Rapes, Shooting at Helicopters in N.O. Exaggerated or Untrue

NY Times today has a substantial story, reporting on its investigations into the rumors of violence (rape, shooting at helicopters, murderous hordes) in the days after Katrina, rumors which, as you well remember, caused rescue operations to be halted, in some instances.  Guess what they found?  Yep, you got it.  Most of those stories were wildly exaggerated, or simply untrue.

This information needs to be disseminated; as far as I can tell, this story is being lost in the whirlwind of Roberts's confirmation, Delay's indictment, and the continuing devastating quagmire in Iraq.

story here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/nationalspecial/29crime.html

or, here's a quickie summary:

"The mass misery in the city's two unlit and uncooled primary shelters, the convention center and the Superdome, was compounded, officials said, by gangs that were raping women and children.

A month later, a review of the available evidence now shows that some, though not all, of the most alarming stories that coursed through the city appear to be little more than figments of frightened imaginations, the product of chaotic circumstances that included no reliable communications, and perhaps the residue of the longstanding raw relations between some police officers and members of the public."

•  My own thought

  is that there were those in FEMA, etc., who jumped on these rumors and purposely circulated them to justify their own lack of action.

  by tjb22 on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 01:41:10 PM PDT

  •  the efficacy of misinformation

    many here were certain that these rumors were exaggerated or untrue; i'm glad that finally someone is reporting on it!  although it is perhaps too late to undo what has been insinuated into our national consciousness...

    the fiction of armed thugs, murderous hordes, and depraved individuals certainly helped some authorities make the excuse that the situation could not be helped, was too dangerous, too dire...it gave them "an out," even if there was no actual misinformation campaign...

    by emartin on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 01:48:43 PM PDT

    •  I was one who was fairly

      sure they were at least exaggerated...too many news reporters freely going back and forth without having any problems.  I do think Brown/FEMA and those who served as their apologists jumped on these rumors to justify their inaction.  

      I think you're right in that forever, to some people, New Orleans in those days will be remembered as the time the "black folk went wild".  Its not a stretch for many people to believe this...people who live in rural areas believe all cities are like this on a daily basis anyway.

      by tjb22 on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 01:53:49 PM PDT

•  Well, on the other hand...

  ...here's what a friend of mine had to say about it. She's in Jefferson Parish right now after spending the hurricane and the subsequent aftermath in the Superdome.

  That is bullshit. I was there- those things did indeed happen. Along with constant fighting, attacking people, etc. I have a broken tooth from being beaten. There were shootings, stabbings, gang fights. Those two kids really were raped and killed. People went stalking around looking for women to victimize. While I still had a private place to sleep, a guy broke the lock and came in there after me- I hit him and ran through the other goor that faced the field. I found a big nasty straight razor he dropped on the floor. I informed the Guard about him- they were already looking for him because he'd been going into all the womens' suites. People stormed the kitchen with guns, and luckily, we were away at the time going through frozen food lockers, trying to get together something to feed these thankless assholes. Drug dealers had operations set up all over- tons of people were coming in to sell and trade the stuff they looted. Yes, people do this- they stay in the hurricane in order to loot, then go to the shelters to fence their loot.

  There was food and water. Truckloads were brought in before and after the storm, plus the Dome has amazing storages of food- seriously, years worth. We were there cooking for a reason, and we were asked to do that. Trapping people there and starving them is acomplete myth. People were getting violent because they had to wait for anything...we had to serve the food in stages, and the military rescuers came first. Yes, they were there before the storm even hit. People ripped up the MRE packages and threw them at us. They started victimizing others before the storm even hit. I had to stop distributing food because it was putting my life in danger.

  It's also true that if you were white, you were a constant target. What little I had with me was taken. Contrary to what the media is portraying, there were alot of white people at the dome- it pretty much reflected the makeup of the city- about 27%. And the harrassment, beatings, and slurs were just constant. I was pretty lucky that my group (employees and family- about 100 of us) was all black with the exception of a few people. They knew we were targets, and watched our backs accordingly, though some did turn on us and much abusive language was hurled our way. Even the Mayor was being constantly referred to as a "half-white muthafuckah". The violence was also very much directed at the elderly, sick, children, and women, regardless of race.

  No, I don't think the violence and chaos at the Dome can be overstated at all. And no, 99% of the people were not behaving themselves. Maybe 40% were being decent, and I felt really sorry for them. There were alot of people huddled with their kids in pools of filth- such a sad sight you've never seen. The Dome is an extremely labrynthine building, and alot of people were finding nooks and crannies to hide in, for their own safety and that of our families. I'm pretty afraid that they will find alot more dead in there, because there were hundreds of people in hard to find places.
  The pools of blood everywhere, the gunshots- unfortunately, all that is very real.

  There was a time I was becoming sure that it was quite likely we would die there.

  I definitely can't say how accurate any account is of how much of what type of violence and death went on- I don't think anyone will ever know for sure. There was so much going on, and so much of it in total darkness that no, the place really couldn't be very well patroled...alot of it just couldn't be stopped. I definitely witnessed the military doing their level best at being everywhere at once. (source)

  I trust her word on these things.

  I think there's a tendency in this country -- at least amoung white people -- to want to believe, very badly, that racial and ethnic divides basically don't exist or are superficial at best, and to paper them over should evidence of the divide appear. As far as the body politic is concerned, the racial divide was bridged in the 1970s, and racism ended with the exception of a few crackpots such as David Duke or Louis Farakhan. As is usual with any political fiction, this requires a selective memory. We forget about how people reacted to the OJ verdict (and never bothered to ask why it happened that way). We remember the LA riots happening only in LA, because the racism in the LAPD was only an LA problem. Conservatives rationalize the oppressive poverty of the ghetto as caused by the breakdown of the family. Liberals rationalize the social breakdown of the ghetto as caused by unemployment. Both are often shocked to meet successful, educated, cultured African American families -- fifth generation Howard grads and the like -- with collections of memorabilia that include lawn jockeys and "no dogs or coloreds" signs. Both resist the idea of any kind of lumpen underclass.

  by maxomai on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 01:53:15 PM PDT

  •  Unfortunately, this has been contradicted

    by just about every investigator that has looked into the situation.  Frankly, I don't believe your "friend" was anywhere near the Superdome.  The "lumpen underclass"?  That's garbage, too.  

    by SamCDC on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 04:35:52 PM PDT

    •  Tell you what

      Go to the source. It's a blog. Argue it out with her.

      This attempt on the part of the media to understate the chaos is an illusion. Understand this.

      by maxomai on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 06:58:15 PM PDT

•  I know from personally speaking with...

  a friend who has a family member flying rescue helicopters with a national guard unit in NOLA and surrounding areas that the rumors were completely false. And that the helicopters stayed in the air doing rescue missions and other necessary missions, regardless of what was being reported at the time. The information I was told was specific to the hospital shooting rumor -- this pilot was flying in that vicinity and there were no shots reported by his unit, or any other in the area, of which he was aware during the time the reports were being aired. My friend was frantically trying to get her relative on the phone and get some news through his unit command, only to later find out that everything was fine, because she knew that this area was part of the search grid that her relative had given her as his area just prior to the reports.

  by ReddHedd on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 01:54:11 PM PDT

•  "Official Reports"

  In an interview last week with The New York Times, Superintendent Compass said that some of his most shocking statements turned out to be untrue. Asked about reports of rapes and murders, he said: "We have no official reports to document any murder. Not one official report of rape or sexual assault."

  Just because there is not an "official report" does not mean the incidents did not happen. Keep in mind that rape is a crime that is under reported. Also keep in mind that the article mentions that not all bodies or autopsies have been performed on the recovered bodies. I believe there was an article about the superdome, days after people had evacuated, and they found the decomposing body of a 7 year old girl with a slit throat.

  by Darksyde888 on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 02:00:32 PM PDT

  •  true

    that is true, and thanks for pointing that out.  i only intended to note that many of the stories are not panning out the way they were initially reported--

    i do believe that some crimes occurred--crime is a daily occurrence in most places, and it would be weird if none happened in NO.  i'm just saying that much of the fear that was engendered by those initial reports is not being supported at this time...i do believe that much was exaggerated, even if some of the reports turn out to be accurate.

    by emartin on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 02:05:38 PM PDT

    •  This is the context tdhat seems to have

      been forgotten in discussing all this:

      i do believe that some crimes occurred--crime is a daily occurrence in most places, and it would be weird if none happened in NO..

      by a gilas girl on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 04:36:19 PM PDT

•  So, the question is, who did the exaggerating?

  Did Nagin play a role in spreading any of these stories?  Or was it all the MSM?

  by Vagabond57 on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 02:21:41 PM PDT

  •  In a situation like that, with an

    emotional emergency, and no information about what is really happening anywhere, I would say that everyone participated. Everyone. When people don't know and they need to know, they make stuff up. And then they start to believe it.

    Eyewitnesses saw what they saw. But rumors were surely flying inside the Dome, and outside. It doesn't take much for a rumor to become a fact in a person's mind, if that's all they've got to go on.

    One thing I can be sure of about what happened inside the Dome is that people were kept for an unconscionable number of days with NO information about what was going to happen to them, or when help might be coming.

    New Orleans had a serious crime and drug problem before Katrina. It's not believable that all those people who hadn't obeyed the law beforehand would suddenly start behaving like model citizens just because there was suddenly no law enforcement around. You also had drug addicts deprived of their fix, which is a recipe for desperate, irrational behavior. But I believe it's also possible -- there are accounts that this happened -- that some youth gang members were very active in protecting children and the elderly.

    There was chaos. There was fear. Therefore there was also incredible cruelty, greed, selfishness, kindness, generosity, and self-sacrifice. We may never know all the details. But don't believe anyone who says nothing bad happened. And don't believe anyone who says it was all bad, either.

    by Canadian Reader on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 03:38:01 PM PDT

•  When we lose sight of the truth we lose everything

  Anyone with common sense would be able to figure out the reports were exaggerations and caused by hysteria. News people, A LOT of media free roamed about the city. The crowds around the Convention Center and the Super Dome were upset, but surprisingly orderly and non-violent. People were abandoned, frightened, there were dead people all around New Orleans, I can certainly understand how wild stories got started.

  by ghengismom on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 03:19:55 PM PDT

•  In response to

  " So, the question is, who did the exaggerating?..."

  Nagin was probably getting his info from the main stream media who were probably getting their info from crackpots who related inflammatory, bogus reports like the long one retold above.  

  by Aint Supposed to Die a Natural Death on Thu Sep 29, 2005 at 04:53:06 PM PDT