Katrina body count

[cema]

In Superdome [nola].

Does it mean all the other bodies had been removed already? Or never been there? Or what?

Update.

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities had confirmed only four murders in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina - making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year. Jordan expressed outrage at reports from many national media outlets that suffering flood victims had turned into mobs of unchecked savages.

Not what I would call a typical week, definitely.

Update. Now this is funny:

"Some of these guys look like thugs, with pants hanging down around their asses," he said. "But they were working their asses off [...]"

I guess it's just easier with pants that way.

Update. Folklore vs. Fact [gatewaypundit].

Comments

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

> Does it mean all the other bodies had been removed already? Or never been there? Or what?

hmmm, weird...

"there is no spoon"...

[cema.livejournal.com]

Well, hundreds of people did die in the city, so it is definitely not a typical week. However, in terms of murders, that's a different matter.

[anhinga-anhinga.livejournal.com]

Well, in a normal week in a city of this size there would be about one hundred deaths, and in a population the size of the number of Superdome refugees, there would be a few deaths (which was exactly what was discovered).

So, in retrospect, not so weird. The excessive death toll was not among people who took shelter. The only thing, the police probably did underreport murders (but, again, not in the Superdome).

[email-animal.livejournal.com]

My recollection was, that most of беспредел had been reported from the convention center. Even at that, most of what had been reported were beatings, rapes, muggings, not murders. So, the low death toll at the Superdome is not something I am surprised by.

At the same time there were other accounts claiming that "people with guns" tried to organize the convention center crowd, put the sick and elderly in front, and, in general, tried to do everything to get the authorities to notice and evacuate them. I recall reading something to the extent of "when they had fights, they would put their guns down".... Yes, it sounds wierd to me too.

[cema.livejournal.com]

It seems that (many of the) reported rapes did not happen either. Looting, on the other hand, did. In other words, whatever the reporters were able to see with their own eyes and report, turned out to be largely true, unlike the rumors.

There is a serious question here of how to report rumors (especially when there is no other source) without peddling them. It is not easy even for a serious journalist.

[email-animal.livejournal.com]

Breaking into a drugstore and getting a bottle of water is technically looting, but are you going to complain under the circumstances?

Breaking into a department store and grabbing a television set is also looting. Given the circumstances, it also strikes me as kind of stupid.

Breaking into a gun shop and getting guns and bullets is another sort of looting. This is actually not as stupid as going for the TVs, and - also - the hardest to deal with... under the circumstances.

So, yeah, looting did happen. In all its various glories.

Looting

[cema.livejournal.com]

This is a difficult issue. Remember the story about a bus hijacked by a teenager who then drove the bus to Texas and saved his neighbors, including children? We can agree getting water bottles is not looting (or is "acceptable looting"), while getting loads of stereos is looting and should be prosecuted. Unfortunately, there is no one to decide it during an emergency except common sense of the person. Even after the fact it is not clear: suppose he claims the store would have been destroyed anyway and he came to "save" those stereos? (Suppose it was indeed destroyed?)

Ideally, I would call all this looting and dealt with it afterwards in courts. If regular people agree a particular act was reasonable, let the culprit go free. Otherwise, slap him with a fine or public works.

However, as far as reporters are concerned, they could, and often did, simply note the facts: that there are many people in the city who are breaking into closed stores and taking stuff, and what kind of stuff, and how it compares to similar situations in the past, and what other people have to say about this. That's reporting. As contrasted with editorializing, as with that famous comparison of the blacks who looted stores and whites who found stuff. Also as contrasted with misreporting, as when reporting rumors without explaining that these are rumors, and doing no fact-checking before or after the reportage.

Re: Looting

[email-animal.livejournal.com]

I have not heard the teenager bus story. Beyond that, I pretty much agree with what you are saying, except, let's be realistic - with potentially thousands people participating in this, it is going to be hard to get everyone to court, although there is sufficient body of evidence (video, photos) of some.

One should distinguish between people on the ground, who report what they see and hear and those sitting back in the newsrooms and making executive decisions on how to show/print it. Under the circumstances I am willing to cut a lot of slack to the press on the ground - for four days they were pretty much the only people outside of a lonely livejournal who provided any information about what was happening. Under those circumstances reports about rumors (as rumors) were not unreasonable - some rumors, such as alligators eating floating dead bodies (to go for something truly gruesome) turned out true. Some other rumors did not turn out to be true. I am willing to cut much less slack to the editorial staff of major newspapers/tv stations, and even less than that - to various talking heads. A lot of those are guilty of trying to push a convenient angle to all of this.

Re: Looting

[cema.livejournal.com]

Well, the bus story was not reported by himself, but by someone else, so take it with the usual grain of salt. It was reported by some sources linked by Instapundit, let me try to find it... cannot find it! I thought I had linked to it before, but some of the links have gone stale.

with potentially thousands people participating in this, it is going to be hard to get everyone to court, although there is sufficient body of evidence (video, photos) of some.

Oh, absolutely. And even if there had been enough evidence, the courts would have been overwhelmed.