Great job by the New Orleans police
And whether I am being sarcastic or not depends on what actually happened.
Some Army Corps of Engineers Contractors were crossing a bridge.
Police fired on some armed people killing at least five of them.
The question is were these five fatalities among the contractors or were they a separate armed gang that was firing on the contractors?
There are reports going either way:
From
The SFGate:
Corps: Contractors Killed in New Orleans
Police shot eight people carrying guns on a New Orleans bridge Sunday, killing five or six, a deputy chief said. A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said the victims were contractors on their way to repair a canal.
This is horrible -- but -- we also have this story from
The Seattle PI
Gunmen attack contractors on La. bridge
Police shot and killed at least five people Sunday after gunmen opened fire on a group of contractors traveling across a bridge on their way to make repairs, authorities said.
Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley said police shot at eight people carrying guns, killing five or six.
Fourteen contractors were traveling across the Danziger Bridge under police escort when they came under fire, said John Hall, a spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers.
They were on their way to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain to help plug the breech in the 17th Street Canal, Hall said.
None of the contractors was injured, Mike Rogers, a disaster relief coordinator with the Army Corps of Engineers, told reporters in Baton Rouge.
Emphasis mine -- this version is also posted at lots of other news sources (
here,
here,
here and
here for example)
This is a good case for instituting the 48-hour rule that was used by bloggers during the outset of the war in Iraq (suspect all news until 48 hours have passed)
Posted by DaveH at September 4, 2005 6:01 PM