After Danziger Shooting
Sentencings, Feds Look to New Orleans Police Reforms
JEFFREY
BROWN: And
now an update on deadly shootings by New Orleans police officers and the
cover-up that followed. Sentences were handed out to several officers
yesterday, but there were questions even then about how the case was resolved.
Hurricane
Katrina assaulted the Gulf Coast nearly eight years ago, drowning much of New
Orleans and leaving chaos in its wake. There was looting, disorder and police
misconduct. The worst incident came less than a week after the storm, at the
Danziger Bridge, over the Industrial Canal in East New Orleans.
On
Sept. 4, 2005, police answered a call that other officers were under fire near
the bridge. They responded, and opened fire at two places, killing two people,
both of them unarmed, and wounding four more. Last August, five former officers
were convicted on federal civil rights violations in the shootings and ensuing
cover-up.
Yesterday,
a federal judge sentenced four of them to prison terms ranging from 38 to 65
years. The fifth got six years behind bars.
The
FBI special agent in charge of the case, Dave Welker, welcomed the outcome.
DAVE
WELKER,
FBI special agent: This has probably one of my most significant cases in my
tenure here in New Orleans, really probably one of the most significant civil
rights cases in the country.
JEFFREY
BROWN: One
of those killed was Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old with mental disabilities. His
brother Lance was with him on the bridge that day.
LANCE
MADISON,
brother of Victim: Me and my brother Ronald, we was very close. He's very
special to me and we loved each other. I really miss him. I'm just so thankful
that we found some justice for him.
JEFFREY
BROWN: Three
other officers entered plea bargains in the shootings and received lesser
sentences in exchange.
That
led the federal judge in the case to complain at length yesterday about the
disparity in punishment. Still, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Tom Perez
maintained the case was a successful prosecution.
TOM
PEREZ,
assistant U.S. attorney general: Everyone will have their own thoughts about
the sentences. Some may think they're too high, some may think they're too low,
but whatever you think at this time, these sentences represent the great
success of the various parts that make up an outstanding criminal justice
system.
JEFFREY
BROWN: The
case was also a key element in the Justice Department's ongoing efforts to clean
up longstanding corruption in the ranks of the New Orleans police. The two are
now working on a consent decree spelling out reforms to change the culture of
the police department.
And
we're joined from New Orleans by Gordon Russell, city editor of The Times-Picayune.
So,
Gordon, the judge handed down sentences, but expressed a lot of frustration and
anger at the same time. Tell us what was going on there.
GORDON
RUSSELL,
"The New Orleans Times-Picayune": Well, I can't speak for the judge,
but he seemed to be frustrated by the plea bargains in particular.
He
seemed to feel that -- he had -- he made a comment to the effect of, it bothers
him to use liars to convict liars. And he seemed to feel that the sentences
granted to some of the officers who cooperated and agreed to testify against
their fellow officers were too lenient and that he was sort of boxed in by
having to give long sentences to the officers who went to trial.
JEFFREY
BROWN: Well,
fill in that picture a little bit for us. The people that he's talking about,
he called using some liars to convict other liars.
GORDON
RUSSELL: Right.
JEFFREY
BROWN: He's
talking about people who pled and worked with the feds?
GORDON
RUSSELL: He's
talking about -- yes, there were five officers who pled and testified against
the five officers who went to trial, and he seemed to think that some of their
testimony was self-serving.
One
of the officers who had a plea deal was Michael Hunter. He was driving the
Budget rental truck that went to the scene of the bridge. And he received an
eight-year sentence. He admitted to a lot of -- participating in the shootings
similarly to the three guys -- the four guys who were sentenced to very long
sentences yesterday.
And
I think the judge felt that his testimony was self-serving, some of it maybe
wasn't true, and he was sentenced to eight years, and these other guys were
looking at 38 to 65 years.
JEFFREY
BROWN: And
the response from the federal prosecutors was, this is the way we had to do it.
GORDON
RUSSELL: Yes.
Obviously,
they're very careful in what they say about a federal judge's words, but I
think -- yes, Tom Perez said something to the effect of we don't get to go to
the witness store and pick the witnesses. And this is kind of the way criminal
cases are made, is their view, especially when you have a conspiracy involving
-- that lasts for years, in which you really need to -- somebody who is
involved in the conspiracy to come forward to crack the case.
If
they had tried to make this case simply on the testimony of the victims, it
might have had a totally different outcome. And I think, for the jury, the
testimony of cops testifying against other cops was very powerful. And even
though they did get plea bargains, the cops who signed plea deals are all going
to jail for a good bit of time, too.
Their
sentences range from three years to eight years, but they're -- they're -- it
wasn't like they got off scot-free either.
JEFFREY
BROWN: So
what did your reporters hear from family members? I know a lot of the families
got to speak earlier in the day yesterday. What were they saying and what was
the reaction after the sentencing?
GORDON
RUSSELL: They
were generally satisfied with the sentences.
I
mean, I think the one person who got a little bit of a break was Archie
Kaufman, who was the lead detective in the case. And he was -- he got a
six-year sentence. And the sentencing guidelines had called for more like 10
years, and the prosecution had wanted 20 years because they felt he really went
far and above the call of duty in orchestrating this cover-up.
He
was accused of inventing witnesses and planting a gun that he kept at his house
that he referred to as a ham sandwich. He went and retrieved this gun and put it
into evidence and said it had belonged to the victims.
So,
going back to the victims, I think they were a little bit surprised that he got
a lighter sentence than that. But the other sentences, they were pleased with
generally. And they sort of seemed taken aback by the judge's critiques of the
Justice Department, which I think -- I think the families feel like the Justice
Department really stayed with them on this and did a pretty good job.
This
was a case that had been prosecuted locally initially by the district attorney,
and it completely fell apart. And the Justice Department kind of inherited it
three or four years after the storm and had to start from scratch, essentially,
and was able to -- you know, in the end, they have convicted -- well, they have
convicted 11 people so far, and there's one officer who still is scheduled for
trial next month.
JEFFREY
BROWN: And,
Gordon, just tell us briefly, if you would, about the larger reforms that I
referred to in the setup, where the Justice Department is working with the
police department on a civil case.
GORDON
RUSSELL: Sure.
JEFFREY
BROWN: What
are they after there?
GORDON
RUSSELL: Well,
there's a whole range of things.
I
mean, it's expected to be the most wide-ranging consent decree that the country
has ever seen. These are documents that the Justice Department negotiates with
local police departments that they -- when they find a pattern in practice of
civil rights abuses typically. And they have done them in Los Angeles and
Cincinnati and Pittsburgh and some other places.
But
something that's directly related to this case that will come out of it is,
they're going to definitely change their policies on use of force
investigations, like police-involved shootings. And, typically, the feeling
here is that they haven't been investigated particularly well in the past, and
the Danziger Bridge case is an example of that.
The
NOPD found that nothing untoward happened here. So that will be one thing that
the Justice Department will insist on changes in the way those are
investigated. But it's going to span a whole bunch of other things, including
maybe how officers are deployed. It's going to probably -- definitely, it will
involve the use of police details which have been criticized by the Justice
Department here.
A
lot of officers spent a lot of their time working on private details.
JEFFREY
BROWN: All
right.
GORDON
RUSSELL: And
the criticism has been that they care more about those than their jobs in some
cases.
JEFFREY
BROWN: All
right, Gordon Russell of The Times-Picayune, thanks so much.
GORDON
RUSSELL: Thank
you.
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