Katrina Killers and the Cover-up

We have focused extensively on corrupt prosecutors, unethical U.S. Attorneys, and renegade law enforcement officers.  The Rove Republican Racket inspired a generation of arrogant and incompetent attorneys and officers of the law.

The Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration's biggest domestic failure was the response to Hurricane Katrina.

But even more troubling were the alleged actions by six police officers (pictured) after the hurricane hit.

But now, under the era of Obama, justice is being sought. The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports:

Six current or former New Orleans police officers were charged in a sweeping federal grand jury indictment Monday that accuses four of the men of shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge several days after Hurricane Katrina and all six of them of plotting to cover up what they knew was an unjustified attack. The charges, unsealed Tuesday, are the culmination of a two-year probe by the federal government, the third investigation into the hugely controversial events that took place on the bridge on Sept. 4, 2005. The first inquiry, led by police, found no wrongdoing by officers. A state grand jury convened to look into the matter charged seven officers with murder, but the case later fell apart.

Since the fall of 2008, federal investigators have been in charge of Danziger, and earlier this year, prosecutors from the U.S. Department of Justice broke the case wide open, showing their hand through a series of guilty pleas from officers who acknowledged the bridge shootings were unjustified and that police had conspired to cover them up. The indictment charges the rest of the officers involved in what prosecutors have termed a "bad shoot" and the alleged coverup that followed.

Cleaning Up New Orleans

We're not talking about the aftermath of Katrina or the BP oil spill. We're talking about the corrupt New Orleans Police Department that has been under fire for over a decade.

The Rove Republican Racket did nothing to the detriment of minorities and low-income neighborhoods. Just look at the photo of New Orleans cops roughing up a housing activist.

The Rove-Bush-Cheney Administration looked the other way and let the abuses continue, especially after the left over mess of Katrina.

Now U.S. Attorney general Eric Holder, the Obama Administration and the local Mayor have taken charge. NPR reports:

Federal prosecutors announced Monday that they are reviewing the long-troubled New Orleans Police Department.The  move comes after Mayor Mitch Landrieu asked the Justice Department to intervene earlier this month, saying the city's police force needed nothing less than a complete transformation. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tom Perez said the investigation will include lawyers and nonlawyers with broad experience in police issues.The Justice Department's civil rights unit will investigate whether the police engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination.

"The investigation will examine allegations of excessive force, unconstitutional searches and seizures, racial profiling, failures to provide adequate police services to particular neighborhoods, and related misconduct," Perez said in a letter to Landrieu that was released Monday. 

The arrangements have prompted new training requirements and rules that govern when officers can use firearms. The fresh oversight comes as prosecutors continue to explore the shooting deaths of unarmed people on a New Orleans bridge in 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the city. Four officers have pleaded guilty this year in connection with the incident.

Another Louisiana Prosecutor Permanently Disbarred

Last February, we wrote about an arrogant former New Orleans prosecutor who had his law license stripped from him and he was permanently disbarred from practicing law.

Well, it's deja vu all over again!  The New Orleans Times Picayune reported Saturday:

A former Jefferson Parish prosecutor who once ran for a state judgeship has been permanently barred from practicing law in Louisiana by the state Supreme Court. Richard Bates "knowingly and intentionally violated duties owed to his clients, the public, the legal system and the legal profession," the court wrote in 28-page decision released Friday.

Bates, whose wrongful actions are not tied to his four years as a prosecutor in the late 1990s, could not be reached for comment. Justices suspended him from practicing law two years ago and took his law license this week. The court spelled out 30 cases of professional misconduct and noted that Bates failed to account for or refund to his clients $51,525 in unearned fees. "He has abandoned his law practice and appears to have no intention of ever providing refunds of the unearned fees," the court wrote.

Louisiana Losers

The Rove Republican Racket created an atmosphere that verdicts and prosecutions were infallible. Those that were simply accused of wrongdoing by the Republicans had their reputations run over like a runaway Toyota.

Now comes an interesting news story out of Louisiana. Demonstrating absolute intolerance to the fact they lost in the lower and appeals court, the District Attorney of the New Orleans Parish has gone all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his "infallible" prosecutors.


Reason Magazine reports:

[The U.S.] Supreme Court agreed to hear a challenge to a $14 million award that a wrongly convicted Louisiana man won after serving 18 years in prison, 14 of them in solitary confinement on death row. New Orleans prosecutors who tried John Thompson for armed robbery in 1985 failed to turn over blood evidence that would have exonerated him. Then they used the robbery conviction to prevent Thompson from taking the stand in his murder trial and to obtain a death sentence (by noting that he had already been sentenced to 50 years without parole for the armed robbery). After an investigator working for Thompson’s attorneys discovered the blood evidence in 1999, Thompson received a new trial on the murder charge and was acquitted. A federal jury concluded that the district attorney's office was liable because it failed to properly train its prosecutors, who should have known they were constitutionally obligated to share exculpatory evidence with the defense. A 5th Circuit panel unanimously upheld (PDF) the verdict on appeal, and the full court split evenly on the question, allowing the jury's decision to stand. Asking the Supreme Court to review the case, New Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick Sr. argued that his office should not be held responsible for depriving Thompson of his right to due process because Thompson had not shown a pattern of misconduct or demonstrated a direct connection between a lack of training and the error that led to his conviction.

Permanently Disbarring an Arrogant Prosecutor

On the eve of Mardi Gras, the Louisiana Supreme Court permanently disbarred a former assistant city attorney of New Orleans, Darryl Jackson, who according to news reports was convicted of malfeasance in office in 2006 for accepting $500 to dismiss a drunken driving case.

According to the New Orleans Times-Picayune, Jackson had the felony conviction expunged last year, but Louisiana's Office of Disciplinary Counsel had already filed misconduct charges against him in 2007. The state disciplinary board asked the state Supreme Court to permanently strip Jackson of his law license.

Why? Because of Jackson's arrogance.  The Times Picayune quotes Jackson:

"A city attorney can do whatever they want to with a case, at any time," Jackson said. "Yeah, I dismissed it. It was my church member. Did I take $500 for it? No. It's never been proven."

The Times-Picayune reports:

In an eight-page decision released Friday, a unanimous state Supreme Court revoked his law license. "Among the aggravating factors present is Jackson's absolute refusal to acknowledge the wrongful nature of his conduct," the court said. "We find this conduct amounts to intentional corruption of the judicial process."

Bayou Blunder

Acting U.S. Attorney Bill Flanagan of the Western District of Louisiana, a member of the Rove Republican Racket, is full of embarrassment this week.

His son, Robert Flanagan, along with three other men, were arrested by federal authorities for attempting to tamper with U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu's telephone lines on Monday.

The Associated Press reports today:

[Robert] Flanagan recently criticized Landrieu for her vote on the Senate health care bill after securing a Medicaid provision estimated in value at up to $365 million for Louisiana. Conservatives accused her of selling her vote but she insisted no "special deals" were made.  "Do not be fooled into believing Landrieu is helping the state of Louisiana," Flanagan wrote in a Nov. 25 post on the Pelican Institute's Web site. "If the proposed healthcare legislation were to be signed into law, the $300 million allocated to Louisiana will pale in comparison to the long-term debt Louisiana citizens will ultimately shoulder."

His father, Bill, is the acting U.S. Attorney based in Shreveport. He was first assistant under Republican President George W. Bush appointee Donald Washington before Washington stepped down this month. President Barack Obama recently nominated Stephanie A. Finley for the post. Bill Flanagan's office declined to comment.

The other men include the now infamous James O'Keefe, the right-wing "journalist" who brought down ACORN, when he posed as a pimp trying to get job training for fictious sex slave business.