I really didn't want to believe this. For the last couple of weeks there have been rumors on the net about this happening. Unlike most Net rumors they have had names attached and there were specific details that kept getting repeated. This release is from Human Rights Watch, they did the study of names of people in the jail and researched the stories on the ground.
New Orleans: Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters
Officers Deserted a Jail Building, Leaving Inmates Locked in Cells
(New York, September 22, 2005)—As Hurricane Katrina began pounding New Orleans, the sheriff's department abandoned hundreds of inmates imprisoned in the city’s jail, Human Rights Watch said today.
Inmates in Templeman III, one of several buildings in the Orleans Parish Prison compound, reported that as of Monday, August 29, there were no correctional officers in the building, which held more than 600 inmates. These inmates, including some who were locked in ground-floor cells, were not evacuated until Thursday, September 1, four days after flood waters in the jail had reached chest-level.
"Of all the nightmares during Hurricane Katrina, this must be one of the worst," said Corinne Carey, researcher from Human Rights Watch. "Prisoners were abandoned in their cells without food or water for days as floodwaters rose toward the ceiling."
Human Rights Watch called on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct an investigation into the conduct of the Orleans Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, and to establish the fate of the prisoners who had been locked in the jail. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, which oversaw the evacuation, and the Orleans Sheriff’s Department should account for the 517 inmates who are missing from list of people evacuated from the jail.
Carey spent five days in Louisiana, conducting dozens of interviews with inmates evacuated from Orleans Parish Prison, correctional officers, state officials, lawyers and their investigators who had interviewed more than 1,000 inmates evacuated from the prison.
The sheriff of Orleans Parish, Marlin N. Gusman, did not call for help in evacuating the prison until midnight on Monday, August 29, a state Department of Corrections and Public Safety spokeswoman told Human Rights Watch. Other parish prisons, she said, had called for help on the previous Saturday and Sunday. The evacuation of Orleans Parish Prison was not completed until Friday, September 2.
According to officers who worked at two of the jail buildings, Templeman 1 and 2, they began to evacuate prisoners from those buildings on Tuesday, August 30, when the floodwaters reached chest level inside. These prisoners were taken by boat to the Broad Street overpass bridge, and ultimately transported to correctional facilities outside New Orleans.
But at Templeman III, which housed about 600 inmates, there was no prison staff to help the prisoners. Inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch varied about when they last remember seeing guards at the facility, but they all insisted that there were no correctional officers in the facility on Monday, August 29. A spokeswoman for the Orleans parish sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch she did not know whether the officers at Templeman III had left the building before the evacuation.
According to inmates interviewed by Human Rights Watch, they had no food or water from the inmate’s last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench.
"They left us to die there," Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.
As the water began rising on the first floor, prisoners became anxious and then desperate. Some of the inmates were able to force open their cell doors, helped by inmates held in the common area. All of them, however, remained trapped in the locked facility.
"The water started rising, it was getting to here," said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. "We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying."
Some inmates from Templeman III have said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out from their cells.
Inmates broke jail windows to let air in. They also set fire to blankets and shirts and hung them out of the windows to let people know they were still in the facility. Apparently at least a dozen inmates jumped out of the windows.
"We started to see people in T3 hangin' shirts on fire out the windows," Brooke Moss, an Orleans Parish Prison officer told Human Rights Watch. "They were wavin' em. Then we saw them jumping out of the windows . . . Later on, we saw a sign, I think somebody wrote `help' on it."
As of yesterday, signs reading "Help Us," and "One Man Down," could still be seen hanging from a window in the third floor of Templeman III.
Several corrections officers told Human Rights Watch there was no evacuation plan for the prison, even though the facility had been evacuated during floods in the 1990s.
"It was complete chaos," said a corrections officer with more than 30 years of service at Orleans Parish Prison. When asked what he thought happened to the inmates in Templeman III, he shook his head and said: "Ain't no tellin’ what happened to those people."
"At best, the inmates were left to fend for themselves," said Carey. "At worst, some may have died."
Human Rights Watch was not able to speak directly with Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gussman or the ranking official in charge of Templeman III. A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department told Human Rights Watch that search-and-rescue teams had gone to the prison and she insisted that "nobody drowned, nobody was left behind."
Human Rights Watch compared an official list of all inmates held at Orleans Parish Prison immediately prior to the hurricane with the most recent list of the evacuated inmates compiled by the state Department of Corrections and Public Safety (which was entitled, "All Offenders Evacuated"). However, the list did not include 517 inmates from the jail, including 130 from Templeman III.
Many of the men held at jail had been arrested for offenses like criminal trespass, public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted.
From: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2005/09/22/usdom11773.htm
Below is a response to an email about the Bring the Ruckus southern strategy. The strategy makes Atlanta a focal point and the question was, given the recent events, should New Orleans be made the focal point.
We should recognize that we are still in the middle of a response to Katrina. I think we all have had a visceral reaction to the intellectual truth of this government. It's one thing to say the US government will let people die, even encourage it. It's another to see it, and another still when many of those people are friends and colleagues. My feelings of rage are fueling my work right now, but I don't wan them to color my analysis. At least not too much.
That said, I'm unsure if it makes sense to make New Orleans a physical focal point. I do think it has to be a political one. What I mean is, NOLA right now only exists in the minds of people. What it will look like will depend on a battle still to be fought. To my mind, this is a concrete fight against neoliberalism. The US political and economic elite want NOLA to become an R rate Disneyland free of the poor, Black and brown. To defeat this plan will require more than resistance, we will have to present an alternative vision and a build a national power base capable of implementing it. While the leadership for building this vision must come from NOLA residents it can't be left to them.
For the last week or so I've been referring to BtR's project as solidarity work. Joel disagrees with me and I may be convinced of his position, but here's why I've been using the word. Samora Machel defined solidarity as "International solidarity is not an act of charity. It is an act of unity between allies fighting on different terrains toward the same objective. The foremost of these objectives is to aid the development of humanity to the highest level possible." So in my reading, NOLA is a site of struggle against neoliberalism but it's a struggle we are simultaneously waging in our communities. What if, during the same week, communities across the country held meetings, forums, doorknocking, etc. that asked residents what they would like their home to look like? NOLA would be the kick off but since neoliberalism is kicking the ass of the entire countries poor, this visioning session would be linked across the country. In fighting for this vision we can reframe the struggle from what should NOLA look like to what should the US look like. Solidarity with NOLA is not direct aid or charity, but opening multiple fronts in the struggle.
Right now is probably not the time to run with a tactic just because it's proposed. But I do think it's time to think much bigger.
Grassroots/Low-income/People of Color-led Hurricane Katrina Relief
Click http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/katrinarelief.html
In particular I want to highlight Friends & Families of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children (FFLIC). Their info is below.
"It is not in our organizational "mission" to find people homes and reunite incarcerated kids with their families. Nor is it our mission to go shelter to shelter helping people focus the kind of rage and fury that leads to riots into something powerful, productive, and potentially future-altering. But we have cried and yelled and talked about it for days and today we finally pulled out the butcher block and markers and planned."
"1) Donate: Send a check to the "FFLIC Hurricane Relief Fund" to 920 Platt Street, Sulphur, Louisiana, 70663.
2) Volunteer: Come and help us walk through the shelters, find people, help folks apply for FEMA assistance, figure out what needs they have, match folks up with other members willing to take people in. We especially need Black folks to help us as the racial divide between relief workers and evacuees is stark. Email us ASAP if you would like to help with this work.
3) Send supplies for the effort: We don't need tee-shirts and underwear. We need things like cars, computers, a copy machine, a fax machine. All of these items are going to what we need to have in place to better help our families. To find out exactly what we need, call us at the number below.
4) Organize others to send donations, supplies or come down here and help.
5) If you are of modest means and you can't volunteer your time, do what you believe gives us strength. Pray, write op-eds or letters to the editor, organize your block, write FEMA and tell them what you think, protest local racist media coverage
We can't promise you a 501(c) (3) letter to make your donation tax deductible. We are trying are hardest to get this in place soon but its not our priority. We can promise you that every dime will be spent helping the beautiful people of New Orleans who have lost everything they have, survive and resist.
Please e-mail all four e-mail addresses: kdhiggs@hotmail.com, familiescantwait@yahoo.com, deenv_2000@yahoo.com,xochitl@mediajumpstart.org"
I simply don't believe in reports of widespread looting or gang violence. This is rumor reported as fact. The facts are that people were forced to survive without food or water for days. To anyone who took what they needed, good for you.
Myths of Katrina
Gary Younge in Baton Rouge
Tuesday September 6, 2005
The Guardian
There were two babies who had their throats slit. The seven-year-old girl who was raped and murdered in the Superdome. And the corpses laid out amid the excrement in the convention centre.
In a week filled with dreadful scenes of desperation and anger from New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina some stories stood out.
But as time goes on many remain unsubstantiated and may yet prove to be apocryphal.
New Orleans police have been unable to confirm the tale of the raped child, or indeed any of the reports of rapes, in the Superdome and convention centre.
New Orleans police chief Eddie Compass said last night: "We don't have any substantiated rapes. We will investigate if the individuals come forward."
And while many claim they happened, no witnesses, survivors or survivors' relatives have come forward.
Nor has the source for the story of the murdered babies, or indeed their bodies, been found. And while the floor of the convention centre toilets were indeed covered in excrement, the Guardian found no corpses.
During a week when communications were difficult, rumours have acquired a particular currency. They acquired through repetition the status of established facts.
One French journalist from the daily newspaper Libération was given precise information that 1,200 people had drowned at Marion Abramson school on 5552 Read Boulevard. Nobody at the Federal Emergency Management Agency or the New Orleans police force has been able to verify that.
But then Fema could not confirm there were thousands of people at the convention centre until they were told by the press for the simple reason that they did not know.
"Katrina's winds have left behind an information vacuum. And that vacuum has been filled by rumour.
"There is nothing to correct wild reports that armed gangs have taken over the convention centre," wrote Associated Press writer, Allen Breed.
"You can report them but you at least have to say they are unsubstantiated and not pass them off as fact," said one Baltimore-based journalist. "But nobody is doing that."
Either way these rumours have had an effect.
Reports of the complete degradation and violent criminals running rampant in the Superdome suggested a crisis that both hastened the relief effort and demonised those who were stranded.
By the end of last week the media in Baton Rouge reported that evacuees from New Orleans were carjacking and that guns and knives were being seized in local shelters where riots were erupting.
The local mayor responded accordingly. "We do not want to inherit the looting and all the other foolishness that went on in New Orleans," Kip Holden was told the Baton Rouge Advocate.
"We do not want to inherit that breed that seeks to prey on other people."
The trouble, wrote Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune is that "scarcely any of it was true - the police confiscated a single knife from a refugee in one Baton Rouge shelter".
"There were no riots in Baton Rouge. There were no armed hordes."
Similarly when the first convoy of national guardsmen went into New Orleans approached the convention centre they were ordered to "lock and load".
But when they arrived they were confronted not by armed mobs but a nurse wearing a T-shirt that read "I love New Orleans".
"She ran down a broken escalator, then held her hands in the air when she saw the guns," wrote the LA Times.
"We have sick kids up here!" she shouted.
"We have dehydrated kids! One kid with sickle cell!"
Most posts over the next few days will be related to Katrina. Below is a post by Jordan Flaherty. His journal entries have been circulating on the internet and have also been posted on Zmag (www.zmag.org/weluser).
Dan
Its been a day since I evacuated from New Orleans, my home, the city I love. Today I saw Governor Blanco proudly speak of troops coming in with orders to shoot to kill. Is she trying to help New Orleans, or has she declared war?
I feel like the world isn’t seeing the truth about the city I love. People outside know about Jazz Fest and Bourbon Street and beads, and now they know about looters and armed gangs and helicopter rescue.
What's missing is the story of a city and people who have created a culture of liberation and resistance. A city where people have stood up against centuries of racism and white supremacy. This is the city where in 1892 Homer Plessy and the Citizens Committee planned the direct action that brought the first (unsuccessful) legal challenge to the doctrine of “Separate but Equal.” This is the city where in 1970 the New Orleans Black Panthers held off the police from the desire housing projects, and also formed one of the nations’ first Black Panther chapters in prison. Where in 2005 teens at Frederick Douglas High School, one of the most impoverished schools in the US, formed a student activist group called Teens With Attitude to fight for educational justice, and canvassed their community to develop true community ownership of their school.
I didn’t really understand community until I moved to New Orleans. Secondlines, the new orleans tradition of roving street parties with a brass band, began as a form of community insurance, and are still used to benefit those needing aid. New Orleans is a place where someone always wants to feed you. Instead of demonizing this community, instead of mistreating them and shooting them and stranding them in refugee camps and displacing them across the southern US, we need to give our love and support to this community in their hour of crisis, and then we need to let them lead the redevelopment of New Orleans. As Naomi Klein has already pointed out, the rebuilding money that will come in doesn’t belong to the Red Cross or FEMA or Homeland Security, the money belongs to the people of New Orleans.
Hurricane Diary
Many people have asked for more information about my experience in the past week. I was one of the fortunate ones. I had food and water and a solid home. Below are notes from my week in the disaster that was constructed out of greed, corruption and neglect.
Saturday, August 27
I’m in New Orleans, and there’s word of a hurricane approaching. I don’t consider leaving. Why? Because I don’t have a car, and all the airlines and car rental companies are sold out. Because the last two hurricanes were false alarms, despite the shrill and vacuous media alarms. Because I have a sturdy, second floor apartment, food, water, flashlights, and supplies. Because there is not much of an evacuation plan. Friends of mine who evacuated last time sat in their cars, moving 50 miles in 12 hours.
Sunday, August 28
As the storm approaches and grows larger, everyone I know is calling. “Are you staying or going? where are you staying? Are you bringing your pets? What should I do?” Governor Blanco urges us to “pray the hurricane down” to a level 2. I relent to pressure somewhat and relocate to a more sturdy location, an apartment complex built out of an old can factory in the midcity neighborhood. The building is five stories high, built of concrete and brick. There are seven of us in the apartment, with four cats.
Monday, August 29
Its morning, the storm is over, and we survey the streets outside. There has been some flooding. A few of us explore the neighborhood in boats, and we see extensive damage, but overall we feel as if New Orleans has once again escaped fate.
Later in the day, we hear some reports of much greater flooding in destruction in the ninth ward and lower ninth ward neighborhoods, New Orleans’ most overexploited communities.
Tomorrow, we decide, the water will lower and we’ll walk home. We expect power will start coming on in a week or so.
There are many relaxed and friendly conversations, especially on the roof. With all of the lights in the city out, the night sky is beautiful. We lie on our backs and watch shooting stars.
Tuesday, August 30
We wake up to discover that the water level has risen several feet. Panic begins to set in among some. We inventory our food and find that, if we ration it tightly, we have enough for five days. As we discuss it, we repeatedly say,“not that we’ll be here that long, but if we had to...”
We continue to explore the area by boat, helping people when possible. The atmosphere outside is a sort of post-apocalyptic, threatening world of obscure danger, where the streets are empty and the future seems cloudy. The water is a repellent mix of sewage, gas, oil, trash and worse.
We meet some of our neighbors. Most of the building is empty. Of at least 250 apartments, there are maybe 200 people in the building, about half white and half Black. Many people, like us, are crowded 7 or 10 to an apartment. Like us, many people came here for safety from the storm. Some have no food and water. A few folks break open the building candy machine and distribute the contents. We talk about breaking into the cafe attached to the building and distributing the food.
We turn on a battery-powered tv and radio, and then turn it off in disgust. No solid information, just rumor and conjecture and fear. Throughout this time, there is no reliable source of information, compounding and multiplying the crisis.
The reporters and politicians talk 80% about looting and 20% about flooding. I can’t understand how anyone could blame someone for “looting” when they just had their home destroyed by the neglect and corruption of a country that doesn’t care about them and never did.
Tomorrow, the news announces, the water level will continue to rise, perhaps 12-15 feet. Governor Blanco calls for a day of prayer.
Wednesday, August 31
White people in the building start whispering about their fears of “them.” One woman complains of people in the building “from the projects and hoarding food.” There is talk of gangs in the streets, shooting, robbing, and lawless anarchy. I feel like there is a struggle in people’s minds between compassion and panic, between empathy and fear.
However, we witness many folks traveling around in boats, bringing food or giving lifts or sharing information.
But the overwhelming atmosphere is one of fear. People fear they wont be able to leave, they fear disease, hunger, and crime. There is talk of a soldier shot in the head by looters, of bodies floating in the ninth ward, flooding in Charity Hospital, and huge masses (including police) emptying WalMart and the electronic stores on Canal street. There are fires visible in the distance. A particularly large fire seems to be nearby - we think its at the projects at Orleans and Claiborne. Helicopters drop army MREs (Meal Ready to Eat) and water, and people rush forward to grab as many as they can.
After the third air drop, people in the building start organizing a distribution system.
Across the street is a spot of land, and helicopters begin landing there and loading people aboard. Hundreds of people from the nearby hospital make their way there, many wearing only flimsy gowns, waiting in the sun. As more helicopters come, people start arriving from every direction, straggling in, swimming or coming by boat.
A helicopter hovers over our roof, and a soldier comes down and announces that tomorrow everyone in the building will be evacuated.
Across the street, at least two hundred people spend the night huddled on a tiny patch of land, waiting for evacuation.
Thursday, September 1
People in the building want out. They are lining up on the roof to be picked up by helicopters - three copters come early in the morning and take a total of nine people. Seventy-five people spend the next several hours waiting on the roof, but no more come.
Down in the parking garage, flooded with sewage, a steady stream of boats takes people to various locations, mostly to a nearby helicopter pickup point.
We hear stories of hundreds of people waiting for evacuation nearby at Xavier University, a historically Black college, and at other locations.
Our group fractures, people leaving at various times.
Two of us take a boat to a helicopter to a refugee camp. If you ever wondered if the US government would treat US refugees the same way they treat Haitian refugees or Somali refugees, the answer is, yes, if those refugees are poor, black, and from the South.
The individual soldiers and police are friendly and polite - at least to me - but nobody seems to know what's going on. As wave after wave of refugees arrives, they are ushered behind the barricades onto mud and dirt and sewage, while heavily armed soldiers look on.
Many people sit on the side, not even trying to get on a bus. Children, people in wheelchairs, and everyone else sit in the sun by the side of the highway.
Everyone has a story to tell, of a home destroyed, of swimming across town, of bodies and fights and gunshots and looting and fear. The worst stories come from the Superdome. I speak to one young man who describes having to escape and swim up to midcity.
I‘m reminded of a moment I read about in the book “Rising Tide,” about the Mississippi river flood of 1927. After the 1927 evacuation, a boatload of poor black refugees is refused permission to get on land “until they sing negro spirituals.” As a bus arrives and a mass swarms forward and state police and national guard do nothing to help, I feel like I’m witnessing the modern equivalent of this dehumanizing spectacle.
More refugees are arriving than are leaving. Three of us walk out of the camp, considering trying to hitchhike a ride from relief workers or press. We get a ride from an Australian tv team who drive us to Baton Rouge where we sit on the street and wait until a relative arrives and gives us a ride to Houston.
While we sit on the street, everyone we meet is a refugee from somewhere - Bay St Louis, Gulfport, Slidell, Covington. Its after midnight, but the roads are crowded. Everyone is going somewhere.
Friday, September 2
In Houston, I can’t sleep, although we drove through the night. Governor Blanco announces that she’s sending in more national guard troops,
“These troops are fresh back from Iraq, well trained, experienced, battle tested and under my orders to restore order in the streets. They have M-16s and they are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and they are more than willing to do so if necessary and I expect they will.”
Many people have called and written to ask what they can do. I don’t really have answers. I’m still tired and angry and I don’t know if my home survived.
But, here's some thoughts:
1) Hold the politicians accountable. Hold the media accountable. Defend Kanye West.
2) Support grassroots aid. A friend has compiled a list at http://www.sparkplugfoundation.org/ katrinarelief.html
3) Volunteer. The following is a call for volunteers from Families and friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, an excellent grassroots group:
“Come and help us walk through the shelters, find people, help folks apply for FEMA assistance, figure out what needs they have, match folks up with other members willing to take people in. We especially need Black folks to help us as the racial divide between relief workers and evacuees is stark. Email us ASAP if you would like to help with this work.
kdhiggs@hotmail.com, familiescantwait@yahoo.com, deenv_2000@yahoo.com, xochitl@mediajumpstart.org"
4) Organize in your own community.
5) Add your apartment to the housing board at www.hurricanehousing.org.
6) Support grassroots, community control of redevelopment. Don’t let New Orleans die.
Jordan Flaherty is a union organizer and an editor of Left Turn Magazine (www.leftturn.org).
