Murder and mayhem in New Orleans’ miserable shelter
By Mark Egan
09/02/05— — NEW ORLEANS (Reuters)
Leroy Fouchea, 42, waited in the sweltering heat for an hour to get his ration — his first proper food since Monday — and immediately handed it over to a sickly friend.
He then offered to show reporters the dead bodies of a man in a wheelchair, a young man who he said he dragged inside just hours earlier, and the limp forms of two infants, one just four months old, the other six months old.
“They died right here, in America, waiting for food,” Fouchea said as he walked toward Hall D, where the bodies were put to get them out of the searing heat.
He said people were let die and left without food simply because they were poor and that the evacuation effort earlier concentrated on the French Quarter of the city. “Because that’s where the money is,” he spat.
A National Guardsman refused entry.
“It doesn’t need to be seen, it’s a make-shift morgue in there,” he told a Reuters photographer. “We’re not letting anyone in there anymore. If you want to take pictures of dead bodies, go to Iraq.”
New Orleans on a hair-trigger
‘Stop the car right now,’ reporter told. `Back up, or I’ll shoot’
By Tim Harper
WASHINGTON BUREAU
09/02/05 Toronto Star — — NEW ORLEANS
After 15 minutes, the last of more than 350 images shot by Oleniuk depicted officers delivering a fierce beating to the two suspects, an assault so fearsome one of the suspects defecated.
Realizing their frontier justice had been captured for posterity, the police turned on the photographer, one ripping a camera from his neck with such force it broke its shoulder strap.
Another grabbed a second camera and, somewhere in the melee, Oleniuk’s press pass was ripped from his neck.
The officers fumbled with the cameras, finally pulling out the memory cards with the photos.
Oleniuk pleaded for the return of his cameras, was rebuffed, then, after retreating about a block, approached them again and asked for his cameras back.
One of the officers who had been hunkered down with Oleniuk during the 15-minute shootout said he could have his cameras, but when he asked again for his pictures, he was gruffly told: “If you don’t get your ass out of here, I’m going to break your motherf—ing jaw.”