National Guard Asked to Patrol Big Easy

[AnOhioan]

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Mayor Ray Nagin asked the governor Monday to send National Guard troops and state police to patrol his city after a violent weekend in which five teenagers were shot to death.

City leaders convened a special meeting to voice outrage after the killings Saturday in an area near the central business district.

More at http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5896940,00.html

[flordehinojos]

1. fertile ground for a civil war to break out between the NATIONAL GUARD and

the BLACKWATER MERCENARIES, or between the NATIONAL GUARD ON ONE SIDE AND THE BLACKWATER MERCENARIES AND THE KELLOGG, ROOT AND BROWN GOONS ON THE OTHER.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

2. Eh?

Not sure how you arrive at that conclusion.

[flordehinojos]

9. i arrived at my conclusiong via travel on a long road, but the short of it

is that in my mind, and up to now, THE NATIONAL GUARD IS AND HAS BEEN THERE TO PROTECT THE PEOPLE.

the kellogg, root and brown goons, as well as the blackwater mercenaries, are Halliburton paid
mercenaries to look after the interest of supremacists and others who are trying to prevent THE PEOPLE from returning to NEW ORLEANS, or from returning to certain neighborhoods in NEW ORLEANS.

as such, if the national guard are still there to protect the people and their rights, then a confrontation between the national guard and the mercenaries could very easily ensue...and call it what you want but that, in short, would be a civil war.

[saigon68]

10. BLACKWATER THUGS NEW ORLEANS

[flordehinojos]

12. they look scary, and they don't have THE PEOPLE's interest at heart.

thanks for posting the picture.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

14. I think you're being exceptionally paranoid. n/t

[flordehinojos]

24. time will tell whether i am, or whether you are too trusting of an

administration whose sole aim is to establish a police state within these united states.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

51. Distrust of the administration...

...does not give one a license to become delusional.

[flordehinojos]

53. i hardly think of myself as delusional, though you, who seem to be

defending bu$hco and his ilk, seem to insist that i am...

i seem to be OX3 (oriented to time, place and person), i do not have any audio/visual hallucinations, my speech is clear, and coherent, i neither think that i am more nor less than who or what i am and i think that louisiana is the first state, and new orleans the first city for bu$hco's trial run in establishing his jackbooted police state aided by blackwater mercenaries and kellog, root and brown goonish scum-thugs.

you can go ahead and hide your face in the sand regarding bush's truth by choosing to call me delusional and whatever else you choose to call me. doing that you are playing right into bush's hands, or his game of divert the focus from my reality and place it on a scapegoat. in this case, you are scapegoating me because that produces no pain to you while looking at the reality of bush's dictatorship may since it may just not conform to your idealized conception of bush is a saint.

now i know i have taken the liberty of guessing about you and your thinking--but then, that is proper retribution as you too have taken the liberty to diagnose me without even having talked to me on a face-to-face meeting.

flor de hinojos / retired LMFT

[StrafingMoose]

62. Amen!

It's incredible how many supposed "progressives", "leftitst" actually shield Bush and his handlers for what they really are.

I mean, we've seen this administration lie, lie and lie over and over again. How could one try to delimitate the extent of their lies? "Oh, they are crooked enough to lie about that, but not enough about that though". Criminals are criminals, liars are liars. Period.

But what I think in terms of possible "war" between paid goons and National Guards, wouldn't be all out war. The paid goons would do just enough synthetic trouble to keep the National Guard out and justify the presence of militarized police out there. Later, exported out of NO.

[Demeter]

27. Ain't Any Such Thing Anymore

You can't possibly be too paranoid with BushCo.

[flordehinojos]

30. thank you much ... i agree

absolutely.

:hippie:

[coalition_unwilling]

58. Just because he's paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out

to get him :)

[Freddie Stubbs]

56. How many BLACKWATER MERCENARIES are still in New Orleans?

[flordehinojos]

59. i don't have those statistics.

:)

[Freddie Stubbs]

60. Are there any still there?

:shrug:

[flordehinojos]

61. i do not have that information...these two links, however, give some

account of the travails NO is facing (and although i haven't had time to read the articles, or see the program video, the headlines alone explain, in my mind, some of the unhappiness and unrest faced by the NO people and why there are so many shootings...and underneath it all, keeping the poor away, tearing down their housing developments and not providing housing for them, underneat all of that, there is a strong smell of bush fascism aided by blackwater mercenaries.


oops! i forgot to add the links. here they are:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/20/142204


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/20/142210

[951-Riverside]

3. Ray Nagin is an idiot

The national guard isnt going to stop illegal immigration and they are not going to stop gang activity, those are not magical wands they carry around.

[halobeam]

4. Military enforcement of law.... correct? Isn't that martial law

without calling it that? Like war, without like... declaring that? If I'm wrong, set me straight. I really DO want to misunderstanding something here.

[jody]

7. Governors can use the guard to enforce domestic law but not the president

[MemphisTiger]

8. No you are incorrect, the national guard is different from the

full time military which can only advise in law enforcement within the borders of the US. That is what my civics teacher taught in HS.

[pitohui]

13. we don't have martial law, we have a state of emergency

but it is semantics -- martial law is the old term and, yeah, in times of crisis sometimes you are really DAMN GLAD to have that national guardsman with his big rifle there

if you don't think people shooting each other down in the streets over territorial disputes while other people are trying to fix up their gutted homes is not a problem, well, thanks for your concern, but i am going to have to disagree

the national guard were sent away too soon, the area of devastation is huge, and neighborhood watch is a joke when there are not enough cops to handle the gang wars or women in the homes to keep an eye on the neighborhoods

even little children have been killed as innocent bystanders, a 7 year old was killed last summer, there were truly some horrific crimes committed

it is just that nobody cared and the national media couldn't be bothered to publish -- and even when it was reported in the aftermath of katrina, it was quickly hushed up as "hysteria"

the murder rate in orleans parish is now the same, per capita, as it was pre-katrina -- when it was up 11 percent and the only reason we were not officially the usa city w. highest murder rate is that FBI couldn't decide whether or not new orleans had enough population to be considered a major city (remember new orleans has been losing population since betsy, katrina is just the latest insult)

we need guard here, don't cheap out on us now, i don't see why 300 troops can't serve here in their own country where they are badly needed and GREATLY appreciated rather than in some useless desert where nobody wants them

[Igel]

16. I'm guessing--

guessing, mind you--that having Louisiana National Guard would be ok. If they're federalized so that it's actually part of the military, under military control, that violates posse comitatus.

Ah.
"Active-duty U.S. troops are barred from domestic law enforcement by a Reconstruction-era law known as Posse Comitatus, but National Guard troops under state control can perform some law enforcement functions."
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/14/immigration/index.html

Take CNN for what it's worth.

[bluebottle]

21. Worse than an idiot, seems Ray Nagin may be a crook himself!

During the emergency, he had all his buddies and families nicely taken care of over at a hotel. Turning a blind-eye to HIS police doing a pretty good job of looting stores themselves (I wonder what his "cut" is)?

[TomInTib]

5. Five punks get shot and you call out the Guard?

Dangerous precedent.

That was strictly a gang/drug deal, not potentially violent civil unrest.

[pitohui]

15. a lot more than five people dead

sorry, i hate to sound so sarcastic (and in fact i just changed my subject line since i realized it read as VERY sarcastic) but if drug lord wanna-bes were gunning down each other in YOUR neighborhood, yeah, you'd want the guard there

i don't know what it takes to qualify as "violent civil unrest" if a shooting war back and forth with automatic weapons doesn't qualify? don't kid yourself, this is only the story that made the national news, but this is no one-time deal, this has been going on since last june at least (before the storm) and lots of people have been killed, including a 7 year old

we are at war and it needs to be stopped

now

when the guard was here, the murder rate dropped to almost nothing

i was happy to see them here, all good people were, i didn't hear anyone hear say a word against having them here

[TomInTib]

19. So what's to keep the Guard out of Detroit, Chicago, Methville

LA, etc?

I just see this as the thin edge of a very large wedge.

They are taking up positions along the Border as we type.

I am by no means minimizing the desperate plight of your city.

I just do not like what is happening. And it is happening at a very rapid rate.

[pitohui]

22. if the mayors of detroit and chicago want the guard there, why not?

i think we have to stop tolerating these drug gangs

it is not fair to the decent people who have to live in those neighborhoods, can you imagine being a poor single mother, or an older handicapped woman, or a disabled older man, trapped in these neighborhoods where all this crossfire has been going on?

i thought murder rate had dropped substantially in recent years in detroit and they had really fixed the place up w. the casinos (not sure, just an impression i had) but by all means, if organized crime gangs were recruiting kids and shooting up neighborhoods and doing it for years on end and all the cops did about it was buy doughnuts and take pay-offs or even join in themselves (like davis and frank in new orleans) then i say if those mayors and their people wanted national guard troops on the ground...why not?

[Freddie Stubbs]

52. Nothing. It is up to the Governors of those states

[Son Of Spy]

6. National Guard

Of course they're trained for this, just like they are for guerilla warfare :sarcasm:

[pitohui]

17. trained or not, they did a TERRIFIC JOB

i was never so glad to see uniformed troops w. weapons and boots on the ground as when i returned to my home after a month trapped out of my home

some of you people have no idea what's going on here and not just in orleans, in jefferson too some real crap is occurring and cops are getting injured or killed as well as innocent bystanders like the middle-aged jogger in a (formerly) nice park who was raped and then run over multiple times until she was crushed and dead

i have my differences w. nagin and i make no secret of it, but please

we need guard here and i hope blanco will agree to his request because i think it is needed

[atreides1]

20. All this is happening

But why isn't it in the news? I watch the news every night, and while the shootings of the 5 teens was reported I have not seen or read about any of the other stuff you're saying.

Are the local authorities trying to keep this quiet for some reason?

I don't live there, but it's crossing a thin line when national guardsmen are being used to enforce
civilian law. If Nagin wants the guard then Blanco should declare a state of emergency and a curfew should be put into effect for New Orleans and the surrounding areas.

The dangerous part here is that this sets a precedent and anytime that a large city feels that its'
law enforcement cannot handle a situation they can call for the national guard to intervene.

[pitohui]

23. good grief it's in the times picayune every day

it's in the local paper every day, their website is nola.com, and if you check it several times a day you can read all about the various horrors

minutes ago another one posted, a roommate in orleans killing an old man over a damn beer, just taking a knife and stabbing him to death!

there is pretty much a new horror every day, although this week was remarkable in the number of horrific crimes, not just the 5 teens being slaughtered, but the two cops getting shot in jefferson and shooting dead the crazy man, and the cop killer from houston they just rounded up in river ridge (also jefferson) after a big stand-off with police

crap, it's coming at us every damn day, i guess it don't make national news because it isn't "news," it is pretty much every day and has been for a long time, although 2005 pre-katrina was particularly bad, you can try to look up the police chief's july 2005 news conference about the soaring murder rate in orleans where he basically mumbled that the murder rate was awful but at least the rape rate was down -- sure it was down, if you're going to be killed if you file a complaint, you don't file a complaint, that's fairly elementary to me!

52 murders in orleans since the beginning of the year out of a population of maybe 200,000 -- and i don't even know how many when you count in jefferson and the other parishes!

they have an archives at nola.com which i have found rather difficult to search but you may be able to find other stories online, as far as the current situation, check it pretty often, you'll be amazed at how awful it is

links from just right now!

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_06_19.html#152872

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-15/1150697636302200.xml&coll=1

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_06_19.html#152791

Fifty three people have been murdered in New Orleans this year, thirty-six of those since April.

and remember that DON'T include the peace officer murdered in jefferon, it don't include the people like the woman jogger murdered in jefferson, that ONLY includes orleans parish!

[pitohui]

49. and here's more abt the st. john the baptist cop killing

this guy and his girlfriend are a real piece of work, they are now releasing the story of how this couple worked together to kill the cop and then terrorize the family in kenner (jefferson parish, adjacent to orleans)

http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2006_06_19.html#152969

there is just a lot of crap flying around out there

[pitohui]

11. i support this

we need the national guard back, i don't think some people from out of the area quite realize the seriousness of the situation

we do not need wanna-be teen drug lords gunning each other down over changing territorial boundaries

even if you don't give a flying eff abt the wanna-bes, please consider that other people are trying to rebuild their lives and they don't need to have to put up w. this crap

[Posteritatis]

18. I'm torn

On the one hand, I like the Posse Comitatus act.

On the other hand, if there are to be exceptions, New Orleans has been toeing their line since the hurricane hit. I don't know if there should be exceptions short of invasion or a complete lapse of services (which has itself lapsed in NO); my head and gut are kinda arguing with each other over this.

[lynne]

25. Where are the city and state police?

- Silly question, I know -

[pitohui]

28. they are completely overwhelmed

you can't comprehend the extent of the damage until you have seen it, at this time, the police are stretched to the limits

remember in MANY areas of orleans (which is an entire parish as well as a city) the neighborhoods are not habitable so there are no neigbhors to do neighborhood watches

therefore organized criminals are coming in and removing entire neighborhoods of the architectural details, such as has occurred around holy cross, no one knows where all these things have gone, but presumably out of state as they are not being found at local flea markets and architectural detail re-sellers

also other organized criminals are apparently coming around with trucks and removing the materials being off-loaded for rebuilding peoples' houses, if you've ever been in a disaster like this, you know you have to get materials delivered, dumpster delivered, etc. before the work begins

there are even professionals who come around and steal the damn landscaping!

and even free lance crooks such as drug addicts know that everyone has new big screen teevee, etc. replaced by insurance money, so many have targeted victims who have received their insurance money and already put some new items in their house while it's under repair

it's just endless


so millions of dollars of property is being stolen by these organized gangs who are looting the city's heritage and its rebuilding efforts pretty much without consequence

at first the cops were not patrolling these neighborhoods at all but the destruction of the historical holy cross neighborhood by these thieves apparently created sufficient outrage to start them investigating this

so they are just plain stretched too damn thin

i see that blanco has agreed to send in the requested state police and that she is arranging for national guard troops to assist also

good for her, it was badly needed, and it was the right call

[Demeter]

26. And That's Supposed to Help?

I don't know, Ray, you may be asking for more trouble.

[pitohui]

29. it will absolutely help

nagin and blanco may squabble like cats and dogs, but i see she is going to do the right thing and send in the troops

believe me, they will be appreciated, if not for the damn drought, i guess we'd be throwing flowers

:-)

[RaVeN MeaD]

31. WOW!!

It only took about a year for the White House to send the Nat Guard to Nawlins.

[Sabriel]

32. 12 teenagers killed at Columbine

Where was the NG then?

Is there a slight race difference between those two situations?

[pitohui]

48. i have no idea, did the mayor of columbine ask for the national guard?

had a gang war been taking place in columbine for over a year, with people of all ages, even a 7 year and an 80 year old woman killed, in addition to dozens and dozens of teens?

if so, and local law enforcement couldn't or wouldn't deal, then maybe they should have asked for national guard

this is a war, for profit, not just a few disgruntled nerds in trench coats

be serious, every decent person in new orleans wants and welcomes the return of the national guard!

we need this, we want it, why crap on it?

[sarcasmo]

33. Police State in New Orleans, National Guard called in.

snip< "The senseless slaying of five teenagers this weekend is shocking," Blanco said in a statement. "Things like this should never happen, and I am going to do all I can to stop it."


snip< She urged the mayor to put a juvenile curfew in place.

"I have two warnings: First, to parents, keep your teenagers off the streets and out of trouble. Second, to judges, I am urging you to keep hardened criminals where they belong — in jail and off the streets. We must protect our citizens."











http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060619/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_national_guard

[FloridaPat]

34. A little late for protecting those citizens isn't it? What a mess there

and for decades to come.

[sarcasmo]

35. The question is what will be the final death toll. My guess is 20,000

and it will take a Democratic President to announce that total.

[FloridaPat]

36. Yikes! You could be right. I wonder if they're still counting.

I was thinking 4-5000. But it was such a big disaster.

[pitohui]

41. yes they are still finding bodies and still counting

we had a LBN yesterday or the day before abt the 50something man just found under the flooded furniture in new orleans east

it is a long slow process to find all of the dead, you can't imagine the number of destroyed homes in the area that will require search

here is a link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2344296

[Megahurtz]

37. Blanco is an idiot.

Now she's making an even bigger mess there.:grr:

[pitohui]

39. she is not an idiot and she's doing the right thing

see the original thread, this is the right call

[951-Riverside]

40. Bumbling boobs like Blanco, Bush, Nagin, Landrieu should all go

They failed us and continue to fail us.

[acmejack]

42. Nagin was reelected.

The people's choice, apparently.

[951-Riverside]

43. ...so was Bush *cough*

:puke:

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

44. Re-elected By Whites....

He had the support of the business community. Since the population is now less african-american, it took the votes of caucasians to put him back in office.

Don't forget that he used to be a repub, and is a "business" mayor. He is one of many people who are to blame for the disaster problems and the aftermath.

[Bridget Burke]

46. Not exactly....

Nagin got more of the black vote this time than last time. Many were voters bussed in from exile, or voting absentee. He also got many white votes--although the "more monied" who supported him last time preferred Landrieu--& contributed generously to his campaign.

www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3877586.html

Please do not portray Landrieu--son of NOLA's last white mayor & brother of a senator--as a political maverick or outsider. I'm sure he gets along quite well with "business."

[FloridaPat]

47. I have a suspicion that our whole country is run by pretty much

bumbling boobs. It's time for We The People to get off our rear ends and talk. It's time to make govenment so everyone can be involved. They could do a lot in NO if they had some creative thinking going on and get the greedy people out - like Blackwell. This is as big a shame as the Iraq fiasco is.

[pitohui]

38. i've just requested these threads be merged

i don't want to shut off discussion but we already have a pretty lively discussion going in the original thread so maybe we can get these merged

also that is not yahoo's real headline

link to the other thread --

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2345413

[shance]

45. New Orleans has been occupied by Bush/Cheney Blackwater Inc.

since Katrina.

Since that time, there has been a mass assault on the lives and futures of the residents by this Administration.

How else can this be explained?

[pitohui]

50. really then where are they?

because you know what, i have not seen any blackwater mercenaries guarding supplies, patrolling neighborhoods, rescuing hostages, or doing anything else

i think a few hotels the first week or so of the crisis hired some private firms to get their people out safely and silly people sitting in their comfortable armchairs a thousand miles away have been letting their imaginations run away with them ever since

guess what, this is not a mad max movie for people's entertainment

it is people's lives

the guard is welcome here, it is a true state of emergency, let them come and do their durn job without getting a lot of flack about it or without being conflated w. private forces

[OKNancy]

54. National Guard troops arrive in Big Easy

National Guard troops arrive in Big Easy

NEW ORLEANS - In a scene reminiscent of the darkest days following Hurricane Katrina, a convoy of 100 armed National Guard military police troops rolled into the city Tuesday to patrol the streets following a surge in violent crime.

Patrols by about 100 Guard members in the city's hurricane-devastated and largely deserted neighborhoods will free as many as 300 police officers to concentrate on crime in more heavily populated areas, officials said.

"We're just trying to give a hand to the city of New Orleans," said guard Lt. Melvin Edwards, 32, a civilian juvenile probation officer in Baton Rouge.

Edwards, a member of the 239th Military Police Co., said he was called up about 5:30 p.m. Monday, within hours of Gov. Kathleen Blanco's announcement that troops would be sent to the city.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060620/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_national_guard

[RCinBrooklyn]

55. A military response to crime? Where is the NOPD? n/t

[noamnety]

57. The NOPD is busy

harassing the volunteers of Common Ground, and making sure the poor people don't move back into their housing units.

My daughter just got back from working in the Upper 9th, doing bioremediation, acting as a legal observer, and assigning incoming people to work crews. One of the volunteers, a medic, was in town and saw a man being shoved into a police car, bleeding profusely from his head. She went over to say she was a medic, did the guy need first aid - and by the time she got those words out of her mouth, she was being cuffed for "interfering in an arrest". She tried to explain that she wasn't trying to interfere with any arrest, it was just that if he needed immediate medical attention -" and then she got the additional charge of resisting arrest.

Once she was taken to the jail, she refused to give them ID (she knew they'd get it eventually, but she was angry at that point). The guy processing her reached into his desk drawer, pulled out a bag of white powder, and said "Maybe we found this in your purse." She said firmly, "No, you didn't." He said "I think we did" and stapled it to her file.

The Common Ground lawyers had to pull in some favors to get her released. But my point is that the police are not necessarily all on the side of the people. Some are - some are from neighborhoods where Common Ground volunteers mucked out the houses of the policemen themselves. But the police who speak out on their behalf face recriminations. In one case, one of the police gave an interview to the media about all the good things Common Ground is doing - and was immediately transferred out. So my first sentence in this post is expressing some frustration, obviously, and doesn't represent everyone in the police force, not by a long shot, but there certainly is an element if that is true as you go up in the power structure.

The drug wars are real, my daughter said Common Ground imposed a curfew on their own volunteers, even to go out in groups, because they get caught in the drug wars between Algiers and where she was working. And indeed, twice, people she knew slipped out and broke curfew, and both times they were mugged. One of those times, Brandon Darby had to go out, armed to rescue a small group of volunteers that were hiding in the bushes - actually quite close to the church where they were staying, but they'd gotten disoriented and scared. She sounded like they got a bit of teasing over that. Common Ground is trying to avoid these scenes, not only for the obvious safety of their own volunteers, but also out of consideration for the residents. If the volunteers go out making easy targets, it draws yet more criminals to the area. And it also draws more police to the area, and the police are sometimes hostile to the residents. So even the neighbors have asked that the curfew stay in place.

It's a difficult situation all around, and there's not a nice easy solution like "let the police take care of it."

[funkybutt]

63. I'm disturbed by the posts here

It confirms for me that people really don't understand what's going on here. It's not hard to understand.

#1. People in New Orleans realize the police department is and has been spread very thin. Most of us never wanted the National Guard to leave in the first place.

#2. This plan to bring the NG and State Police in has been in the works for quite some time and is not a direct response to the 5 teens being murdered.

#3. We have always known and expected an upswing in crime at this time...as FEMA stops cutting evacuees checks, school gets out, and more people begin to return to the city.

This is not a police state. This isn't martial law. These forces supplement and answer to our police. The National Guard troops I've encountered are happy to be here to help us. They are courteous, empathetic, and necessary.

Certainly these are unprecedented times here in New Orleans. Please keep in mind there are miles upon miles of devastation that is pretty much deserted that still needs to be patrolled. Having so much of our police force dedicated to patrolling non-populated areas, has stretched our forces too thin in the populated areas to deal with the influx of returning evacuees. Many of whom have criminal pasts, psychological problems, no housing, lack of income, working skills, and education...just to name a few.