"The Nation" Re-Writes Katrina: "White Militia" Murders of Innocent Refugees

[techres]

I am putting this in the Politics section because it is obviously timed to have a political impact: i.e. take Katrina away as a rallying point for firearms ownership and communal preparedness.

That being said, the thrust of the article, and the cover of their magazine, is that in the chaos of Katrina white militias sought to murder innocent black people who only wanted to get on evacuation buses while the police were unaware and unable to stop the rampaging butchery of rich white gun owners.

Katrina's Hidden Race War

Facing an influx of refugees, the residents of Algiers Point could have pulled together food, water and medical supplies for the flood victims. Instead, a group of white residents, convinced that crime would arrive with the human exodus, sought to seal off the area, blocking the roads in and out of the neighborhood by dragging lumber and downed trees into the streets. They stockpiled handguns, assault rifles, shotguns and at least one Uzi and began patrolling the streets in pickup trucks and SUVs. The newly formed militia, a loose band of about fifteen to thirty residents, most of them men, all of them white, was looking for thieves, outlaws or, as one member put it, anyone who simply "didn't belong."

The existence of this little army isn't a secret--in 2005 a few newspaper reporters wrote up the group's activities in glowing terms in articles that showed up on an array of pro-gun blogs; one Cox News story called it "the ultimate neighborhood watch." Herrington, for his part, recounted his ordeal in Spike Lee's documentary When the Levees Broke. But until now no one has ever seriously scrutinized what happened in Algiers Point during those days, and nobody has asked the obvious questions. Were the gunmen, as they claim, just trying to fend off looters? Or does Herrington's experience point to a different, far uglier truth?

Read the article for more. I don't want to repeat it. And to be clear, anyone who did murder another should be brought to justice. And racially motivated violence also needs to be taken and tried. But in reading this article about a neighborhood setting up roadblocks, running patrols, and keeping out strangers - I find nothing strange in that. And amassing an arsenal of 40 guns (including one AK and one Uzi), sounds like they only had two gun nuts on the block...

While the article has me FUMING from it's extreme slant, I would advise EVERYONE to read it carefully because it is going to be latched on to as the new refutation of the Katrina gun owner story.

Too bad they did not come up with the gangs of Korean shop owners running amok and killing innocent gang members in LA as a story years back...

AND PLEASE DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT AND TURN THIS INTO A RACE STORY, THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO DO!!!

This is an attack on self sufficiency and gun ownership with gun owners being the evil ones and the good police unable to stop them.

[10ring]

Something like this from "The Nation" comes as a surprise? I would rather go to the dentist than read anything they print.

[NateIU10]

Hell, I WISH I had neighbors I know I could trust and rely on to help out like this in a time of natural disaster

[Blue Tile Spook]

Nate,

If the story is true then we are talking about individuals who killed individuals walking through their neighborhood solely because of the color of their skin, or because of the color of their skin and because they had baseball hats and tennis shoes on (according to the story).

If it is true and people were murdered, I wouldn't want the men in the story in my neighborhood.

If it is not? Yeah, I would like to see my neighbors band together with me to protect all of our possessions from looters.

[NateIU10]

Originally Posted by Blue Tile Spook

Nate,

If the story is true then we are talking about individuals who killed individuals walking through their neighborhood solely because of the color of their skin, or because of the color of their skin and because they had baseball hats and tennis shoes on (according to the story).

If it is true and people were murdered, I wouldn't want the men in the story in my neighborhood.

If it is not? Yeah, I would like to see my neighbors band together with me to protect all of our possessions from looters.

I didn't read the story. I tend to lend more credit to the multiple news stories previous to this one from "The Nation." That being said, I agree wholeheartedly, murder is murder and that should be prosecuted.

[techres]

Originally Posted by Blue Tile Spook

Nate,

If the story is true then we are talking about individuals who killed individuals walking through their neighborhood solely because of the color of their skin, or because of the color of their skin and because they had baseball hats and tennis shoes on (according to the story).

If it is true and people were murdered, I wouldn't want the men in the story in my neighborhood.

If it is not? Yeah, I would like to see my neighbors band together with me to protect all of our possessions from looters.

I agree with you Blue, but the real question is the veracity of the story and the position of the reporter as neutral. Nate points out the fact that he trusts other, numerous reports as sounding far closer to the truth.

Personally, I am guessing some of the people at those barracades were in fact yelling racist things. And some bad shoots may have happened. But I find facinating the absolute lack of any threat that the "militia" faced other than poor blacks in their nice neighborhood wandering around looking for a bus.

That description fails in the deluge of reporting that came out during and post katrina supporting the atmosphere of violence and danger that ran for months. The very fact that the reporter downplays that reality begins my disbelief in all that follows.

Again, I urge everyone (even completely overworked IU students) to read the entire article for yourselves. See what you think.

[JPBrown]

Just think, that reporter kisses his mother with that mouth.

[BloodEclipse]

These people were Evil for only one reason.
They were self sufficienct.
They did not depend upon the Government.

I stopped reading the article when I came to this point:

"We saw a couple of other shotgun wounds, some handgun shootings and somebody who was shot with a high-velocity missile [an assault-rifle round]." The surgeon remembers handling "five or six nonfatal gunshot wounds" as well as three lethal gunshot cases.
In addition, state death records show that at least four people died in and around Algiers Point, a suspicious number, given that most Katrina fatalities were the result of drowning, and that the community never flooded. Neighborhood residents, black and white, remember seeing corpses lying out in the open that appeared to have been shot.

[Blue Tile Spook]

Techres,

I read the whole article based on the advice of someone that I trust that knows the reporter personally. I still don't know if it is true, but it was sure a long read!

BloodEclipse, that isn't what I "took" from the article. According to the author in the story, the "Point" was used for an emergency staging area to get refugees onto buses and get them out of the area. If the quotes from the homeowners that live there in that neighborhood (the point) have not been taken out of context then they themselves admit that there were at least three murders there, one only footsteps from the front door of one of the residents there. One person kept a trophy from one of the murders, a bloody shirt. The coroner and some of the police admit that there were several bodies picked up that should have been investigated as homicides because the persons died of gunshot wounds.

I don't have a dog in this fight as I do not know the author and I don't think that I have read anything written by him before this. If you have read the article, and I'm not accusing you of not reading it, then you and I just are reading different things in the story. Hell, I've been up nearly 24 hours so maybe my circuits are all crossed.

[BloodEclipse]

Originally Posted by Blue Tile Spook

BloodEclipse, that isn't what I "took" from the article. According to the author in the story, the "Point" was used for an emergency staging area to get refugees onto buses and get them out of the area. If the quotes from the homeowners that live there in that neighborhood (the point) have not been taken out of context then they themselves admit that there were at least three murders there, one only footsteps from the front door of one of the residents there.

I stopped reading here because it became clear that facts were not a part of this story. These statements are vague and leading.

The surgeon remembers handling "five or six nonfatal gunshot wounds" as well as three lethal gunshot cases.

So 3 dead and 5 or 6 wounded. It does not mention where they came from. The writer wants you to believe they ALL came from Algiers Point.

In addition, state death records show that at least four people died in and around Algiers Point, a suspicious number, given that most Katrina fatalities were the result of drowning, and that the community never flooded.

We know from reading the story that:
A nationally recognized historic area, Algiers Point is largely white, while the rest of Algiers is predominantly black. It's a "white enclave" whose residents have "a kind of siege mentality,"
So what are we defining as "Around" Algiers Point?
Blocks, miles?
Also it doesn't say how they died. The writer wants you to believe that they were ALL shot dead by White people.

Neighborhood residents, black and white, remember seeing corpses lying out in the open that appeared to have been shot.

How many would that be? It says corpses so it must be plural. What also is missing from the racially based story is what are the races of all these dead and wounded? I refuse to buy into this kind of dishonest writing.