New Orleans

Justice Department Moves To Reform Notorious New Orleans Police Department

Justin Elliott | April 13, 2010, 9:39AM

The federal criminal investigation of the police shootings of civilians on Danziger Bridge in post-Katrina New Orleans is just part of what the Justice Department acknowledges is an intensive review of the city's notorious police department. One option under review, TPMmuckraker has learned, is filing a civil rights lawsuit against the city in a move similar to the one the Justice Department took against the Los Angeles Police Department a decade ago.

"Criminal prosecutions alone, I have learned, are not enough to change the culture of a police department," Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Thomas Perez told TPMmuckraker in an interview Monday.

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Danziger Bridge

New Orleans Cop Explains How Police Gunned Down Unarmed Civilians In Post-Katrina Incident

Justin Elliott | April 8, 2010, 9:47AM

Fmr. New Orleans Police Officer Michael Hunter, center, shown in 2007 before turning himself in for an earlier set of charges in the Danziger shootings

A former New Orleans police officer has given authorities a shocking account of the killing by police of two unarmed civilians and the wounding of four others on Danziger Bridge in post-Katrina New Orleans.

The account of the September 2005 incident by former Officer Michael Hunter, 33, who pleaded guilty yesterday to charges associated with the coverup of the shootings, is contained in a court filing that you can read in full below.

In this excerpt, Hunter describes another officer shooting Ronald Madison, 40, a mentally disabled man, in the back with a shotgun. A second officer then beat the dying man on the ground, according to Hunter.

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Michael Lohman

Ex-New Orleans Cop Pleads Guilty To Massive Cover Up In Post-Katrina Shootings

Justin Elliott | February 25, 2010, 1:07PM

The Danziger Bridge (Fmr. New Orleans Police Lt. Michael Lohman inset)

A veteran New Orleans police officer pleaded guilty yesterday to orchestrating an elaborate cover-up of a shooting in the days after Katrina in which police gunned down six unarmed city residents, killing two and seriously wounding four.

The development -- which the Times-Picayune calls a "potentially devastating blow" to other officers linked to the case -- is the first plea in a wide-ranging federal probe of several post-Katrina police shootings. The Feds are reportedly looking at possible crimes in both the shootings themselves as well as the subsequent investigations.

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