Storms 411

New Orleans Police Beating Caught on Tape

Watch the videotaped beating. [video]
New Orleans Officers Plead Not Guilty [video]
Subject of Taped Beating Says He Was Sober [video]

Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.

There will be a criminal investigation, and the three officers were to be suspended, arrested and charged with simple battery Sunday, Capt. Marlon Defillo said.

"We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This department will take immediate action."

The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resignation last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.

The APTN tape shows an officer hitting the man at least four times in the head Saturday night as he stood outside a bar near Bourbon Street. The suspect, Robert Davis, appeared to resist, twisting and flailing as he was dragged to the ground by four officers. One of the four then kneed Davis and punched him twice. Davis was face-down on the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.

Meanwhile, a fifth officer ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials and explained he was working, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade. [Read more - Yahoo]

Day 44 – 10/4/05, Mr. Scruggs who Fought Tobacco Sues Insurer Over Flooding

A Mississippi lawyer filed a lawsuit yesterday aimed at forcing insurance companies to pay for damage to tens of thousands of homes caused by surging water driven from the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina a month ago.

Mr. Scruggs argued in the lawsuit that Nationwide Mutual Insurance and a Pascagoula agent, Jay Fletcher, "impliedly represented to plaintiffs that they would have full and comprehensive coverage for any and all hurricane damage," including storm surge.

By some estimates, the lawsuit, if successful, could add as much as $15 billion to the costs for insurers from Katrina, already estimated at $35 billion to $40 billion.

Nationwide insisted in a statement that "there is no ambiguity" in its policies, adding that hurricane coverage does not include losses resulting from flooding, including "flooding resulting from high tides or storm surges."

Mr. Scruggs said in an interview that the Leonards' home was damaged by a combination of storm surge, wind and rain. Mr. Scruggs said he planned to file individual lawsuits, rather than a class-action lawsuit.

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Day 43 – 10/3/05, Florida Man Charged With Hurricane Katrina Internet Scam

R. Alexander Acosta, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Michael S. Clemens, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced today the Indictment and arrest of defendant, Gary S. Kraser, for fraudulently soliciting charitable donations supposedly intended for humanitarian relief to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Kraser was charged with four counts of wire fraud, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343.

According to Indictment, Kraser falsely claimed in conversations on the Internet, and ultimately via the website at http://www.AirKatrina.com, that he was piloting flights to Louisiana to provide medical supplies to the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and to evacuate children and others in critical medical condition. Kraser further claimed that he had organized a group of Florida pilots to assist him in his supposed relief efforts.

In one fraudulent Internet communication posted on August 30, 2005, Kraser pretended to have returned from Louisiana, and wrote, "I am shaking as I write this, as I just arrived home, and just now allowed my body and mind to accept what I saw tonight... I am crying as I read this... I saw people on their roofs, that had used axes more than likely to cut through the roof, waving at us, as they thought we were Air Rescue... I saw dogs wrapped in electrical lines still alive and sparks flying from their bodies being electrocuted, as well as some people dead already. If I had a helicopter, I would be there now rather than back in FL... I'm so sorry I couldn't do more... I'm crying and hugging my dog next to me now... I will hear these screams for the rest of my life..." [Read more - US Newswire]

[For more information and articles about Identity Theft go to: Online Credit Card Fraud Prevention]

Day 37 – 9/27/05, New Orleans Police Superintendent Quits Amid Criticism

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 27 - Edwin P. Compass III, the city's flamboyant police superintendent, resigned on Tuesday after weeks of criticism for his department's failure to stem disorder in the city and in his own department in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

At a news conference in which he took no questions, Mr. Compass noted that he had been a policeman for 26 years and chief for 3½ years, saying, "I have taken this department through some of the toughest times in its history." But, he added, "Every man in a leadership position must know when it's time to hand over the reins to someone else."

He gave no reasons for resignation, but it came on the same day that the police department announced that about 250 officers - about 15 percent of the force - would be investigated for absences without permission in the days after Hurricane Katrina submerged this city four weeks ago. [Read more - New York Times]

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Day 37 – 9/27/05, Hurricane Victims Face Tighter Limits on Bankruptcy

When Congress agreed this spring to tighten the bankruptcy laws and crack down on consumers who took on debt irresponsibly, no one had the victims of Hurricane Katrina in mind.

But four weeks after New Orleans flooded and tens of thousands of other residents of the Gulf Coast also lost their homes and livelihoods, a stricter new personal bankruptcy law scheduled to take effect on Oct. 17 is likely to deliver another blow to those dislocated by the storm.

The law was intended to keep individuals from taking on debts they had no intention of paying off. But many once-solvent Katrina victims are likely to be caught up in the net intended to catch deadbeats.

Right after Hurricane Katrina struck, several lawmakers - mostly Democrats but including some Senate Republicans - suggested that storm victims along the Gulf Coast should get relief from the new law's stricter provisions, which are intended to screen filers by income and make those with higher incomes repay their debts over several years. Under the old law, which remains in effect until mid-October, many more filers can have their debts canceled quickly in federal bankruptcy courts. [Read more - New York Times] Related article: The Old Laws and the New (Sept. 27, 2005)

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Day 36 – 9/26/05, NJ Sues Big Oil for Price Gouging

State says Shell, Amerada Hess, Sunoco overpriced gasoline after Katrina shut down Gulf production.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Jersey's Acting Gov. Richard Codey said Monday the state had sued Motiva Shell, Amerada Hess and Sunoco for overpricing gasoline after Hurricane Katrina shut much of the Gulf's oil production and damaged refineries.

New Jersey motorists paid an average of $2.87 a gallon on Monday, according to the American Automobile Association.

State law bars gasoline stations from raising prices more than once every 24 hours, but Codey said multiple price changes had occurred within that period.

"Katrina was a devastating hurricane, not a financial windfall for the shameless," the Democratic governor said in a statement. [Read more - CNN Money]

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Day 36 – 9/26/05, Rumors of Deaths Greatly Exaggerated

Widely reported attacks false or unsubstantiated

6 bodies found at Dome; 4 at Convention Center

After five days managing near-riots, medical horrors and unspeakable living conditions inside the Superdome, Louisiana National Guard Col. Thomas Beron prepared to hand over the dead to representatives of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Following days of internationally reported killings, rapes and gang violence inside the Dome, the doctor from FEMA - Beron doesn't remember his name - came prepared for a grisly scene: He brought a refrigerated 18-wheeler and three doctors to process bodies.

"I've got a report of 200 bodies in the Dome," Beron recalls the doctor saying.

The real total was six, Beron said.

Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside. [Read more - NOLA]

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Day 23 – 9/14/05, More Deaths Confirmed in Homes for the Aged

A day after Louisiana officials charged the owners of a nursing home in the deaths of 34 patients there, the owners of two other nursing homes confirmed yesterday that an additional 13 patients died in their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. State officials also said they were investigating the deaths of 14 patients at yet another nursing home in New Orleans.

The new reports suggest that at least 61 patients died in four New Orleans-area nursing homes after their operators ignored a mandatory evacuation order a day before Hurricane Katrina hit. The owners of 15 other nursing homes contacted by The New York Times said they had successfully evacuated hundreds of patients from their homes.

A total of 53 nursing homes were evacuated in the New Orleans area, but it is unclear how many of them were evacuated before the storm. [Read more - New York Times]

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Suspicious Charity Web Sites Increasing; FBI, Justice Vow Prosecutions

The FBI has now identified at least 4,000 Internet Web sites -- many of them suspicious -- that claim to be seeking money to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina. That's nearly twice the 2,300 that had been found through last Thursday by FBI cybercrime investigators working closely with the Red Cross.

At a briefing on the status of federal efforts to combat rampant fraud in the aftermath of the Gulf Coast disaster, FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker said investigators have now reviewed 2,100 sites. About 60 percent of them are believed to originate overseas.

"That's not a reason unto itself to conclude that that's a scam Web site, but it is a reason to be cautious," Swecker said.

While some of the suspect sites are sophisticated endeavors that are created to look like authentic Red Cross sites, others are variations of the age-old "Nigerian scam letter," which dangles the lure of a pile of money before Internet users, but says it will be forthcoming only after the user's money is first sent to the rip-off artist.

Swecker said no arrests have been made, but the number of criminal cyber investigations formally opened has increased substantially since last Thursday when the FBI acknowledged it had begun eight probes of potential Internet fraud.

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Nursing Home Owners Charged

Thirty-four people died when hurricane hit

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (CNN) -- The attorney for a couple charged with 34 counts of negligent homicide said Tuesday his clients never abandoned the nursing home where people tried to ride out Hurricane Katrina.

The Category 4 hurricane swamped St. Rita's Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish, near New Orleans, killing 34 people August 29.

On Tuesday, Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti Jr. charged Mable and Salvador Mangano Sr., both 65, with 34 counts of negligent homicide. [Read more - CNN]

Video: Inside St. Rita's Nursing Home [CNN]

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