Judge quashes murder charges against New Orleans police in Katrina shootings

CBCNews

The district attorney's office in New Orleans is considering whether to appeal a judge's decision to toss out murder and attempted murder charges against seven police officers for a shooting in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

In quashing the indictments Wednesday, District Judge Raymond Bigelow agreed with defence arguments that prosecutors violated state law by divulging secret grand jury testimony to a police officer who was a witness in the case.

Survivors of the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings have said the officers fired at unarmed people crossing the Danziger Bridge to get food at a grocery store.
Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, and James Brissette, 19, were killed and four other people were wounded.
The officers admitted to shooting at people on the bridge, but said they were fired upon first.

New Orleans Homeless rate swells to 1 in 25

USA Today

An estimated 12,000 homeless accounts for 4% of New Orleans' estimated population of 302,000, according to the homeless advocacy group UNITY of Greater New Orleans. The number is nearly double the pre-Katrina homeless count, the group says.

Many of the homeless are Katrina evacuees who returned to unaffordable rents or who slipped through the cracks of the federal system designed to provide temporary housing after the storm, said Mike Miller, UNITY's director of supportive housing placement. There are also out-of-state workers who came for the post-Katrina rebuilding boom but lost their jobs, and mentally ill residents in need of services and medication, he said. Many of the city's outreach homeless centers and public mental health services have been closed since Katrina.