New Orleans cops convicted in post-Katrina shootin

The five males are scheduled to be sentenced on December 14. Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso are facing potential multiple life sentences, as well as added penalties for charges tied to a conspiracy to cover up what occurred on the bridge. Kaufman faces a highest penalty of 120 years in prison.

"The officers convicted today abused their power and violated the public's trust during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina -- exacerbating one of the maximum destructive times for the people of New Orleans," Holder said in a written statement.


U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he wishes the verdict will finally aid produce greater trust among dwellers of New Orleans and the city's scandal-plagued police department.
The shootings took place during a week of dire flooding, rampant looting and decease by drowning. Police were strained, siege by suicides and renunciation.
CNN's Michael Pearson, Terry Frieden, and Alan Silverleib endowed to this report









"Today's verdict by these jurors sends a powerful, a powerful, unmistakable information to public waiters, to statute enforcement officers and to the citizens we serve and naturally to the globe," U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said. "That message namely that public officials and principally statute enforcement officers will be held accountable for their deeds, and that any abuse of power, especially that power that violates the rights and the civil liberties of our citizens replica Oakleys, will have solemn consequences."
"Hunter ... admitted that he was present on the west side of the Danziger Bridge when an officer Oakley Sunglasses outlet, identified as Officer A, shot and killed Ronald Madison, a civil who was running away from officers with his hands in view, and did not have a arms or posture a menace," the Justice Department said.
He said police officers were the only ones shooting as he and his sibling ran as safety. A witness told CNN in 2006 that police shot Ronald Madison in the back for he ran toward a hotel by the base of the bridge.
That's when officers encountered the Madison brothers, Ronald and Lance.

During closing contentions Tuesday, the defense had inquired the jury to think the stressful circumstances the officers were operating under emulating Katrina.
(CNN) -- Five new or former police officers were found criminal Friday on a combined 25 counts of civilian rights violations tied to deadly shootings on New Orleans' Danziger Bridge in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Justice Department officials said.
Local prosecutors filed similar charges, merely not an was convicted. Federal prosecutors then pushed in and fired an investigation.



Jurors approached a verdict in the closely watched trial behind three days of deliberations.
"I am hopeful today's verdict brings righteousness for the sufferers and their family members, helps to heal the community and contributes to the restoration of public trust in the New Orleans Police Department."
Lance Madison told CNN he and his brother had left their flooded home and were crossing the bridge to find shelter. They were unwittingly brained to an district where armed looters were marauding, he said.
According to court documents, Hunter drove in a rental truck to Danziger Bridge with additional officers to respond to a radio shriek almost gunshots and reports that officers on the handy Interstate 10 bridge had come under bombard.
Prosecutors compete the officers opened fire on an unarmed household, killing 17-year-old James Brissette and wounding four others. Minutes later, one of the officers shot and annihilated Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man narrated at Justice officials as having severe cerebral disabilities.

Madison was attempting apt run the scene when he was shot, according to a Justice Department expression. One of the officers allegedly "stomped and kicked" Madison before he died, the expression famous.
At the period, New Orleans police said they got into a running gun war with several folk.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the verdicts "provide premonitory closure to a dingy chapter in (the) city's history."


Officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso were convicted in the shootings forward with a fifth defendant Cheap Oakley Sunglasses, former detective Arthur Kaufman.
Other officers have yet been convicted in articulation with the shootings. They contain Michael Hunter, who pleaded guilty final year to conspiracy to impede justice. Hunter was sentenced to 8 years in prison.
The shootings happened ashore Danziger Bridge aboard September 4 Discount Oakley Sunglasses, 2005, 6 days after many of New Orleans went underwater after the powerful tornado slammed into the Gulf Coast.
Hunter confessed that officers on the east side of the Danziger Bridge fired at civilians, even whereas the same civilians did not arise to have any weapons, the Justice Department said.


"The citizens of this country will not, should no, and we plan that they will not have to terror the individuals who are called upon to defend them," Letten alleged.