Photo: Reuters
Hurricane Katrina will go down in history as one of those moments that you will remember forever. Watching hopeless people surrounded by miles and miles of water while searching for loved ones is a vision that is etched into our minds forever.
11 years later and New Orleans is still striving to restore their city to what it once was.
A big issue in NOLA during the Katrina era was police brutality, specifically three major cases that have been classified as some of the most "high-profile" instances of police violence that came before Ferguson and other situations that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
Photo: Associated Press
On Monday, Mayor Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans announced that the city had reached $13.3 million in civil settlements, while giving an apology on behalf of the city and spoke on the changes of the New Orleans Police Department since then. The case was chronicled in a feature by The New York Times, who talked to plaintiffs and the families of the deceased.
“There were angels among us that we never knew. But evidently, there were demons as well," said Landrieu. He went on to call these brutality cases “the most comprehensive consent decree in the history of the United States.”
The cases' plaintiffs included family members of Raymond Robair, a 48-year-old handyman who was beaten to death by a police officer just before the storm, as well as the family of Henry Glover, who was shot on by a police officer who was patrolling a strip mall. A bystander drove the dying Glover to a police outpost, where officers were said to have detained and beat the driver, as well as two members of Glover's family. They burned the car with his body inside.
Lance Madison, who was was unable to attend the verdict, remembered when a police officer shot his developmentally-disabled brother in the back as they were crossing a bridge along with other unarmed people. Officers, responding to a report of police under fire, showed up in a rented truck and began firing shots which killed two and seriously injured four others. Madison was arrested on the scene, charged with attempted murder and jailed for weeks as a cover-up. It was not until he was released that the true story of what happened that day came to light.
As 17 plaintiffs are offering forgiveness to the NOPD and Mayor Landrieu in return for their settlement, Madison cannot find it in himself to do the same. "I guess the only thing that ends is we don't go back to court anymore…it may be closure for them, but it will probably never be closer for me."
Sherell Johnson, the mother of 17-year-old James Brissette, who was also killed on the Danziger Bridge, confessed that she could finally bury her son's ashes after 11 years on this "awful, long and rough road."
While this saga has seemingly come to a head, no amount of money will be able to restore the damage done to these families.
Never miss a headline! Sign up for Blavity's daily newsletter.
