Seems the first question would be whether this was before or after the Gretna police sealed the bridge, and what if anything they were doing about other vehicle traffic.

The report that I read (I believe it was the socialist's) said that even when the police blocked the bridge, vehicle traffic was allowed to pass, but definitely not foot traffic. It appears that if you had a vehicle you were free to pass through.

It is sad to say that many Black leaders, as well as Air America, promoted or approved looting for profit. The police are trained to protect "their" citizens from criminals. Perhaps if these "leaders" and the Far Left didn't exhort these people to be criminals, the police wouldn't expect them to be criminals and then treat them like criminals. It doesn't make someone a racist just because they are wrong, if the odds are high that they would normaly be right in their actions.

The one thing to *really* note is that the socialist EMTs had their encounter with the Gretna law officers on Friday night.

They originally contracted for the buses on Wednesday ("48 hours" after the storm), and the buses were supposed to show up *another 48 hours later*, on Friday. All of their street adventures happened from Friday afternoon on.

So your friend's trips across the bridge were *three days* before the confrontation on the bridge.

If I'm a resident of Gretna, I'm baking lots of cookies for my cops once I'm back in there. San Francisco socialists and their code deciphering be damned.

Re the NYT story of the Poretto's and Jackson-Brown's - it does make a difference that the white family is 2 times the age of the black family. I know when I was 24 I didn't have the resources that I do now. I was at the beginning of my career with a $300 car splitting a $300 apartment with a friend. And I didn't have 4 kids, which is a sad commentary on the welfare mentality fostered in the projects.

I do know that the Iberia Parish Sheriff(not from Gretna) tried to set up his mobile command post near the foot of the Miss river bridge in Gretna. I had 2 friends who were escorted there to help set it up.

The officers told them stories about the looting and being shot at while trying to rescue people.

Later they had to pick up their equipment and leave when 100's of people started coming across the bridge. It's my guess, it's hard to tell the difference between a good guy and a bad guy in the dark.

I have some friends that were sent to guard various sites in N.O. and I hope to talk to them soon.

BTW-The loss of the mobile command center hampered communications and made it almost impossible to coordinate rescue and food/water drops.

Yes, it's shocking and racist when the cops barricade their city against persons of color in need...

...except, of course, when the Beverly Hills PD did it during the Rodney King riots...

Cops probably see a different threat level from a single person in a car carrying supplies vs several hundred people together, which may look like a mob, especially if they have no means to control, house, or evacuate them.

Though I agree that the racial angle needs to be considered and eliminated as a possibility.

Get back to me when somebody produces a disaster plan for the town of Gretna, or one for the parish or state, that says that is a designated exit route, which will prove that the Gretna PD did indeed make a spur of the moment decision that might be discerned as racial. If their published disaster plan says the bridge will be secured to secure the town, then everybody can just park their rhetoric.

And if Gretna's disaster plan or the plan for the parish they reside in conflicts with New Orleans plan, then it's the problem of the parish or ultimately the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security's fault for not reconciling the conflict. That's what millions of post-9/11 dollars that flowed into Louisiana (and every other state) was supposed to go for.

There's no mystery what went on here. A white Democrat was ensuring that certain "elements" didn't come into his town.

The MSM will give him a pass because he is a Democrat.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Ok, he's white, he's also a democrat which I'm not noticing in the stories. Is that the reason he gets the pass in the times?

Gretna's welcome kicked off Harry Shearer's Le Show today on NPR. Now Gretna's known the world over for its Southern hospitality.

Let's see, New Orleans' African-American mayor botched the evacuation of his city and condemned thousands of African-American constituents to death and suffering.

The white, female Democratic governor of the state blocks the relief agencies from going in.

The white, male, Democratic sheriff of Gretna turns back African-Americans fleeing the city.

Notice the common element?

Want to commit a racist act in America today? Vote for a Democrat.

It is funny that the Dems try to make Republicans out as racist when they have a Senior Senator who was a former member of the Klu Klux Klan...

zsa zsa — No, no, no... Byrd wasn't just a member — He was a recruiter, at $10 a head...

Anyone seen a picture of the Sheriff of Gretna? Or the race of many of the cops? I think this is a case, right or wrong, of the local cops not wanting NO thugs trashing their town. I think it was wrong, but OTOH, I dont live there.

Took awhile to find it. http://gretnapolice.com/Lawson.htm
This would be the chief of police of Gretna, LA. The parish Gretna is in is Jefferson. The parish seat is Gretna, here is the Sheriff. http://www.jpso.com/lee.htm

My apologies, I made an erroneous assumption from the name. Change the description to "Asian male Democratic Sheriff."

Doesn't change mny point, though.

Yes, it's shocking and racist when the cops barricade their city against persons of color in need...

...except, of course, when the Beverly Hills PD did it during the Rodney King riots...

Tell me again what the LA rioters were "in need" of?

Swimming pools and movie stars?

..............................................

Angie Schultz — hey, come on, everyone knows the King riots were REALLY all about economic justice and redistribution of wealth. Don't you read the LA Weekly?

I mean, either it was that, or the rioters thought the bent cops were hiding out in the Circuit City and the liquor stores...

The point is, if you were trying to get AWAY from the rioters, as many people I know were, you weren't going through Beverly Hills... and many of the routes around it, depending on where you were coming from, took you right back through the riots...

The story about gretna police closing the bridge to new orleans evacuees is just total pinko commie hogwash. The writing style alone is a naked tip-off. I have relatives who walked the bridge around the same time these incidents were supposedly taking place. The whole race-bias story here is just the newsmedia using their southern template--problem is, south louisiana doesn't fit the Birmingham/Selma/Little Rock mold. N.O. has always cherished its african-american/carribean culture. Neighborhoods, even during segregation were like checkerboards. You can't flood blacks without doing the same to the whites across the street. Poor, elderly, brave (connoting foolish), and stupid folks didn't get out and are the same folks primarily responsible for electing the government. That's why I probably won't go back for more than what it takes to salvage the second floor of my flooded house and as necessary to get it ready to sell. (I'm a working class white guy, now on unemployment for the first time ever in 40 years). Watch when the "rebuilding" starts and virtually every decision has to accommodate the same entrenched culture of poverty and every project will have to go to some underqualified, corrupt minority contractor, many of whom will default or abscond with the rebuilding money without doing the work, all to keep the political racial favoritism game alive and the same unqualified people in office. Meanwhile, the majority white parishes of Jefferson and St. Bernard have to make it on their own--the former with good financial and geological fortune, the latter in miserable shape, but no one knows or cares because impoverished, dead, decimated, working poor whites don't have a slot in the MSM southern template. Maybe we could get some respect if we got our women to ullullate and we blew some pizza parlors up because we're f---ing tired of being a conquered/occupied territory. I think I need a drink.

Change the description to "Asian male Democratic Sheriff."

You got the wrong guy. I don't even have to click the link. What you got there is Harry Lee, Jeff Parish Sheriff. A good guy, I always thought.

Examples:

When he targeted a neighborhood that was a center of gang activity for extra attention, he got complaints from the resident about aggressive tactics. So he said no problem, and withdrew his police until the residents decided they actually wanted the cops after all.

Then, when everyone was trying to figure out what to do about the nutria eating the ground cover from the canal walls (which makes them collapse), he decided that shooting nutria would be good sniper practice for his SWAT team.

A final note: Democrats, I think, are a little different down here than what you guys seem to be used to. I don't even recognize the kind of people y'all seem so upset about. I'm not even sure they exist.

Oh, and Will? The people I talk to say Gretna was only stopping foot traffic. The reason people are so upset is that in the city you have people saying everybody get out, and at the parish line, you have people saying, no, go back. In the meantime, no water, no food...not a good scene.