Re: Lessons To Be Learned From Hurricane Katrina

Looting Begins in New Orleans By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press
Writer

With much of the city emptied by Hurricane Katrina, some opportunists
took advantage of the situation by looting stores.

At a Walgreen's drug store in the French Quarter, people were running
out with grocery baskets and coolers full of soft drinks, chips and
diapers.

When police finally showed up, a young boy stood in the door screaming,
"86! 86!" - the radio code for police - and the crowd scattered.

Denise Bollinger, a tourist from Philadelphia, stood outside and
snapped pictures in amazement.

"It's downtown Baghdad," the housewife said. "It's insane. I've wanted
to come here for 10 years. I thought this was a sophisticated city. I
guess not."

Around the corner on Canal Street, the main thoroughfare in the central
business district, people sloshed headlong through hip-deep water as
looters ripped open the steel gates on the front of several clothing
and jewelry stores.

One man, who had about 10 pairs of jeans draped over his left arm, was
asked if he was salvaging things from his store.

"No," the man shouted, "that's EVERYBODY'S store."

Looters filled industrial-sized garbage cans with clothing and jewelry
and floated them down the street on bits of plywood and insulation as
National Guard lumbered by.

Mike Franklin stood on the trolley tracks and watched the spectacle
unfold.

"To be honest with you, people who are oppressed all their lives, man,
it's an opportunity to get back at society," he said.

.

Relevant Pages

  • The Noble Poor In Action
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  • Re: Looting in New Orleans
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    ... When a 73-year-old New Orleans woman arrested and charged with looting after Hurricane Katrina learned last month that Jefferson Parish authorities would not prosecute her, she hailed the decision as a righteous one. ... Of the 290 people booked with looting by the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office and municipal police departments from Aug. 27 through Nov. 30, prosecutors declined to press charges against 84. ... Under an amended law in effect Aug. 15, two weeks before Katrina's landfall, people convicted of looting during a declared state of emergency must serve a mandatory minimum of three years in prison. ... Fred Williams, the sheriff's chief of investigations, said there were countless stories of people looting stores in order to live. ...
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