Hurricane Katrina : Cops helping to Loot!?
A troubling story out of Big Easy and Hurricane Katrina
Wow… I’m frankly speachless about all the devistation I’m seeing on the news… This story about cops and firefighters helping to loot stunned me as well. You know, I hope they’re happy stealing a 27inch flatscreen tv, when somewhere nearby there’s probably a family trapped and running out of air in a flooded attic…. May karma come back to bite them tenfold.
Law enforcement efforts to contain the emergency left by Katrina slipped into chaos in parts of New Orleans Tuesday with some police officers and firefighters joining looters in picking stores clean.
At the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, an initial effort to hand out provisions to stranded citizens quickly disintegrated into mass looting. Authorities at the scene said bedlam erupted after the giveaway was announced over the radio.
While many people carried out food and essential supplies, others cleared out jewelry racks and carted out computers, TVs and appliances on handtrucks.
Some officers joined in taking whatever they could, including one New Orleans cop who loaded a shopping cart with a compact computer and a 27-inch flat screen television.
Officers claimed there was nothing they could do to contain the anarchy, saying their radio communications have broken down and they had no direction from commanders.
“We don’t have enough cops to stop it,” an officer said. “A mass riot would break out if you tried.”
Inside the store, the scene alternated between celebration and frightening bedlam. A shirtless man straddled a broken jewelry case, yelling, “Free samples, free samples over here.”
Another man rolled a mechanized pallet, stacked six feet high with cases of vodka and whiskey. Perched atop the stack was a bewildered toddler.
Throughout the store and parking lot, looters pushed carts and loaded trucks and vans alongside officers. One man said police directed him to Wal-Mart from Robert’s Grocery, where a similar scene was taking place. A crowd in the electronics section said one officer broke the glass DVD case so people wouldn’t cut themselves.
“The police got all the best stuff. They’re crookeder than us,” one man said.
Most officers, though, simply stood by powerless against the tide of law breakers.
One veteran officer said, “It’s like this everywhere in the city. This tiny number of cops can’t do anything about this. It’s wide open.”
At least one officer tried futilely to control a looter through shame.
“When they say take what you need, that doesn’t mean an f-ing TV,” the officer shouted to a looter. “This is a hurricane, not a free-for-all.”
Sandra Smith of Baton Rouge walked through the parking lot with a 12-pack of Bud Light under each arm. “I came down here to get my daughters,” she said, “but I can’t find them.”
The scene turned so chaotic at times that entrances were blocked by the press of people and shopping carts and traffic jams sprouted on surrounding streets.
Some groups organized themselves into assembly lines to more efficiently cart off goods.
Toni Williams, 25, packed her trunk with essential supplies, such as food and water, but said mass looting disgusted and frightened her.
“I didn’t feel safe. Some people are going overboard,” she said.
Inside the store, one woman was stocking up on make-up. She said she took comfort in watching police load up their own carts.
“It must be legal,” she said. “The police are here taking stuff, too.”
August 30th, 2005 at 6:56 pm
One thing to remember and to keep in mind at all times is: We, Humans, are beasts. Animals, if you will, who at some point in evolution decided that we were better than all the other critters that muck, scuttle, swim, fly, climb, or scamper on this giant ball of mostly water.We couldn’t have been more wrong. To hold humanity, in any of it’s geographic flavors, arbitrary offices, or precieved intellectual prowess, to any set of standards is an exercise in complete foolishness. Long ago I quit being shocked at what people do, I laugh and shrug and say “Well, in that situation, I’d have done that too.”
August 30th, 2005 at 6:58 pm
Well, i’m encouraged by all the brave people who don’t resort to being beasts…. and are repelling from ropes from helicopters to cut holes in people’s roofs so they can escape….
August 30th, 2005 at 7:02 pm
I am both amused and disturbed by this. Amused, because I can imagine the man with the pallet of vodka, disturbed becuase the cops actually HELPED the looters. I was in Biloxi, Mississippi when hurricane George hit, but there was nothing THAT bad.
August 30th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
I would’ve been the shirtless guy on the jewellery case yelling out “Free samples!” I like the cut of his jib.
August 30th, 2005 at 10:34 pm
Of course we all have those types of tendencies, but the real question is, should we act upon them? Are we mere animals, or are we people who do have a sense of reason and conscious? I won’t lie and say that I wouldn’t take something like a TV if it was in excellent and perfect condition, and I KNEW that noone else wanted it, but I wouldn’t take it from a store, just because of some freakin’ hurricane, because all that accomplishes is driving up the prices of things in the long run, and I just think that it’s wrong to do. If a person needs something THAT bad, such as a TV, then their priorities are not straight to begin with, because they CAN live without a TV if they have to for a little while.
August 31st, 2005 at 5:58 am
Graphic, the short and curly on your comment is : You don’t know until it happens to you. Civilisation and common sense is only a thin veneer.
What I wonder about is what frigging genius put out a call of “free stuff” over the radio. That’s a surefire recipy for a mob, upsetting what looks like started out to as a concerned effort to at least get some rationing going on.
That bloody moron should be publicly hung , drawn and quartered, and his remains put in formaldehyde as an exemplary exhibit for a compulsory course in “common sense in reporting” for any prospective journalist.
August 31st, 2005 at 6:34 am
I am a MADCORE enviromentalist. And i have to say, faced with the option of letting these items get ruined by the hurracane or taken away by the masses i would probably find it hard to see the resources spent being wasted without use. So in a situation while i would not loot myself i would find it hard to blame anyone for doing it.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:13 am
Being from a city close to the Rockies in Canada, I am far removed from the need to flee before the wrath of a hurricane, and find it incredibly hilarious to hear the stories of our American cousins looting the crap out of each other’s stores.
My God, what is next for you people, carting a TV out on your back while the storm surge washes over you? Such ‘noblility in the face of danger’ to be helping out those stores with their huge overstocking problems.
I can barely wait until you start shooting each other over a pack of tic-tacs and calling it a tragedy of epic proportions.
August 31st, 2005 at 9:16 am
“You people” ??? You mean, Americans???? No. Let me tell you, there are dumbasses everywhere. Not to mention, during a crisis, people do weird things— and there ARE bad people who might have saw this as an opportunity to run in , get a flat screen tv, get on their boat, trek it out of the area….
There was a report of “pirates” too– people bringing in a bigger boat, and telling people to bring merchandise to their location, they’d pay for it, and cart it off to sea!!!
CRAZY!
August 31st, 2005 at 11:46 am
Bongwater, don’t be a dick. My entire family is from there. Most got out… we’re still waiting to hear about 2 family members, but their houses are under a dozen feet of water, so it doesn’t look good. It’s easy to generalize about people, but for every cock-breath stealing TVs, there are 1 hundred that have no home, no food, no hope.
But, of course, that doesn’t make a sensationalistic news story… that’s why you hear about these yahoos…
August 31st, 2005 at 1:30 pm
Although I doubt anybody realized it when settlement began, it does seem kind of stupid to have built a large city beneath see level so close to the coast. Conjures images from the story of the guy who built his house on the rocks at the beach in the summer. Fast forwards six months to mid winter and there he is in the middle of a storm, soaking wet on his knees in the sand screaming at the sky “why god, why did you send the waves to wash my house away”. The waves were always there, you just chose to build you house in a dumb place. Not that i wish any of these people ill. I hope everybody is ok. But you’ve gotta wonder about the effects of this. Hundreds of thousands with no home food or job. More will die and then there will be rises in homeless numbers and unemployment.
For some reason part of me looks at the place on TV from my nice warm couch down here in Australia and think it makes sense (and would be kinda cool) if people moved out and the place became a ghost town. You would be a fool to think this can’t happen again or that any sort of “we will rebuild, we will never surrender” sort of sentiment will stop it from happening.
August 31st, 2005 at 2:23 pm
i agree w/ozguy. i saw this comming. building below sea level on the coast is just a matter of time before the ocean takes it. i have a feeling this may happen to more cities in the future because of the ocean getting higher every year. people need to know when to give up sandbagging and move.
August 31st, 2005 at 5:41 pm
Quick history lesson: When NOLA was settled, it was 90 feet ABOVE sea level. Because most of the city is built on silt from the river, however, large portions of the city slowly sink. In addition, if you look at the footage, the French Quarter and a goodly portion of, I think, the Garden District (i.e., where all the money has always been in that city since the French started building the levees), are at higher elevations and have suffered far less from the flooding (though, the overall wreckage of that city looks like it’s heading to Sodom and Gomorrah proportions at this point). As for the cops–if you’ve ever been down there, you know that they have the most underpaid (thus, sketchier) police and fire forces in the country.
August 31st, 2005 at 11:35 pm
What’s the source of this story? I haven’t seen it reported anywhere else, and I tried googling key phrases. I suspect it was made up…
September 1st, 2005 at 12:03 am
You didn’t google hard enough at all– the other story this was copied from was found through technorati news– there’s even more of it today: http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/8/31/102233.shtml
MSNBC has actual video, reporter walking up to ask what they’re doing there….
Looks like the REAL cops are cracking down on the looting with a 1500 man task force for the city tonight too.
September 7th, 2005 at 12:16 am
My point was, if you were in the middle of getting slammed by a fucking hurricane, WHY WOULD YOU WANT OR NEED TO STEAL A FREAKING TV SET? Seriously, if you’re literally STANDING IN WELL OVER TWO OR MORE FEET OF WATER, why go through all the trouble of stealing a TV? And yes, I do think that it’s shitty that the police actually HELPED in looting those stores as well. Personally, I KNOW that what I would take is food and other things that I KNEW that I would need to survive. I don’t need a freaking tv to survive to see another day, when I wouldn’t even have fucking electricity so I could plug it in and watch it, much less CABLE so I could get channels. How totally retarded and utterly stupid.