Trial opens for officers charged in Katrina shootings

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Jury selection began Wednesday in the federal trial of five current or former New Orleans police officers charged in deadly shootings of unarmed residents...

TheGrio Staff

Jun 22, 2011

MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Jury selection began Wednesday in the federal trial of five current or former New Orleans police officers charged in deadly shootings of unarmed residents on a bridge in Hurricane Katrina’s chaotic aftermath.

Roughly 70 potential jurors were questioned about their Katrina experiences and their knowledge of the case in which two people were fatally shot and four others injured after the 2005 storm. The shootings happened on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after levee failures during the storm flooded 80 percent of the city.

When U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt asked the assembled pool whether they had heard anything about the case, almost all of them raised their hands, and about a half dozen raised hands when asked if they had formed an opinion on the officers guilt or innocence.

During questioning about Katrina, one jury pool member said the Coast Guard rescued him from the city. Several others said they had relatives who had to be rescued.

Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up to make it appear that police were justified in the shootings.

Four other officers were indicted last year on charges stemming from the shootings, while two police investigators were charged in the alleged cover-up.

One of those investigators will be tried separately. The trial for the other five indicted officers is expected to last up to eight weeks.

Engelhardt read a list of about 170 potential witnesses, including two former police chiefs, Eddie Compass and Warren Riley.

The case is one of several Justice Department probes of alleged misconduct by New Orleans police officers. Last year, a jury convicted three current or former officers in the death of a 31-year-old man who was shot by a police officer in Katrina’s aftermath before another officer burned his body.