He kept scouring the bridge from one end to the other and then began walking down a grassy area under the danziger bridge. Nothing. It passed by another officer. Good thing or not looking for a lawyer, the cop told her to go back into the bus and drove away from the bridge trying to put the puzzle out of his mind. It wasnt his investigation. It was natural to question issues. He returned to other duties. I didnt ask anybody anything. I didnt want to do. Ask me questions and i will tell you know lies. But to some other witnesses started to come to the scene. One of them was he happened to be the morning taking pictures of the hotel for insurance purposes. Is troubleshoot had two cameras. One in his hands and one in his pocket. When he turned out with a camera in his hands a Police Officer russia, took the camera and stomped it on the ground. Three hours later, after the gunfire had quelled, the troubleshooter walked back outside. Ronald madisons body remained on the pavement. No officers were around. The lifeless figure left unguarded. He began taking pictures. He snapped photos of the 40 yearold line before him into showcases around the body. The photographs and all the other evidence was important because the police that morning instantly launch launched into a cover. Before all the victims were reeled to the emergency room. The police on the bridge talked about planting a gun. In the next coming days, weeks and months, the police created a fiction. They charged madison with attempted murder so we tried to shoot the officers first they planted a gun that one of the sergeants retrieved from his garage. They called it a handy sandwich. They just truly created a fiction out of whole cloth. One day one of the supervisors when he was writing the report justified the shooting said give me in a. So litigious death was listed as a witness who swore that the medicine brothers were armed, who swore that the of the families were armed. It was a fiction. The police went to Great Lengths to keep this picture in place. The police store the beginning of march in black and what was more like an airbrusheairbrushe d hollywood screenplay been an official recounting of the devastating morning. Filled with jolts of creativity, invented witness and evidence, phony names and fabricated facts. Like a screenplay, the Police Reports would up the light of supervisors who send back comments, wrote through passages. At times like the director and stars hovering over the film directors final cut, the whole nopd Christopher Guith over a computer criminal looking to strike just the right key. The police were unquestioned heroes standing tall. The department had no hunger for an independent review. What it wanted more than anything was to keep the massacre out of the public view and to cast the authors of the bridge as Public Servants doing their job after katrina. Took a fair amount of sweat and some bickering to strike the right tone. Let me get off for just one second, side do. One the things in researching the mullets on the bridge, the residents and the officers come in researching the history of civil rights cases in new orleans, past, present and future, i felt i could never stop learning. So much to learn about this department, so much to absorb about katrina. Their work so many horrors you couldnt keep track. As i mentioned, the eight family members on the bridge that morning. One group of six and one group of two. In my mind i had a good sense of where the seventh of what happened to seven of the victims. Ronald was killed. His brother was arrested and then the other families, susan had her arms shot off. Her daughter lay atop her to protect her and had bullets shoot into her and had to get lifesaving surgery. Their nephew was left for dead. Of paramedics until work on them. Jose whispered dont give up on me. They saved his life. Susans husband had been shot in the head. Been there was the eighth person on the bridge. In researching this he had met a bystander that they look after. I lost track of them. One thing i will add about leonard is he was not hit that day. Leonard when the police stormed out of the budget truck and start shooting he ran down the embankment of the small bridge. And officer linda the truck and fired two shots at his back and his. And missed. For nearly two weeks susan had no idea what her son little bit was and she woke up jolted by were. After johnson look out for the boy that sunday morning, little leonard met a woman who was driving people out of new orleans and buses. The woman heard a story and took him to her home in baton rouge for a week and a fiction the boyfriend cared for him and put a notice on the internet about a missing child. In texas is awful saw the notice and came to get him. Jerome drove leonard directly to the hospital. His mom was in a wheelchair, her right arm chopped off. This is was a hospital bed unable to walk. Surrounded by loss, the teenager was suddenly engulfed by guilt. Why wasnt he shot . Looking towards his cousin who started trying. Im sorry, i shouldve been shot. It is right i got off whatever else has to go through all this pain and is walking around, im fine. I dont have to worry about injuries. It just isnt right. Jose looked at his cousin and gave him a thumbs up. None of us deserved this. For me, i really focus on that moment very late in my research but it showed me there were so many horrors in so much trouble that it was almost hard to keep track. That moment that stays with me because a 14 yearold boys sing i shouldve been shot, too. Such a profound moment. None of us deserved this is what jose was telling me. Whats interesting about this case is despite the horse i described it took these residents, these families having to push for justice. It was a year after the shooting the families filed a lawsuit that led to a different narrative. Initially sometime after that the local da fired filed charges against some of the Police Officers. The officers were paraded as he rose. The case had been twisted so much so that the medicine, in particular led by the brother who is a dentist didnt trust the local da to right the wrong. While there was a case pending, the das case was pending in the madison family and others pressed for the federal department of justice to coming. They didnt trust the local agency to do the right. They were right. A couple years after the case, charges were filed a judge dismissed the charges. Then the department of justice came in led by the Civil Rights Division here in washington, a very aggressive federal prosecutor worked with a rookie fbi agent who started his great as a mechanical engineer, decided to go into the fbi. They teamed up with agents and prosecutors down in new orleans and they took a much deeper review of the events on the bridge. They knocked on doors that mary bonauto before. All the witnesses that may have seen something a morning were never questioned by the nopd. They were now question. The doj shut down the danziger bridge four years after these shootings who search for evidence. It sent a message that theyre looking. They started knocking on doors on the officers and confronting supervisors with evidence that you guys were crafting a fiction. After many years a couple of supervisors played led to guilty. They crossed the line. I want to read a short passage. Remember when the bus, when the budget us was racing to the bridge a guy who was driving, with his own personal ak47 went out the window and fired warning shots. He scattered the families. His name is michael hunter. Hundred have been wrestling with demons from the morning of september 2005. After officers were first charged in state court he was assigned desk duty doing paperwork while the criminal case course through the court system. Another officer worked alongside him. Each officer would come by the office shaking hands and dripping into the da for prosecuting police were doing their job. One day hunter had enough. His fellow officers celebrated the Police Actions that were come unto rose from his desk and stormed to the bathroom. Whats wrong . Standing inside the mens room, hunter turned to the officer is nothing cool about being indicted. We are not heroes. Michael hunter never wanted to climb the Police Letter to stardom. He wanted to be a cop, nothing more. He said his four children out of town. His rating was probably ruined by salt water. A cell phone stuck in his pocket as he patrolled the streets was ruined. Each day he headed up for duty heavily armed. When the ones who a call came hes the one who raised to the drivers seat. He was not an opportunist got boring ass kicker said his lawyer. Now he face those wrenching choice of his life. From the started, along with the cover. He looked himself in the mirror and admitted he did not have the courage to tell the truth. With fbi agents knocking on his door and word spreading supervisors had become cooperative, everything changed. It was just a matter of time. In some ways a huge asterisk, was just matter of time. Ultimately, the doj case led to a successful prosecution led to the very story i first read in august of 2011. In that in some ways this is the only moment where the victim families had some sense of release ashman relief. As the families come, they were greetegreeted by supporters cany throngs of them in tears flow down from j. J. Mom. Plans who testified read a note from a fedex piece of paper. Talked about the horrors he had went through in the relief he finally felt. It really was a relief. It was a temporary relief because a couple years later the judge overseeing the case vacated the jury verdict in directed a neutral on issues that have nothing to do with events of september 4, 2005, nothing to do with the. He we are 10 years later, its been 10 years, and for the victims, the family so lost a son and brother, who lost an arm, who suffered life to seeking injuries and were completely innocent, completely unharmed, the justice remains unresolved for the. As i was looking into the book in 2011 so me cases of note start develop across the country over 2014 and 2015. I ache and stopped in my tracks also the pictures of walter scott tumbling to the ground in north charleston, south carolina. The freddie gray case in baltimore. Eric garner case in staten island. All those cases were profound pd tragedies. Silly of us to with most innocuous moment. Someone being pulled over for not having attacks in the car and ultimate someone dies. Those are painful cases but in thinking about the danziger case i cant think of another case that was as severe a case of a civil rights abuse when you look about the trauma in the budget a top that small bridge and then you look at the extent of the coverup that was put in place. Its a significant case study and i think it has some lessons about them quite a talk by turning to in the. Im going to read this one last short passage and the than happo take any questions you guys ha have. Him as those events but if you think about it too, sounded on the danziger bridge on september 4, 25 following a police distress call that nothing to do with these eight residents. Each of them black and unharmed. 10 years later justice for these families remained an open question. Sobering and telling. I cant retrieve my mind to it inside marc morial the former new orleans mayor and current President National urban league shared as in to begin in the summer 2014. In order to depict a Police Officer detected divert the Police Officer did not to convict him beyond a reasonable doubt he said. Got to convict him beyond all doubt. I also recall the words of edwin sure to the lord for the bartholomew family. How much justice to expect when you been shot at by a Police Officer . In the lead in the families of the victims continue to pray. Sharon johnson wakes up each morning to home without her son, the 17th of killed. Its never going to go away she told me recently. I love him to death. About griffey walked on. I wonder what he would be. I wonder what is. My whole life is spent wondering. Think you. [applause] if you have a question and make your way to the mic dont be shy. Good evening. Thank you for your presentation i had occasion to confront a Police Officer when i was a cab driver, and i called him a break in i was asked to pick somebody up and they said wait for the police to arrive. Caps are kind easy to see. They are yellow and black lights all over them. I was he showed up, emulate jumped out with a shotgun and leveled it at me. And i just looked at him like he was crazy and he finally agreed with me i guess, and he put it down. But theres some mentality there that im very concerned about and it seems to keep popping up in a what if you into that at all . One thing i want to make clear about this is what the officers did on the bridge that was completely wrong in every possible way. They shot first, in asking questions. At the end of the coverup, Good Chemistry i tried to put the shooting in context of what theyre going to come with the department was going through. They are fellow officer had been shot in the head. There was a complete leadership vacuum. I talked with former officer went back to search for bodies 10 days afterwards and he said 10 days and no one was in charge. The fact of the officers could go round, kerry their own ak47 to patrol the streets speaks to the greatest of the times. I tried to understand the. I think theres no doubt it was real palpable fear. The officers thought they were going into really a chaotic terrible situation but they work. These are good families and again ultimately they shot first, did ask questions and they covered a. I thought it was important to put in context of the times. Times. Im curious about why the Police Arrived guns blazing at this situation. Who called them . What that person or persons think was happening . Why did the police get this situation so wrong and react in such a totally unnecessarily violently . Thats a good question. This morning, and theres so many threats of this stupidity by books to be honest with you. This morning of the officers were on the itunes which was paralleled to the danziger bridge, they were telling dutchman towing boat en route to risking people get as they come down theres a man dressed in a shares Office Outfit who says theyre shooting at me, they are shooting at me. And when the lead officer was in this car him her name is jennifer, she heard a digital a couple of guys with guns divide so she called in. The situation was so chaotic. She called them once a rate which means officer under distress. She never said an officer down, officer shot. But at the banquet hall where the officers were state for command post they all assumed that the they all assumed i think is an officer down. Just a couple days earlier when her brother was shot in the head. They raced out to the bridge. The irony in this come to work there was some people in the area earlier that they with the guns but the guy who fly dont officer, he wasnt an officer at all. He was a convic convicted healts dressed like a sheriffs deputy. Thank you very much. Youre welcome. In listening to the story i think about the coverup that took place, and that the story that they weaved to cover up, what they had done was based on the idea that they were shot at first, that they were under attack with something of that nature. And i think in considering the people, its almost cliche, Police Officers have a dangerous job. Everybody except of that is true, but it seems to me that the police dont accept it as true. Because if you know what youre doing a dangerous job, you accept the danger in doing it. If youre a bike messenger java dangerous job, weaving through traffic but you cant pull out a gun as if someone creates out into the intersection and you feel like you are threatened and thereby did you. You either have to get it or get out of the way to you except the dangerous part of your job. In this instance, instances such as these, Police Officers are able to get away with these murders because they feel threatened. They were anxious. Thethey were nervous. They thought someone had a gun. They thought it looked like a gun so they can just shoot first and ask questions later. And even in this instance. If someone did have a gun on the bridge, if there was something going on, it wouldv would haven justified for them to going to maniacal shooting, shooting out of the car or whatever, shooting peoples arms off, shooting people in the back even when theyre scattering you just continue to shoot, shoot, shoot, and then reload and shoot some more. Thats my issue is likely to kind of response to this idea of giving them a pass just because there is danger or there might be danger. I dont think anyone should give the officers a pass on what happened that morning. When offices were biding their coverup, creating a fiction come even have any sense at all anyone was on their shoulders, that the mayor, the bosses would make sure that everything right. They were operating in many ways with impunity. What that should the importance at a local level that the mayor, the police chief played. When marc morial was mayor he had appointed an outsider from washington to lead the department it wasnt friends with officer, respected him but he was a disciplinarian and the fbi was embedded in the office. During katrina the mayor had never held office before and there was no sense from the officers at all that the police chief would tell them what youre doing was wrong. Gotcha debate the significance of the importance and significance of having strong leadership that tells these authors that you cant get away with writing the sanctions when they were human beings at the other end of this. I think this is a very important issue, and remains extremely important. Before i came to the United States from the caribbean. I stated in the netherlands, you know, and i was confronted with this when i was a student usc for some of the became known that i was a lawyer, studied law and people would bring me from lots, stuff like that to talk about police violence. Honestly, i mean, im not [inaudible] the stories i heard were fabric testing what i would like to maybe do a bit more here is to place the whole story in a larger context. Beginning in 2005, this outcome from what we have here [inaudible] if these policemen had problems but you have a way of policing in the south, and ive been to new orleans, based on a long, long history and also basically what happened in new orleans was a failed state, right . New orleans became a failed state, a failed locality. So we have all of this complexity of a history of basically extreme racist policing going back to slavery and going back to settin