HoustonChronicle.com Sept. 28, 2005, 1:09AM Reports of New Orleans mayhem probably exaggerated, police say New Orleans police now say that reports of crimes mostly exaggerated By MICHELLE ROBERTS Associated Press HURRICANE KATRINA NEW ORLEANS - On Sept. 1, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention center, Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: "We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individuals who are getting beaten." Five days later, Mayor C. Ray Nagin told Oprah Winfrey: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin' Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people." The ugliest reports — children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement — soon became a searing image of post-Katrina New Orleans. The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were repeated by public officials. Many news organizations carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attribution. But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact. They have no official reports of rape and no eyewitnesses to sexual assault. The state Department of Health and Hospitals counted 10 dead at the Superdome and four at the convention center. Only two of those are thought to have been slain. One of those victims — found at the Superdome — appears to have been killed elsewhere before being brought to the stadium, said Bob Johannessen, the agency spokesman. "It was a chaotic time for the city. Now that we've had a chance to reflect back on that situation, we're able to say right now that things were not the way they appeared," said police Capt. Marlon Defillo. Conditions chaotic Sally Forman, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the mayor was relying on others for his information about conditions at the evacuation sites. "He was listening to officials, trusting that information they were providing was accurate," she said. To be sure, conditions at both sites were chaotic. Water was rising around the Superdome, home to 20,000 evacuees. Toilets were backing up, garbage was rotting, fights were breaking out. Food was in short supply at the convention center, where about 19,000 people took shelter from the rising waters. Police said they saw muzzle flashes at the convention center, and a National Guard member was shot in the leg when an evacuee tried to take his gun. A week after the floodwaters poured into the city, the Times-Picayune of New Orleans quoted an Arkansas National Guardsman as saying that soldiers had discovered 30 to 40 bodies inside a freezer in the convention center's food area. Guardsman Mikel Brooks told the newspaper that some of the dead appeared to have met violent ends, including "a 7-year-old with her throat cut." When the convention center was swept, however, no such pile of bodies was found. No eyewitness account Lt. Col. John Edwards, the staff judge advocate for the 39th Infantry Brigade of the Arkansas National Guard, said Tuesday that Brooks told the Times-Picayune reporter only that he had heard rumors of bodies in the freezer, not that he had actually seen them. "We have never found anybody who has any first-hand knowledge of dozens of bodies in the refrigerator," Edwards said. He said Brooks was unavailable for comment. Judy Benitez, executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, cautioned that it might be too soon to say whether there really were rapes at the evacuation sites. Because the evacuees and any perpetrators have been scattered across the country by Katrina, and now Hurricane Rita, victims may come forward later, she said. "It is extremely difficult to get good statistics about rape under normal circumstances, and these are certainly not normal circumstances," she said.
you know, it actually makes me really happy that it was all a lie. i know it says bad things for hysteria, but the people didn't turn feral like the press wished so much they would. yeah, conditions were awful, and i bet there was some trouble due to the close quarters, heat and fear, but it's good to know there's aren't murdered bodies and raped babies laying about.
No! This proves there was giant cover up like after 9/11! I refuse to believe this isn't an illuminati/NWO plot until there is an independent investigation.
Have you ever thought it was disinformation so the goverment could declare martial law in New Orleans like they did?
Thinking about it now,I'd think it would be stupid for a rapist to rape someone when there's thousands of people walking around. They would get beat-down silly.
This is rediculous. Now everyones going to be saying that things in New Orleans were hunky Dory and that FEMA and Bushy really didn't do as bad as we thought they did... I, personaly, never paid much head to the stories of people being murdered and raped inside the dome. I barely even heard them except from word of mouth. The media for once was pointing fingers where they deserved to be pointed, at the feds for their horrible handling of the situation, but now the media is trying to quietly cover it up. This is subtle, but now people are going to just have the attitude that most of it was overblown. Same thing as when I say that 9/11 was fishy and automaticly people associate me with the Missile under the Boeing theory and other bullshit disinformation.
yeah, well, things WEREN'T as bad as portrayed, and it's best that the media, who got all hysterical and overwrought should take a very close look at how they're portraying the news. they were all excited about this new Emotional Reporting, and it's embarassing. there's a reason that reporters were urged to try to remove their feelings from their news hunt and try to ascertain the facts, and we're seeing it now. they've lost a lotta credibility.
It is great how people can post rationalise any POV they wish.. It is proabably true things were not as bad as reported.. but clearly things did not go to plan [was their a plan ??? Probably one with a bit of dust on it]. The ebb and flow of this situation are nicely archived in media outlets web servers..So if you wish too highlight any opinion you wish .. Something can be found .. i am sure.
Thats being cynical.... something is always true...what we want it to be is sometimes different to reality.
