Post by WaTcHeR on Sept 14, 2006 13:37:53 GMT -5
09.14.2006 - A police shooting six days after Katrina that authorities initially portrayed as a response to sniper fire at the Danziger Bridge has now spawned three federal lawsuits claiming police killed two unarmed men and wounded four others in a hail of unprovoked gunfire.
In the lawsuits, filed this month against the city, the families of the wounded and the dead, including 40-year-old mentally disabled man who refused to leave his dogs during the storm and a 19-year-old man, offer accounts of the incident that directly contradict from the official police account. The incident remains under investigation by the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office.
The bridge, on Chef Menteur Highway, spans the Industrial Canal and connects Gentilly to eastern New Orleans. As floodwaters rose in Katrina’s aftermath, masses of stranded residents stood or walked along the highway in search of food, water and help. But on the morning of Sept. 4, 2005, it became the site of a bloody shooting in which heavily armed police responded to what they said were reports of shots being fired at their fellow officers.
The lawsuits dispute that account, asserting instead that the people on the bridge were victims of an unwarranted attack by police. In testimony, surviving shooting victim Lance Madison confirmed accounts of gunfire near the bridge before police fired on him — but he said the people on the bridge, not police, were the targets.
Believing they were under attack by common-day criminals, the victims — each unarmed — said they tried to run away, according to the suits.
But before they could flee, a squad of heavily armed men arrived on the scene and jumped out of a rental truck, all dressed in dark clothing, and let loose a flurry of bullets at the small crowd on the bridge, in an account similar to that offered by police.
The men in the rental truck turned out to be New Orleans police officers — none clearly identified with badges or uniforms — who later said they believed cop killers were prowling the bridge.
NOPD would not comment or answer questions on the incident Wednesday, saying the matter is still under investigation.
Police arrested and booked Madison on Sept. 4, 2005, with seven counts of attempted murder of a police officer and an eighth count of attempted murder of man who was riding with the officers. A 25-year employee of Federal Express who owned a townhouse in eastern New Orleans, Madison has no prior criminal record.
He has since been released without bond and the District Attorney has not charged him with the murders.
In earlier statements, police have stood by their account: Believing two of their own had been cut down by lawless gunmen under the Danziger Bridge, a group of officers commandeered a Budget Rent-a-Truck and raced to the scene.
“A gunfight ensued,” Sgt. Arthur Kaufman testified at a preliminary hearing in the case against Madison, held Sept. 28, 2005 at a state prison in St. Gabriel. “The officers identified themselves. They were fired upon by four of the seven subjects. Handguns were used by the subjects. Five people were shot at the foot of the Danziger Bridge, four critically wounded, one killed. One perpetrator killed.”
When the shooting ended, the police said they set out to detain suspects they say started the gun battle. Kaufman said, “At that point, of course, chaos ruled ... There was a lot of mass confusion on the radio. This was entirely — entirely mass confusion at that point.”
When the situation calmed, two men were dead and four people were wounded.
Lance Madison’s brother Ronald Madison, the mentally disabled man who refused to evacuate because of his pets, died after being shot seven times in the back. On his death certificate, signed by Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard, Madison’s cause of death is listed as “Hurricane Katrina related,” and “multiple gunshot wounds.”
Also shot multiple times and killed was 19-year-old James Barsett.
Another man, Jose Holmes Jr., 20, is permanently disfigured by his gunshot wounds, including two to the abdomen that he said an officer fired as Holmes lay bleeding on the ground.
Holmes’ relatives, the Bartholomew family, were also wounded by gunfire. Susan Bartholomew, 38, had her arm blown off by a large caliber weapon. Leonard Bartholomew, 56, took a gunshot wound to the top of his head. Lesha Bartholomew, 18, was shot in the lower leg and knee.
None of the police officers were injured, authorities said.
Holmes has filed his own lawsuit, as has Lance Madison and his mother Fuki Madison. The third suit was filed by the Bartholomew family.
The seven police officers who responded to the call at the bridge were Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen; and Officers Robert Faulcon, Robert Barrios, Anthony Villavaso, Michael Hunter and Ignatius Hills.
An eighth man who was already on the scene was David Ryder, 42, who claimed he was a St. Landry Parish deputy. But Ryder has a criminal record that includes a conviction for false imprisonment, arrests for battery on a police officer and possession of cocaine, according to court documents from Nacogdoches County, Texas.
Ryder is listed as a “victim” of the Danziger Bridge incident in police reports dated Sept. 4, 2005, along with each of the seven NOPD officers who took the call. Ryder alone identified Lance Madison as a shooter, court records show.
The lawsuits accuse the police of blasting away at innocent people and then covering up their fatal mistakes by trying to frame Lance Madison and Barsett. But no guns were found on the men, and several witnesses have disputed the police report that Barsett had a gun, the lawsuits say.
In his testimony at the preliminary hearing, Sgt. Kaufman said officers at the bridge found a revolver, but not on Madison or any other of the other people identified as suspects.
The police report on the incident accuses Madison of throwing a gun into the canal after firing it at police. But that detail was added after an officer wrote up the original report. Kaufman said he “added it” after he heard about it from Sgt. Kenneth Bowen.
Engaged in a gunfight?
In an interview earlier this year, Capt. Bob Bardy, then commander of the 7th District, defended the police response.
“Danziger Bridge is going to take on a life of its own,“ he said. “But that broadcast for help was from another officer who actually witnessed contract workers being shot at. And the broadcasts are public record. ... When this comes out, I think you’ll see that they are engaged in a gunfight with these people.“
Bardy, who is named in the lawsuits as a defendant, also said in the interview that at no point did he think that his officers did anything wrong.
“Two people died, and it’s unfortunate,” Bardy said, “but unfortunate circumstances are part of the job.”
District Attorney Eddie Jordan said in January that his office would convene a grand jury to review the Danziger Bridge deaths. But the case hasn’t been presented to a grand jury yet.
“We are awaiting additional forensic evidence,” Jordan said Wednesday through his spokesman. “Following the receipt of this evidence, we will present the matter to the grand jury.”
According to the police account, at about 9 a.m. on Sept. 4, an officer on the radio advised that two cops were “down under the Danziger Bridge.”
In a report written by Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, police name Holmes and Lance Madison as suspects who were spotted firing on cops.
Ryder, the man with the criminal record who that day claimed to be a deputy, identified Madison as a gunman who fired upon him and a convoy of rescue volunteers he said he was escorting over the high rise. Ryder also identified the dead man, possibly Barsett, as another shooter.
Holmes, bleeding from four wounds, went to the hospital, while Madison was booked with attempted murder and sent to Camp Greyhound, the temporary holding tank set up for police after the flood.
According to a handwritten report filed by officer Ignatius Hills, Madison “fled and threw his handgun into the Industrial Canal and was apprehended a short time later.” But Sgt. Kaufman said he added that line to Hills’ report.
In the police report, officers from the 7th District said they responded to a call of two officer shot on the bridge. They said they were dressed in Task Force uniforms affixed with NOPD patches, and that they were greeted by gunfire from four of seven people who were running onto the bridge.
Police officers unleashed a violent response, the report said. When their reported the shooting over the police radio that same day, commanders huddled miles away at a makeshift headquarters, outside Harrah’s casino, cheered wildly.
“We got six of them,” a captain said. “None of our guys hurt.”
Brothers stuck together
After being processed at the makeshift jail at the Greyhound station, Lance Madison spent several weeks in a state prison.
Jose Holmes, Jr. was “under investigation,” police said earlier this year, but has not been charged.
Ronald Madison, 40, who according to his family had the mind of a child and was deeply attached to his pet dogs, died on the scene of his seven gunshot wounds.
When the hurricane approached last year, his relatives evacuated their eastern New Orleans homes, but decided they could not bring pets. Ronald Madison’s
So Ronald chose to remain with the dogs, dachshunds Bobbi and Sushi. His older brother Lance Madison, 49, said he would stay behind, too.
They rode out the storm at Lance Madison’s two-story condominium until Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, when the levees failed, flooding east New Orleans and sending the brothers onto the roof to wave for rescue.
“It became apparent the rescue was not taking place,” the lawsuit says. “The brothers were running out of food and water. Ronald was very frightened and was crying at times.”
Lance tried to calm his brother with prayers, but he knew they had to find higher ground as the floodwaters seeped into his home, the lawsuits says.
On Tuesday, Aug. 30, the brothers left the condo, with the dachshunds in tow. They waded and swam toward an office building on Chef Menteur Highway owned by their dentist brother, Dr. Romell Madison. The trip took five hours, all through the filthy water, with debris and dead animals floating past them, the lawsuits says.
‘Running up the bridge’
Other stranded families surrounded the building. The Madison brothers didn’t see a single police officer or soldier, the lawsuit says, and they tried to stay to themselves.
The Madisons wanted to get out of the drowning city, and they had heard that buses were coming up Chef Highway and Downman Road to ferry people to the Convention Center. But they couldn’t find a bus. They headed to their mother’s house in Academy Park on Lafon Drive, looking for a bike, Madison testified. But they wound up backtracking, and crossed the Danziger Bridge.
At the bridge, Madison said six teenagers in white T-shirts began firing at him and Ronald.
“They started shooting at us,” Madison testified at the same hearing as Kaufman, according to a transcript. “And we ran up the bridge. We tried to run for our life ... And then they saw me and my little brother going up the bridge and one of the officers shot my brother in the shoulder. And I had to pick him up to try to run down the bridge to find some help.”
The rental truck filled with NOPD officers finished what the teens had started, Madison said.
“They jumped out and started shooting,” Madison testified. “Me and my little brother was running up the bridge.”
Madison said the teenagers didn’t shoot at police, just at him and his brother.
Orleans Parish Magistrate Court Judge Gerard Hansen, who presided over the hearing at the Hunt Correctional Center near Baton Rouge, lowered Madison’s bond from $800,000 to $400,000. Madison was later released without bond, having spent more time in jail than the law allows without a formal charge from the district attorney.
Hansen found probable cause for Madison’s arrest based on the handwritten details that claim Madison tossed a gun into the canal. But the judge said he didn’t believe Madison was one of the shooters that day.
“I could be wrong, but I’ve been doing this for 32 years, and I think I have a gut reaction on this,” Hansen said. “If I actually thought you were up there shooting, I would raise the bond to $2 million.”
www.nola.com/newslogs/topnews/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_topnews/archives/2006_09_14.html
In the lawsuits, filed this month against the city, the families of the wounded and the dead, including 40-year-old mentally disabled man who refused to leave his dogs during the storm and a 19-year-old man, offer accounts of the incident that directly contradict from the official police account. The incident remains under investigation by the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office.
The bridge, on Chef Menteur Highway, spans the Industrial Canal and connects Gentilly to eastern New Orleans. As floodwaters rose in Katrina’s aftermath, masses of stranded residents stood or walked along the highway in search of food, water and help. But on the morning of Sept. 4, 2005, it became the site of a bloody shooting in which heavily armed police responded to what they said were reports of shots being fired at their fellow officers.
The lawsuits dispute that account, asserting instead that the people on the bridge were victims of an unwarranted attack by police. In testimony, surviving shooting victim Lance Madison confirmed accounts of gunfire near the bridge before police fired on him — but he said the people on the bridge, not police, were the targets.
Believing they were under attack by common-day criminals, the victims — each unarmed — said they tried to run away, according to the suits.
But before they could flee, a squad of heavily armed men arrived on the scene and jumped out of a rental truck, all dressed in dark clothing, and let loose a flurry of bullets at the small crowd on the bridge, in an account similar to that offered by police.
The men in the rental truck turned out to be New Orleans police officers — none clearly identified with badges or uniforms — who later said they believed cop killers were prowling the bridge.
NOPD would not comment or answer questions on the incident Wednesday, saying the matter is still under investigation.
Police arrested and booked Madison on Sept. 4, 2005, with seven counts of attempted murder of a police officer and an eighth count of attempted murder of man who was riding with the officers. A 25-year employee of Federal Express who owned a townhouse in eastern New Orleans, Madison has no prior criminal record.
He has since been released without bond and the District Attorney has not charged him with the murders.
In earlier statements, police have stood by their account: Believing two of their own had been cut down by lawless gunmen under the Danziger Bridge, a group of officers commandeered a Budget Rent-a-Truck and raced to the scene.
“A gunfight ensued,” Sgt. Arthur Kaufman testified at a preliminary hearing in the case against Madison, held Sept. 28, 2005 at a state prison in St. Gabriel. “The officers identified themselves. They were fired upon by four of the seven subjects. Handguns were used by the subjects. Five people were shot at the foot of the Danziger Bridge, four critically wounded, one killed. One perpetrator killed.”
When the shooting ended, the police said they set out to detain suspects they say started the gun battle. Kaufman said, “At that point, of course, chaos ruled ... There was a lot of mass confusion on the radio. This was entirely — entirely mass confusion at that point.”
When the situation calmed, two men were dead and four people were wounded.
Lance Madison’s brother Ronald Madison, the mentally disabled man who refused to evacuate because of his pets, died after being shot seven times in the back. On his death certificate, signed by Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard, Madison’s cause of death is listed as “Hurricane Katrina related,” and “multiple gunshot wounds.”
Also shot multiple times and killed was 19-year-old James Barsett.
Another man, Jose Holmes Jr., 20, is permanently disfigured by his gunshot wounds, including two to the abdomen that he said an officer fired as Holmes lay bleeding on the ground.
Holmes’ relatives, the Bartholomew family, were also wounded by gunfire. Susan Bartholomew, 38, had her arm blown off by a large caliber weapon. Leonard Bartholomew, 56, took a gunshot wound to the top of his head. Lesha Bartholomew, 18, was shot in the lower leg and knee.
None of the police officers were injured, authorities said.
Holmes has filed his own lawsuit, as has Lance Madison and his mother Fuki Madison. The third suit was filed by the Bartholomew family.
The seven police officers who responded to the call at the bridge were Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen; and Officers Robert Faulcon, Robert Barrios, Anthony Villavaso, Michael Hunter and Ignatius Hills.
An eighth man who was already on the scene was David Ryder, 42, who claimed he was a St. Landry Parish deputy. But Ryder has a criminal record that includes a conviction for false imprisonment, arrests for battery on a police officer and possession of cocaine, according to court documents from Nacogdoches County, Texas.
Ryder is listed as a “victim” of the Danziger Bridge incident in police reports dated Sept. 4, 2005, along with each of the seven NOPD officers who took the call. Ryder alone identified Lance Madison as a shooter, court records show.
The lawsuits accuse the police of blasting away at innocent people and then covering up their fatal mistakes by trying to frame Lance Madison and Barsett. But no guns were found on the men, and several witnesses have disputed the police report that Barsett had a gun, the lawsuits say.
In his testimony at the preliminary hearing, Sgt. Kaufman said officers at the bridge found a revolver, but not on Madison or any other of the other people identified as suspects.
The police report on the incident accuses Madison of throwing a gun into the canal after firing it at police. But that detail was added after an officer wrote up the original report. Kaufman said he “added it” after he heard about it from Sgt. Kenneth Bowen.
Engaged in a gunfight?
In an interview earlier this year, Capt. Bob Bardy, then commander of the 7th District, defended the police response.
“Danziger Bridge is going to take on a life of its own,“ he said. “But that broadcast for help was from another officer who actually witnessed contract workers being shot at. And the broadcasts are public record. ... When this comes out, I think you’ll see that they are engaged in a gunfight with these people.“
Bardy, who is named in the lawsuits as a defendant, also said in the interview that at no point did he think that his officers did anything wrong.
“Two people died, and it’s unfortunate,” Bardy said, “but unfortunate circumstances are part of the job.”
District Attorney Eddie Jordan said in January that his office would convene a grand jury to review the Danziger Bridge deaths. But the case hasn’t been presented to a grand jury yet.
“We are awaiting additional forensic evidence,” Jordan said Wednesday through his spokesman. “Following the receipt of this evidence, we will present the matter to the grand jury.”
According to the police account, at about 9 a.m. on Sept. 4, an officer on the radio advised that two cops were “down under the Danziger Bridge.”
In a report written by Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, police name Holmes and Lance Madison as suspects who were spotted firing on cops.
Ryder, the man with the criminal record who that day claimed to be a deputy, identified Madison as a gunman who fired upon him and a convoy of rescue volunteers he said he was escorting over the high rise. Ryder also identified the dead man, possibly Barsett, as another shooter.
Holmes, bleeding from four wounds, went to the hospital, while Madison was booked with attempted murder and sent to Camp Greyhound, the temporary holding tank set up for police after the flood.
According to a handwritten report filed by officer Ignatius Hills, Madison “fled and threw his handgun into the Industrial Canal and was apprehended a short time later.” But Sgt. Kaufman said he added that line to Hills’ report.
In the police report, officers from the 7th District said they responded to a call of two officer shot on the bridge. They said they were dressed in Task Force uniforms affixed with NOPD patches, and that they were greeted by gunfire from four of seven people who were running onto the bridge.
Police officers unleashed a violent response, the report said. When their reported the shooting over the police radio that same day, commanders huddled miles away at a makeshift headquarters, outside Harrah’s casino, cheered wildly.
“We got six of them,” a captain said. “None of our guys hurt.”
Brothers stuck together
After being processed at the makeshift jail at the Greyhound station, Lance Madison spent several weeks in a state prison.
Jose Holmes, Jr. was “under investigation,” police said earlier this year, but has not been charged.
Ronald Madison, 40, who according to his family had the mind of a child and was deeply attached to his pet dogs, died on the scene of his seven gunshot wounds.
When the hurricane approached last year, his relatives evacuated their eastern New Orleans homes, but decided they could not bring pets. Ronald Madison’s
So Ronald chose to remain with the dogs, dachshunds Bobbi and Sushi. His older brother Lance Madison, 49, said he would stay behind, too.
They rode out the storm at Lance Madison’s two-story condominium until Monday, Aug. 29, 2005, when the levees failed, flooding east New Orleans and sending the brothers onto the roof to wave for rescue.
“It became apparent the rescue was not taking place,” the lawsuit says. “The brothers were running out of food and water. Ronald was very frightened and was crying at times.”
Lance tried to calm his brother with prayers, but he knew they had to find higher ground as the floodwaters seeped into his home, the lawsuits says.
On Tuesday, Aug. 30, the brothers left the condo, with the dachshunds in tow. They waded and swam toward an office building on Chef Menteur Highway owned by their dentist brother, Dr. Romell Madison. The trip took five hours, all through the filthy water, with debris and dead animals floating past them, the lawsuits says.
‘Running up the bridge’
Other stranded families surrounded the building. The Madison brothers didn’t see a single police officer or soldier, the lawsuit says, and they tried to stay to themselves.
The Madisons wanted to get out of the drowning city, and they had heard that buses were coming up Chef Highway and Downman Road to ferry people to the Convention Center. But they couldn’t find a bus. They headed to their mother’s house in Academy Park on Lafon Drive, looking for a bike, Madison testified. But they wound up backtracking, and crossed the Danziger Bridge.
At the bridge, Madison said six teenagers in white T-shirts began firing at him and Ronald.
“They started shooting at us,” Madison testified at the same hearing as Kaufman, according to a transcript. “And we ran up the bridge. We tried to run for our life ... And then they saw me and my little brother going up the bridge and one of the officers shot my brother in the shoulder. And I had to pick him up to try to run down the bridge to find some help.”
The rental truck filled with NOPD officers finished what the teens had started, Madison said.
“They jumped out and started shooting,” Madison testified. “Me and my little brother was running up the bridge.”
Madison said the teenagers didn’t shoot at police, just at him and his brother.
Orleans Parish Magistrate Court Judge Gerard Hansen, who presided over the hearing at the Hunt Correctional Center near Baton Rouge, lowered Madison’s bond from $800,000 to $400,000. Madison was later released without bond, having spent more time in jail than the law allows without a formal charge from the district attorney.
Hansen found probable cause for Madison’s arrest based on the handwritten details that claim Madison tossed a gun into the canal. But the judge said he didn’t believe Madison was one of the shooters that day.
“I could be wrong, but I’ve been doing this for 32 years, and I think I have a gut reaction on this,” Hansen said. “If I actually thought you were up there shooting, I would raise the bond to $2 million.”
www.nola.com/newslogs/topnews/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_topnews/archives/2006_09_14.html