“Real hard corps vigilante groups from Algiers Port, Gretna, from further west, which came into New Orleans for raids, they were shooting people, they came in here shooting --- it was open season on black people,” Akuno said.
Blackwater had been training these white community associations in the French Quarter, in Midtown and in Marigny Bywater -- a place that was once majority black but gentrification began before the storm and it was accelerated, he added.”
Investigative journalists Jeremy Scahill and Daniela Crespo reported for TRUTHOUT in September 2005 that “heavily armed” paramilitary mercenaries from Blackwater, also fresh from Iraq, were openly patrolling the streets of New Orleans. Scahill and Crespo said they were told by Blackwater personnel that they were “on contract with the Department of Homeland Security and have been given the authority to use lethal force.”
Akuno used the Danziger Bridge incident, which was widely reported on, as one example of mercenary violence that is “indisputable.”
On a concrete lift bridge that spans the Industrial Canal, police opened fire on who they say were four people shooting at them from the base of the bridge. The official police report identifies two sets of gunmen going up the east side of the half-mile-long bridge.
Were these individuals shooters, as the police maintain, or were they were innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time?
“They started out shooting over peoples’ heads but they actually shot four people,” Akuno said and added “this sets a standard to understand that a lot more happened that hasn’t been told, that hasn’t seen exposure -- like the pictures that people have showing bodies all shot up -- in the West Bank (Algiers) -- and there’s no water in the West Bank, it didn’t flood. People fled to the west bank because there wasn’t any water there....”
There are many reports of bodies shot with military calibre weapons, but we have seen no photos to back up the charges. We have seen a video which shows white racists talking about “open season” on black people. There is another video on YOUTUBE which shows white men in Louisiana State University T-shirts openly talking about how black people should be kicked out of New Orleans.
Be warned of racial content that is deplorable.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hVvMfgvocE&feature=
There is a very public autopsy report on the Danziger incident, which you can link to here:http://rabbitsliketrumpets.typepad.com/danziger_autopsy.pdf
Again, it took no extraordinary feat of investigative journalism to obtain these comments and the autopsy report. It is everywhere, but, other than an investigation by National Public Radio, the autopsy report seems to have received little attention outside of New Orleans.
The autopsy, conducted on a mentally retarded man, Ronald Madison, by Dr. James Traylor of the New Orleans Coroner's Office, found seven gunshot wounds -- five to the back.
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States of America: Reports of shooting and harassment by public and private mercenary groups, a police force seemingly out of control shooting an unarmed mentally retarded man, and battle hardened soldiers fresh from Iraq patrolling the streets of an American tourist town, while citizens are trapped on rooftops and in attics.
How did this happen?
