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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.
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ODOT BOOSTS APPRENTICESHIP,
DIVERSITY, AND TRAINING GOALS
Winter term registration begins November 28th, 2005 and winter classes
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Then enroll online at www.pcc.edu/enroll or call our registration office at
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Portland
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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
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