By Bruce Hamilton, West Bank bureau
Copyright 2006 The Times-Picayune Publishing Company
The Aug. 31 confrontation in which Gretna police blocked the Crescent City Connection, preventing evacuees from fleeing deluged New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, remains under investigation by Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti.
The episode has spurred charges of racism because many of the evacuees were African-American, and it also has drawn national attention to the West Bank city of about 18,000 people.
The probe is expected to determine whether the civil rights of evacuees were violated. Foti has said criminal charges could be filed against officers.
Meanwhile, state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, and state Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-New Orleans, have filed a lawsuit against the city of Gretna and its Police Department in federal court, saying the officers used “unreasonable, unnecessary and excessive force while refusing plaintiffs to travel through” the city, violating their rights.
Gretna Mayor Ronnie Harris and Police Chief Arthur Lawson have defended the action as a protective measure during a desperate crisis.
Harris said Tuesday that the city “stands by its actions, and we will take the appropriate legal action necessary for its defense.”
Lawson had earlier said the city was overwhelmed with its own problems at the time: flooded neighborhoods, a barge that damaged the Mississippi River levee and the daily task of feeding 800 city employees and other emergency personnel. The evacuees, he said, “actually would have been better off where they were, because we didn’t have anything.”
In November, an investigator for Foti told the Senate Committee on Local and Municipal Affairs that three shots were fired by Gretna police. But where the blockade was set up remains unclear.
Evacuees apparently started walking across the bridge Aug. 31, two days after Katrina made landfall, and Harris has estimated that more than 5,000 people gathered on the West Bank.
But some evacuees said officers confronted them in New Orleans. Fields, who is the lead attorney in the lawsuit, said police initially set up their blockade on the east bank, then pulled back to the edge of Gretna.
Crescent City Connection Executive Director Alan Levasseur said the bridge comprises multiple jurisdictions, including Gretna police, whose officers would not need his agency’s approval to set up a blockade.
The bridge authority is a division of the state Department of Transportation and Development.
Levasseur said he was not present at the time of the blockades and does not know where they occurred. He said the Crescent City Connection’s police force could not say where the blockade was either.
New Orleans Police Department spokesman Capt. Juan Quentin said he could find no one on the force who had any recollection of Gretna police on the east bank portion of the bridge.
The plaintiffs in the suit, Tracy and Dorothy Dickerson, are former New Orleans residents who have relocated to Houston. The Dickersons, who lived on South Rendon Street, crossed the bridge with their elderly neighbor, who was using a walker, and her husband, Richmond said. Gretna police turned them around at the Terry Parkway exit in Algiers, which is part of Orleans Parish, he said.
“This was an ongoing event, not just one particular time,” Richmond said. “It is absolutely un-American to deny people who are in dire straits access to safe ground.”
Richmond added: “We cannot let any municipality, police department or sheriff’s department think it’s OK to turn people around when they’re basically seeking safety. That message has to be sent across the country.”
The Dickersons could not be reached for comment.
Fields said about 12 people have joined the Dickersons as plaintiffs in the case. He said the lawsuit’s purpose is twofold: to show that the police action was unconstitutional and to compensate the evacuees involved.
The lawsuit seeks compensation for physical pain, mental anguish and loss of life. Fields said he and Richmond believe one or more evacuees may have died as a result of the blockade.
The attorney general’s investigation is ongoing, spokeswoman Jennifer Clark said Tuesday.
Lawson, who did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday, has said he would handle the situation the same way again.
“We saved our city and protected our people. Our plan worked, and we’re going to stick with our plan,” Lawson said in a September interview. “Next hurricane, we’re going to secure our city the same way.”
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Bruce Hamilton can be reached at bhamilton@timespicayune.com or (504) 826-3786.
January 4, 2006