Police Are Charged in Post-Katrina Shootings

[Derechos]

NEW ORLEANS — Four current and two former New Orleans police officers have been charged in connection with the killing of unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, federal law enforcement officials announced here on Tuesday.

Four of the men — former Officer Robert Faulcon, Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, Sgt. Robert Gisevius and Officer Anthony Villavaso — were charged with federal civil rights violations in the killing of 17-year-old James Brissette and the wounding of four others, all members of the same family, when the officers came across a group on the bridge in eastern New Orleans and opened fire.

In addition, Mr. Faulcon, who was arrested Tuesday morning by F.B.I. agents in Fresno, Tex., was charged with shooting Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man with severe mental disabilities, in the back, killing him, as he tried to flee.

All four of the men could face the death penalty.

The Danziger case is the most high-profile of at least eight incidents involving New Orleans police officers that are being actively investigated by federal law enforcement officials. The case became a flash point, in the city and throughout the nation, a symbol of the violence, disorder and official ineptitude in the storm’s wake.

In particular, it shined a spotlight on New Orleans’s long-troubled Police Department, the target of a major corruption investigation in the 1990s. Two former officers are sitting on death row.

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The 27-count indictment handed up by a grand jury on Monday paints a harrowing picture of the events on the Danziger Bridge on Sept. 4, 2005, when much of the city was still underwater.

The details of the shootings on the bridge that began to emerge, and which were elaborated on in the indictment unsealed Tuesday, were ghastlier than many in the city had expected.

Responding to a call that the police were under fire, officers drove to the bridge over the Industrial Canal in eastern New Orleans in a Budget rental truck. Some were armed with assault rifles, others with a shotgun or a semiautomatic pistol.

Mr. Brissette and five members of the Bartholomew family were walking across the bridge to get food and other supplies from a supermarket, the indictment reads, when the officers opened fire. Four members of the Bartholomew family were shot. Susan Bartholomew, at the time 38, lost part of her arm; her husband, Leonard Bartholomew III, was shot in the head. Mr. Brissette, who was killed, was shot seven times.

Some officers then traveled to the other side of the bridge and found two brothers, Ronald and Lance Madison, who were on their way to check on a dentist’s office that belonged to their oldest brother, Dr. Romell Madison. According to the indictment, Mr. Faulcon then shot Ronald Madison to death with a shotgun. Afterward, it continues, Sergeant Bowen kicked and stomped on Mr. Madison as he lay dying on the ground.

Lance Madison was arrested at the scene and later held on eight counts of attempted murder of a police officer. He was never formally charged and was released after three weeks in custody.

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The three officers and Mr. Faulcon were also charged along Sgt. Arthur Kaufman and former Sgt. Gerard Dugue, both homicide detectives who were assigned to investigate the shootings, in connection with a cover-up of the shootings. Sergeant Kaufman faces up to 120 years in prison, while Mr. Dugue, who recently retired, faces up to 70.

The cover-up described in the indictment is methodical and blatant. It recounts a scene in the abandoned Seventh District police station where, it says, Sergeant Kaufman and Mr. Dugue met with other officers to ensure that their stories were consistent. Sergeant Kaufman is also accused of creating fictional witnesses and planting a pistol at the scene of the shootings.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/14/us/14justice.html