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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 28, 2005)
Page A2 ¿hl iLlnrtlauò (©bseruer September 28. 2005 New Orleans’ Violence was Exaggerated Many of the ugliest reports prove false To be sure, conditions at both sites were chaotic. Water was rising around the Superdome, home to 20,(XX) evacuees. Toilets were backing up, garbage was rotting, fights were breaking out. Food was in short supply at the convention center, where about 19,000people took shelter from the rising waters. The temperature wasclimbing. The elderly and very young were desperate for food, water and medicine. A completely false report during the emergency came from a guardsman who said that soldiers had discovered 30 to 40 bodies inside a freezer in the convention center’s food area. Guardsman Mikel Brooks told a newspaper reporter that some of the dead appeared to have met violent ends, including “a 7-year-old with her throat cut.” When the convention center was swept, however, no such pile of bodies was found. Lt. Col. Jacques Thibodeaux of the Louisiana Na tional Guard said reports o f violence at the Superdome and the convention center were overblown. “The incidents were highly exaggerated” - the result of fear and hopelessness, he said. “For the amount of the people in the situation, it was a very stable environment.” Thibodeaux said his guard unit received no reports of rape. Bill Waldron, a homicide detective from Florida in New Orleans for a murder trial, was stuck in the convention center until Sept. 1. He said he saw a couple o f fights between young men, but "no mur ders, no rapes.” 1 le said that he did see people dying, but that those deaths were most likely a result o f the heat and lack of water. n ’»‘AV' (AP) — On Sept. I, with desperate Hurricane Katrina evacuees crammed into the convention cen ter. Police Chief Eddie Compass reported: “We have individuals who are getting raped; we have individu I. als who are getting beaten.” Five days later, he told Oprah Winfrey that babies were being raped. On the same show. Mayor Ray Nagin warned: "They have people standing out there, have been in that frickin’ Superdome for five days watching dead bodies, watching hooligans killing people, raping people ” The ugliest reports - children with slit throats, women dragged off and raped, corpses piling up in the basement - soon became a searing image of post- Katrina New Orleans. The stories were told by residents trapped inside the Superdome and convention center and were re peated by public officials. Many news organizations, including The Associated Press, carried the witness accounts and official pronouncements, and in some cases later repeated the claims as fact, without attri Phil Turner (from left), M issy D utcher an d D ottie Burt d a n c e in front o f Alex P a to u t's restaurant S u n d a y in the French Q uarter o f New Orleans. D utcher a n d Burt were celebrating their return to the bution. neighborhood with Turner, who lives in the d e v a s ta te d Ninth Ward a n d w ea th ered H urricanes But now, a month after the chaos subsided, police Katrina an d Rita. (AP photo) are re-examining the reports and finding that many of them have little or no basis in fact. They have no official reports of rape and no Superdome and four at the convention center. conditions at the evacuation sites. “He was listening eyewitnesses to sexual assault. The state Department Sally Forman, a spokeswoman for Nagin, said the to officials, trusting that information they were pro- o f Health and Hospitals counted 10 dead at the mayor was relying on others for his information about viding was accurate,” she said. I First Black Congressman Honored (A P)— In 1870Joseph Rainey became the first black person elected to the U.S. House of Rep resentatives. On Sept. 21 he be came the first to have his portrait hung in the House. The oil painting of the South Carolina congressman was un veiled before members of the Con gressional Black Caucus, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and family descen dants. Rainey's painting, said Rep. Chaka Fattah. D-Pa., corrects a situation where there are “hun dreds of portraits on the House side and not one reflects a person of color.” Rainey, born into slavery in 1832, served in the House during the Reconstruction Era period of 1870 to 1879, when he worked to Oregon Soldiers Killed in War (A P) — Tw o O regon guards men from Pendleton were killed Sunday in a helicopter crash in A fghanistan, officials said. Sgt. Tane Baum, 30, and W ar rant O fficer Adrian Stump, 22, were am ong five soldiers killed when their CH -47 C hinook heli copter crashed near D aychopan district in southern Zabul prov ince. K ulongoski’s office said M on day that a surface-to-air m issile was fired at the helicopter, but m ilitary officials said that was based on an initial, unconfirm ed report. “T here is no indication at this tim e that this is a result o f hostile fire,” U.S. m ilitary spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O 'H a ra said. Braibish said the Chinook had ju st dropped o ff some soldiers and was returning to its base when it went down. The deaths brings to 47 the num ber of soldiers from Oregon or with strong ties to the state who have died in the military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Next Court Pick Anticipated M em b ers o f C ongress applaud a s a painting o f form er Rep. J o se p h H. Rainey, R-S.C., the first black p erso n e le c te d to the U.S. H ouse o f R ep re se n ta tiv e s, is unveiled on Capitol Hill. advance the civil rights of newly black people elected to seats rep- freed slaves. resenting parts o f the former Con- He w aso neofasm allnum berof federacy after the Civil War. President Bush hinted on M on confirm John Roberts as chief ju s judge, as the successor to the day that his next nom inee for the tice this w eek — w hich seem s late W illiam H. Rehnquist. Supreme Court would be a woman virtually certain. O pponents to R oberts ques or a m inority, saying that “diver T w o-thirds of the 100 senators tion hiscom m itm ent tocivil rights sity is one o f the strengths o f the — R epublican and D em ocrats and expressed concern that he c o u n try .” alike — had already announced might overturn the 1973 court The president also expressed their support o f Roberts, the co n ruling that established the right optim ism that the Senate would servative federal appeals court to abortion. DISCOVERY W E ’RE ALL A B O U T THAT. (i\ caw afoul our health. k iicc c u t « each other. K.usi Planned Parenthood. h W as your last an n u al EXAM 5 YEARS A G O ? PCC’s Cascade Campus Visit Planned Parenthood for afford able reproductive health services: • annual exams & pap tests • breast exams • cervical cancer testing/treatment • a full range of birth control options brings opportunity to almost 16,000 students each year. Did you know that you don't have to have an exam to start a birth control method? Ask about contra ception with an optional exam! We gladly accept insurance. P ■ Want to take classes for college credit? ■ Get Training in a new career? Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette 1-800-230-PLAN • w w w .p p cw .o rg Northeast Portland: 1331 N t 13th Ave, Suite B Southeast Portland: 1231 SI SOthAve Vancouver: 3300 Nt 109th Ct., Suite A Salmon Creek: 2103 N1 129th St, Suite 103 ■ Explore a new interest? ■ Financial Aid is Available Oregon D e p a rtm en t o f Transportation It’s so easy. Take a few minutes and check out the Cascade or any PCC campus and learn more about the excellent opportunities that await you, or browse our website: at www.pcc.edu. ODOT BOOSTS APPRENTICESHIP, DIVERSITY, AND TRAINING GOALS Winter term registration begins November 28th, 2005 and winter classes begin January 9th. 2006. Then enroll online at www.pcc.edu/enroll or call our registration office at 503-977-4933. (TTY 503-977-4939) W e’re all about y o u r fu tu r e ! Portland w w w .pcc.edu Community Commui 5 0 3 -9 7 7 -4 9 3 3 College Oregon will soon reach record levels of highway construction. Without an immediate effort to identify, recruit, and train a new, more diverse, and larger workforce, there simply won’t be enough workers to get the job done. To learn more about the ODOT Workforce Development Plan and how you can get involved, visit ODOT’s web site: To meet the need for construction workers, the Oregon Department of Transportation recently unveiled its Workforce Development Plan that is designed to: http://egov.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/ OTI A/ brl dge.delivery. shtml • Boost diversity in employment • Provide apprenticeship opportunities • Increase training resources • Offer opportunities for highway construction jobs 4 ODOT IS INVESTING IN OREGON’S FUTURE em I T1ANSHRTITWR MVISTWf RT ICT
