Seven police officers charged over a shooting in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath surrendered themselves to the city jail yesterday, amid cheers from a crowd of supporters.
Six of the men remained in custody last night, charged with at least one count of murder or attempted murder in the September 4th, 2005, shootings on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after the hurricane hit. Two people died and four people were wounded.
One of the officers, Michael Hunter, charged with attempted murder, was released on bail late in the day, said Michael Glasser, president of the Police Association of New Orleans union.
Sgts. Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius, officer Anthony Villavaso and former officer Robert Faulcon, were indicted last week on first-degree murder charges. Officers Robert Barrios and Michael Hunter were charged with attempted first-degree murder, and Officer Ignatius Hills was charged with attempted second-degree murder. Defence lawyers say the seven officers are innocent of the charges.
The shootings took place after police responded to reports of sniper fire from the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans. They found two groups of pedestrians and said a gunfight ensued.
An internal investigation cleared the officers, but survivors and family members say the victims were unarmed and ambushed.
The accused officers were applauded and embraced by more than 200 fellow law enforcement officials when they arrived to turn themselves in. "It's a serious injustice," said Sgt. Henry Kuhn of the Harahan Police Department, one of several uniformed officers from New Orleans suburbs who joined the crowd.
Also present were several counter-demonstrators who insisted that the police fired without provocation.
The facts of what happened on the bridge remain unclear. Police say the officers were responding to a report of other officers being attacked when they came under fire. Police also claim one of the men, Ronald Madison, was reaching for a gun. Madison, a 40-year-old mentally retarded man, and James Brissette, 19, were killed on the bridge.
Glasser said the state grand jury that indicted the officers did not hear evidence that favors the accused officers' version of the event.
"This is a situation where officers were asked to stay and defend their city under very, very arduous conditions, with very limited supplies, in some cases without food and water. They found themselves in circumstances they did not create, and they found themselves in a gunfight," he said.
"The idea that seven police officers, who would rather have been anywhere else on the face of the earth that day than where they were, would suddenly drive up on a bridge and indiscriminately shoot people for no reason, then conspire, is preposterous," he said.
The coroner said Madison was shot seven times, with five wounds in the back, but the officers' lawyers said all the wounds could have come from a single shotgun blast.
Madison's brother, Lance, denies he or his brother were armed. He said they were running from a group of teenagers who had opened fire on the bridge when seven men jumped out of a rental truck and also shot at them without warning.
In a statement released with Thursday's indictment, Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said the accused ignored rules governing the use of lethal force during the state of emergency that followed the storm.
"We cannot allow our police officers to shoot and kill our citizens without justification like rabid dogs," Jordan said.
The officers are scheduled to be arraigned on Friday.
