a crater." Farrakhan then added: "I say they blew it [up]." Citing an Internet report, the Nation of Islam chief explained how the information he got from Nagin led him to conclude that the levees had been deliberately destroyed: "Divers inspecting the ruptured levee walls surrounding New Orleans found something that piqued their interest - burn marks on underwater debris chunks from the broken levee wall," Farrakhan said. "One diver - a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers - saw the burn marks and knew immediately what caused them." Though Farrakhan detailed his meeting with the New Orleans mayor at an open forum, the press has kept word of the Farrakhan-Nagin summit under wraps. In the same address to the Memphis Millions More rally, Farrakhan said Nagin told him that white racists used attack dogs and machine guns to keep blacks from escaping the Superdome. "Mayor Nagin told us that those poor brothers and sisters that went to the Superdome, these were the ones who made it out of their houses but didn't have any money or means to get out of the city . . . So when the water began to rise around the Superdome, Mayor Nagin told them to get out and start marching over the bridge, the I-10, and get out of here. So they started marching. And when they got over that bridge into the next parish, which was white, they were met with attack dogs and machine guns." Farrakhan claimed that Mayor Nagin told him warning shots were fired to keep the black evacuees at bay. "This is Mayor Nagin talking to us," he told the Memphis gathering. "They fired the machine guns over the heads of the crowd. They accepted any white people that were there, but no black people." Since his meeting with Farrakhan, Mayor Nagin has had no public comment on the Nation of Islam chief's claim that his city's levees were deliberately destroyed.