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HERE WE GO AGAIN

posted Thursday, 28 December 2006

Local cops had all sorts of problems on bridges during the immediate post-K period. We heard a lot about the Gretna police and the Crescent City Connection during the late unlamented Congressional campaign. It's NOPD's turn: 7 officers have been indicted for either murder or attempted murder for their actions on the Danziger Bridge on September 4, 2005. District Attorney Slow Eddie Jordan called the cops "trigger happy." I hate to agree with Slow Eddie on anything but he's got a point in this instance. The stories told by the officers didn't jive with the physical evidence or with common sense.

In other NOLA crime news there was a shooting outside my neighborhood's pain in the undergraduate bar, Grits. This is the second or third time in the last 6 years that there's been an armed robbery and shooting there. The poor schlub who was shot was lucky that first responders live at the FEMA trailer site across the street at Wisner Playground. Here's how the Picayune described it:
   "The victim was slumped on the porch and bleeding from three bullet wounds in his left shoulder, said Christina Coleman, an emergency medical services worker for the city of New Orleans, who treated him before the ambulance arrived.

Coleman, who lives in a nearby FEMA trailer park for first responders, was at home and off duty when she was drawn to the sound of gunshots. She treated the man's wounds and prepared him to be taken to the hospital."

Thanks Ms. Coleman. Btw, I was proud of my neighbors when the trailer site was proposed: they didn't flip out and go NIMBY. Instead we discussed it like grownups and the consensus was to accept the trailer site because of the crisis. End of parochial self-congratulatory passage.

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1. kevin g left...
Thursday, 28 December 2006 8:42 pm :: http://missedexit.blog-city.com/

Listening to "Running Free" (1980) from the Buzzcocks, and taking the lyrics to task, as I read the link re: Danziger Bridge shootings, and I've got nothin'. Every day, I'm coming closer to the conclusion that decency and respect are now being junked. The fact that your neighbourhood was able to converse about the FEMA trailers in an adult fashion, though, makes me think that all is not lost. Thanks.


2. sophmom left...
Friday, 29 December 2006 9:33 am :: http://www.dotcalm.blog-city.com

Holy shit. That's way too close to home for my comfort. Yikes. I have a great fondness for undergraduates who frequent bars in your neighborhood.

As for the police shootings, we've talked about them before. It's a shame these things happened. I guess in times of severe crisis stress we learn what folks are made of. These two particular shootings have been examined and re-examined. It appears that was for good reason. Now the justice system can take it from here. So sad, though.


3. bayoustjohndavid left...
Friday, 29 December 2006 12:34 pm :: http://bayoustjohndavid.blogspot.com

I can't tell if you're merely stating a fact or blaming the victim when you mention the shootings/armed robberies around Grits. The muggers who think of the area around colege bars as prime hunting grounds are back and it's a problem. Unless the flyers that I see around Tulane and Loyola are all b.s., it's a big problem. Still I can understand that it was a headache for the neighborhood when Grits went from being a quiet pool hall to a popular bar, but I thought the F&M was the main headache there.

I hate to be too negative, but you know I can't let the use of the term NIMBY go unchallenged. A trailer site was proposed for your neighborhood? I'm shocked. In most cases Nagin just came back to town and said the trailers are going here. I know that most of the opposition was racist or at least self-centered, but when the mayor's too busy going to Jamaica to even think about his choices, it was totally inappropriate to call anyone who even questioned his choices a racist. We all know that NIMBY was a code word. So what exactly is racist about asking why is this park a better choice than that vacant lot? Nagin barely cut his office staff and he had time to travel, so he certainly had the resources to explain his decisions. It wasn't in his character to do so at the start and it played to his political advantage not to do so later.


4. sophmom left...
Friday, 29 December 2006 1:31 pm :: http://www.dotcalm.blog-city.com

Golly, ya'll. Is this getting worse or is it my imagination? I just read in the T-P that Dinerral Shavers was shot dead while driving his car (with wife and kids in tow). I'm thinking I need to keep my baby home (not that the A-T-L is a hotbed of safety - and not that I could even if I wanted to), but, still.

Loyola does a good job preparing their students to be either a victim or suspect. Our orientation process was pre-K but how not to become a victim, what to do if you do become a victim and how to handle yourself if you're getting arrested were very thoroughly and enlightenedly (is that a word?) covered during the process. In fact, they were each given a lawyer's card. On the back of it was a refusal to submit to any sobriety check, a refusal to give a statement and a demand to contact the attorney listed on the other side of the card. I had never in all my days heard of such a thing. Michael knows lots of students who've been mugged walking drunk home from Uptown bars (quite a few his freshman year around The Boot). The school teaches them not to do this, but to come and go at least in pairs. I don't think he spends a whole lot of time out of his fairly small flight path home-school-work-Miss Mae's-home-school-work-Miss Mae's (and occasionally Fat Harry's, according to my bank statements). *sigh*


5. adrastos left...
Friday, 29 December 2006 1:49 pm :: http://adrastos.blog-city.com/

David, my comment was about the bar itself, which is a poorly run and nasty little dump that causes problems all the time. It's been one of the things I hear about the most.

We've had a trailer site since last Carnival. It hasn't caused any problems and nobody here got their panties in a wad either.