Dear Mr. Woods:
I’d like to thank you for the Contraflow Project and the tremendous contributions your work continues to make toward a fuller understanding of Hurricane Katrina. It is hard to imagine a more significant moment in American history. Society is indebted to anyone who takes the time, resources and patience to unearth its many dimensions.
As a writer and researcher, I have some experience with the enormity of your task. The book I edited on Katrina, After the Storm: Black Intellectuals Explore the Meaning of Hurricane Katrina, was released on the anniversary of the deluge. At the time, much was not known about many of the important details. As the years have passed, many accounts of the disaster have assumed certain facts. However, your work demonstrates that many core assumptions of the disaster were not understood and remain unknown to many.
Therefore, I am grateful for the obvious sacrifices you have made in remaining curious and tenacious long after many sincere inquirers had left the scene. Your work will constitute a critical foundation for future research, policy and public understandings. It joins an important tradition of journalism and historical scholarship. I wish you luck in its distribution.
Sincerely,
David D. Troutt
Professor of Law
Rutgers School of Law (Newark)
Monday, January 21, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
The Events of 9/1 (A Katrina Essay)
Part One: The Katrina Responders
Today, I am blogging this piece to acknowledge and pay tribute to the Katrina responders, survivors, volunteers and the public information officers, supporters, followers and our fiscal sponsor Contraflow Inc. for helping to make our study of the Katrina response and post-Katrina New Orleans a success. Thank you!
There was Lt. General William Caldwell, then Commanding Officer
of the 82nd Airborne, telling me about flight to the Gulf Coast after receiving
zero notice to deploy; Rear Admiral Nora Tyson, then CO of the USS
Bataan, telling me how helicopters from her flight deck conducted
search and rescue missions throughout New Orleans; Lt. Colonel Gary Cooke, of
the 439th Airlift Wing, telling me how he used his C-5 transport plane to help expedite the
evac-uation of Louis Armstrong Airport; Dave Haddad, FAA Houston Center ATC
Manager, telling me what it was like running the Armstrong Airport Control
Tower on the day it became the most congested airspace in the world; Richard
Brown, DMAT CA-6 team member, telling me how he kept pleading to the
National Guard to resume medevac operation at the Superdome Heliport "HLZ
Eagle Base"; Lt. (CWO4) Dave Lewald, then Commanding Officer of
the CGC Clamp, telling me how the Coast Guard moved 6,000 evacuees to safety
through the Algiers Point Ferry Terminal; and Dr. Ri Venuti, DMAT CA-4 team member,
telling me how she cared for patients in the "Black Tent" (expectant
patients) at Armstrong Airport with compassion and
dignity.
There was also Mayor Mitch Landrieu, then Louisiana Lt.
Governor, telling me how he led an 8-bus convoy of Katrina evacuees who had
been turned away in Baton Rouge, from West Baton Rouge Parish to Lafayette; Dr.
Scott Delacroix, then Urologist at
Charity Hospital, telling me he how came into New Orleans to help his stranded
Charity Hospital colleagues instead he wound up leading the medical response at
the I-10 & Causeway Blvd. collection point; Dr. Greg Henderson, then at Ochsner Hospital
(I believe), telling me how he and a NOPD officer walked through crowds of the
Morial Convention Center to provide aid and comfort; Sheriff Newell Normand, then Jefferson Parish
Sheriff's Office Chief Deputy, telling me how he pressured FEMA to come up with
a more humane plan for moving evacuees from collection points in New Orleans to
Armstrong Airport and beyond; Devika Koppikar, then Maryland U.S. Rep.
Congressman Elijah Cummings' press secretary, telling me how her boss took the
lead and planned a Congressional Black Caucus press
conference; Joe Kolshak and Mike Quiello, then both
Delta Airlines Executives and pilots, telling me how thier boss CEO Gerald
Grinstein asked him how many evacuees could they bring back with them to
Atlanta; Fr. Dennis Hayes, then pastor at St. Louise
De Marillac, telling me how he wrote a letter by candle light in the Calliope
Projects thanking his host for food, shelter and dry clothes; Kim Cardrice Johnson, then a resident of
New Orleans East who ended up at the Morial Convention Center with her family,
telling me that she believed that Friday evening 9.2.05 was the night she was
going to die at the hands of military snipers; Rick Mathieu, the leader of the Soul
Patrol, telling me how he saluted Air Force One as it flew over his city,
realizing that the country now knew they were there in the water, and that help
would soon come for all those he had rescued and deposited on various
interstate bridges. You can learn more about TCP research by visiting the
following links:
Towards the end of most of my interviews I
would ask the interviewee, "what are your last words?" The most
memorable and encouraging response that always comes to mind was from Rear
Admiral Nora Tyson, who was onshore in Bangkok
Thailand when we spoke by phone. She said, "Mr. Woods, I'm not really sure what you are
doing, but I think I like it!"
About two years ago, I learned about an
American Red Cross of New Orleans (ARCNO) benefit called "Heroes of the Storm," which was to
coincide with the five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. With less than a
week until the event, I immediately contacted the ARCNO to persuade them to add
a group of men who called themselves the Soul Patrol (Rick Mathieu, Emanuel Mathieu, Earl
Barthe and Jadell Beard) to their list of those being honored. Thankfully, the
ARCNO obliged my request. This turned out to be a great move because the Soul
Patrol turned out to be the life of the ball. The executive director Kay Wilkins posed with them, Mayor Mitch
Landrieu praised them and retired Lt. General Russel Honore shared Katrina war
stories with them.
I first met the Soul Patrol on 9.12.05, in my
hometown. They, minus Manny who was sent to Milwaukee a few days earlier, had
been placed on one of the last two post-Katrina evacuation flights out of Louis
Armstrong Airport to a destination unknown to them until twenty minutes before
landing. I approached them at the Civic Auditorium and simply said "Welcome
to Omaha." I gave each one of them a copy of a book I wrote titled AFROMATION, and a
t-shirt with a fleur di lis on the front and the words "Operation
Overground Railroad, Destination Unknown" on the back. Later on that day
they asked me if I would help them document their ten days on the
water down in the New Orleans 7th Ward. Whether I realized it or not,
that request turned out to be the origin of The Contraflow Project.
Around the time of the first anniversary, Rick
Mathieu and I came to an understanding that I keep going with the research, expanding
beyond the Treme and the 7th Ward communities. This led me to local, regional,
in-state, out-state, federal and international Katrina responders. The plan
evolved to telling the whole story of Katrina through the eyes of the
responders.
It warmed my heart to see
the Soul Patrol finally being honored by city leaders, and to see how good it
made them feel. Even so, I still needed a conclusion to the research, which was
still nowhere in sight. I needed an "Enough!" moment. Because of how
large this one-person research project became, and because I was still chasing
that final pieces of information to complete the jig saw puzzle, I was nowhere
near providing an attainable publishing date for my book on Katrina; working
title "CONTRAFLOW."
Moving forward I began to review my list of
responders who I had not yet interviewed. I communicated with General Honore
during the Spring of '11. He strongly encouraged me to read his book
SURVIVAL. I also made one
last Google search of a Manatee County Sheriff's Office (MCSO) homicide
detective named Bill Waldron and found an updated
article on him and his experiences at the Morial Convention Center during
Katrina. He was in New Orleans as a witness for the prosecution and got stuck
in the city like thousands of other visitors. He eventually ended up spending
48 hours-plus at the Morial Convention Center. When I first
reached out to him in '06, he turned down my request for an interview. This
time he was retired from MCSO and was eager to talk about his Katrina
experiences. Feeling a sense of momentum I kept going through my list and came
across the name of former Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee, who had passed away
in '07. I was really behind. But not to be deterred, I contacted his daughter
Jefferson Parish Councilwoman Cynthia Lee-Sheng. I shared my vision for the
book "CONTRAFLOW" with her and asked for support to include her
father's Katrina experiences. I also asked her to consider making a call to the
Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office (JPSO) to formally introduce me. To my
knowledge, JPSO had never willingly granted an on the record interview on the
Katrina response to anyone...
It's now September 2011, and another Katrina
anniversary has come and gone without publishing. On the good side, I received
a lot of encouragement that month. I received a call from my mother on 9.11.11,
an avid 60 Minutes viewer, alerting me to an episode about
SUNY Stony Brook Professor Dr. Benjamin Luft's (World Trade center) WTC Oral History Project that was airing
that evening on the ten year anniversary of 9/11. Exchange 9/11 responders with
Katrina responders and what you have is very similar to what I had been doing
for six years -- an oral history project.
A week or so later I made a personal update
call to Katrina responder Dr. Ri Venuti of DMAT (Disaster Medical
Assistance Team) CA-4, who was deployed to Louis Armstrong Airport on 8.31.05
to set up a triage system. I explained the current publishing plans to Dr. Venuti,
a clinical psychologist professional, who I first met during a visit to San
Diego in December '06, when I had conducted a series of interviews with various
CA-4 members. Their team commander Dr. Jake Jacoby picked me up at the airport,
took me to dinner and brought me to their operation center where over a dozen
team members were waiting. It was a surreal event hearing the
responders speak freely about their experiences in New Orleans. My '06 Katrina
responders tour continued two days later in Menlo Park, CA, where I interviewed
DMAT CA-6 members. They had been
deployed to the Superdome (New Orleans Arena) on 8.31.05. It has been personal
visits like the ones in December '06 that motivated me to document the Katrina
responders and commit to dedicating my forthcoming book to them.
I called Bill Waldron to give him a personal
update as well. All of our previous communications were interviews and
follow-up questions. On this September 2011 afternoon, I shared my publishing
plans and he in-turn shared how his Katrina experiences in New Orleans have
affected his life. In his next breath, he tells me about plans to announce his
intentions to run for the office of Manatee County (Florida) Sheriff. The next
thing I know, I'm telling with him how to get his Internet presence up and
running, and discussing strategies. It was a perfect diversion to get my mind
off of TCP for a while.
The next day or so, I contacted JPSO spokesman
Col. John Fortunato. They had agreed to see me, the key phrase being "see
me." For over three years, I had conducted interviews solely through
electronic means. The Colonel and I agreed to meet August '11. As fate would
have it, the effects of Hurricane Irene caused Amtrak to shut down operations
along the entire Crescent Line (NYC - New Orleans) on the day I was to travel
to New Orleans. I finally sat down with Col. Fortunato at JPSO headquarters in
early October '11. He was at former Sheriff Lee side 90% of the time during the
first week of Katrina. It was a great interview. I now had Sheriff Lee and Col.
Fortunato's storylines. This had me thinking "Mission Accomplished!"
As I packed up to leave, the Colonel tells me that his current boss JPSO
Sheriff Newell Normand wants to talk with me as well. In six plus years of
research, reviewing tens of thousands of Katrina-related web pages, I had not
seen Sheriff Normand's name come up anywhere. I knew he was the second in
command back in '05, but that was all I knew.
I returned to the JPSO headquarters a few days
later with Rick Mathieu. I looked at the pending interview as being symbolic,
with Rick being my first major Katrina responder storyline interview and
Sheriff Normand being the final. I brought a digital recorder and video camera.
Sheriff Normand came out of a side door to his office, greeted and escorted us
into his office where the Colonel was waiting. I presented them both with an
autographed copy of my book AFROMATION, just as I did six
year earlier when I first met Rick and the Soul Patrol, and others returning home
to Greater New Orleans from exile. I then asked the Sheriff if it was alright
to document him electronically and if he minded a video camera. For some reason
I felt that he would not want a camera in his face. But to my surprise he and
the Colonel make a comment to the effect that "why
wouldn't you want to use your video camera on us?"
So the mood was good, everyone was relaxed and comfortable; then Sheriff Normand begins to share his Katrina
experiences. About fifteen minutes into the interview I caught myself
gazing out his office window, which had a view of the Crescent City Connection
Bridge and the New Orleans Central Business District skyline, and saying to
myself "oh my God!"
The more I heard the Sheriff share, the more I realized that there would have
been no way I could have published the Katrina book to end all Katrina books
without the inclusion of JPSO. I realized I had to learn all I had discovered
about the Katrina response in order to comprehend what I was documenting at
that very moment. Some sixty minutes or so later Sheriff Normand is still going
strong and I was closing in on the "big picture." One thing I learned
early on in my research was to never interrupt someone when they were reliving
those days of Katrina. I always deferred any questions to a follow-up email or
interview.
To summarize, Sheriff Lee took the Westbank and
then Chief Deputy Sheriff Normand took the Eastbank. Once the needs of their
own Jefferson Parish citizens were satisfied a day and a half later, they
turned 80% of their energies towards aiding Orleans, St. Bernard and Plaquemines
Parishes; with most of their resources focused on New Orleans. Sheriff Lee told
his commanders to take care of NOPD Chief Eddie Compass, to get him whatever he
needed. Finally, wait until you read in my forthcoming book what then Chief
Deputy Normand did at Louis Armstrong Airport
on 9/1. Let’s just say if Lt. General Honore was
Mayor Nagin’s “John Wayne dude,” then Normand was Sheriff Lee’s “Charleston
Heston dude.” What a great untold storyline.
Part Two: The Sequence of Events
Next on my list was to read former New Orleans
Mayor C. Ray Nagin's book Katrina Secrets. Mayor Nagin
ran into Rick at a 7th Ward eatery last summer and gave him an autographed
copy. It, like Lt. General Honore's book, was a wealth of information. When it
was first released the local media focused on the following:
"Nagin writes that
he and now-retired Lt. Gen. Russel Honore planned the Sept. 1, 2005, exodus, as
a "freedom march" designed to culminate in a protest at the doorstep
of then-Gov. Kathleen Blanco, some 80 miles away in Baton
Rouge." When the press contacted Lt. General
Honore about the "freedom march" plan, he responded with "...the only
"march" he helped plan was an effort to move tens of thousands of
evacuees from the Superdome, which was surrounded by nearly waist-deep water,
through the adjacent Hyatt Regency New Orleans to the corner of Poydras Street
and Loyola Avenue, where they eventually would board buses to leave the
city." Another thing I found perplexing was the
knowledge that evacuees were streaming
across the Crescent City Connection Bridge most of the previous day.
Hmm, maybe I'm not finished. I wanted to contact Nagin directly to confirm
whether he knew about the bridge foot traffic the day before, and if his
"freedom march" was the reason Coach Blanco came to Jefferson Parish.
Gretna Mayor Ronnie Harris, Gretna Police Chief
Arthur Lawson and Sheriff Normand had confirmed to me the Coach Blanco meetings
on 9/1. But the rationale behind what lead to the meetings has eluded me for
over five years. At the time, this was the only significant Katrina response
detail that I knew I was missing. I really wanted to contact Nagin directly.
I've been reading the Times-Picayune (Nola.com)
religiously since '05. So I knew it was no secret in New Orleans that Mayor
Nagin hasn't been a media darling since his infamous '06 Martin Luther King,
Jr. observance "Chocolate City" speech. What I'm
saying is, while news reports have been helpful, my research methodology has
placed a high priority on talking directly with the source.
I do consider most non-ghost written memoirs to
be a direct source. With this in mind I started reading Nagin's
Katrina Secrets and found an epiphany moment on page 160,
where he wrote: "I
had earlier told Chief Compass that I was extremely concerned about how we were
going to get through the night. I felt we needed to get creative. I suggested
that he take every police vehicle he could find and instruct officers to drive
throughout the dry areas in the city with bright blue strobe lights piercing
the darkness. The strategy was to give the appearance that there was a strong
police presence everywhere." Later on page 169,
Nagin is in his Hyatt Regency Hotel suite on a high floor. He wrote: "...I could see the flashing
blue lights from the tops of police cars dancing through the streets like
blinking Christmas lights. I watched them dance until I fell asleep around
three or four a.m."
Bells immediately went off in my head
remembering my interview sessions with Bill Waldron, who spoke of an incident
around three or four a.m. Thursday morning at the convention center involving
NOPD officers showing up and firing over Katrina survivors' heads causing a
stampede. Thinking back to when Bill first told me about this event, I
immediately thought of the Danny Brumfield killing. But, the dates
did not match. All "published reports" to this date shows Mr.
Brumfield being killed by an NOPD officer sometime between early Friday and
Saturday morning, depending on the source. So, I did not push Bill any further
on what else he recalled about that incident. However, I still had questions
for Mayor Nagin, most of them pertaining to any communications he may have had
with Gov. Blanco's office about the "freedom march." I was still
trying to get to the bottom of what led Coach Blanco to visit Jefferson Parish
in the wee hours of the morning, instead of communicating electronically from
Baton Rouge. Those who were present at the JPSO HQ and Gretna Police HQ
meetings, that I interviewed, all told me that the plan to blockade the
Crescent City Connection Bridge came as a direct result of his visit. During
our respective interviews, they all said Coach Blanco guaranteed that an armada
of buses was coming that day to begin evacuating the convention
center.
Tulane University Professor Lance Hill, the
executive director of the Southern
Institute of Education and Research, shared a theory that the
Crescent City Connection Bridge was blockaded to protect the St. Bernard Parish
evacuees who were being ferried up the Mississippi River to Algiers Point Ferry
Terminal before being transported by buses and trucks out of the metro area. I
could never confirm this, although Gov. Blanco aide Sam Jones was present at
the meetings. I know from reading through "Blanco's Katrina Documents" that
Jones had been in direct contact from the state capitol to then State Sen.
Walter Boasso, who was in the flooded
St. Bernard Parish organizing rescue and relief efforts for his
constituents.
I think then Lt. Governor Mitch Landrieu, in a
December '07 interview with me on his Katrina experiences, said it best.
"Everybody was in
the same damn boat." I do realize though that race
is always an issue in Southeast Louisiana in one way or another. I have tried
to look beyond the racial implications of the Katrina response. Yet, I could
see how it may have been hard for many to understand why the mostly white St.
Bernard Parish evacuees were moving out of Greater New Orleans while the mostly
black evacuees at the Superdome and convention center were still waiting in
misery. I could also see why in many people's minds the State of Louisiana
appeared to have been focused mostly on St. Bernard Parish victims and left the
New Orleans victims for the federal government response. But after reading
Chapter 6 of Nagin's book, I now have my own theory of how things went from bad
Wednesday (Day 3) evening to worse Thursday (Day 4) morning, which I call
"The(ory) Events of 9/1."
The following sequence of events happened
between 2 a.m. and 12 noon on 9/1:
- Coach Blanco arrives on the Westbank in Harvey to meet with Sheriff Lee and his command staff. Gretna Mayor Harris learns of this meeting and requests that Coach Blanco pay them a visit as well. One of the primary topics of discussion was buses to help evacuate New Orleans.
- A Louisiana National Guards (LANG) military policeman is shot in the Superdome around the same time Major General Mark Graham, then 5th Army Deputy Commanding Officer, arrived to inspect the Hyatt Hotel pedestrian evacuation route to the anticipated buses on Loyola Ave. Nagin and others hear about the shooting and believe it to be an evacuee uprising and run up the Hyatt Regency stairs to their rooms. FEMA’s Disaster Medical Assistance Team personnel (DMAT) triaged the MP and had him airlifted to a hospital in Baton Rouge. Major General Graham completed his mission and flew back to the EOC in Baton Rouge.
- Nagin’s order to get police cars on the streets with blue lights flashing is in full effect. Bill Waldron is standing outside the convention center as the blue lights showed up. At first it was a sense of comfort for him. Then he sees an officer fire over the Katrina survivors' heads causing a stampede.
- After the LANG apprehended the young man who got into the altercation with the MP, the Superdome crowd began chanting. Not long after that a LANG general tells FEMA officials and the DMAT teams that they could no longer guarantee their safety. FEMA and DMAT saw the crowds getting more agitated by the minute and came up with a plan to escape through the New Orleans Arena into the back of their high water trucks.
- News about the “lawless” conditions at the convention center reaches Chief Compass, which is passed on to Nagin, who instructs his communications director to send out a dire text message to a staffer in Houston to distribute to the media, which according to Nagin read: "This is a desperate SOS. Right now we are out of resources at the Convention Center and don’t anticipate enough buses. We need buses. Currently the Convention Center is unsanitary and unsafe, and we’re running out of supplies."
- NOPD passes on their concerns about the safety and security conditions at the convention center to the media.
- The crowds at the Superdome are getting madder and madder as the temperatures were getting hotter and hotter. A full scale riot seemed eminent. Then all of a sudden, it started raining. Like a gift from God from many points of view, the crowd was able to calm down and enjoy the first shower for most in four days. A riot was averted.
- The Crescent City Connection Bridge blockade begins, halting the steady flow of foot traffic into the Westbank.
- The FEMA and DMAT teams make it back to Baton Rouge signifying to many that FEMA has pulled out of the city limits of New Orleans. The talk now was about turning it all over to the military.
- Some of the buses FEMA had targeted for the Superdome were sent to pick up evacuees on I-10 and I-610 in the 7th Ward. But most of the buses were either re-tasked to transport arriving military reinforcements, or the drivers simply refused to go into New Orleans. JPSO and Gretna Police still believe Coach Blanco assurance that buses were coming to evacuate the convention center.
- The Nagin staffer in Houston gets the SOS message out and the media descends on the convention center. Reporters from newspapers like the San Antonio News-Express, Washington Post, as well as TV news crews. MSNBC cameraman Tony Zumbado gives a passionate heart-felt live report from the convention center that rocks the world...
The scenes from the convention center on 9/1
were heart breaking. I remember thinking to myself how could it be safe enough
for throngs of reporters, but not for the police or National Guard to get in
there and help their own people. There still had to be something big that I was
missing...
Part Three: The Convention Center Epiphany
Four months ago I emailed Mayor Nagin in the
hopes he would grant me an interview. Two months ago, I decided to go back
through Bill Waldron's Katrina experiences one more time. On May 9th at 9:18
a.m. EDT, Bill and I were going back and forth in a Gmail thread when I noticed
a jaw-dropping revelation in one paragraph of a message he had just sent me
which read: "...Later after being rescued by Major Shoop
and his volunteers, Major Shoop told me that when he asked for volunteers to
come help get me out of the Convention Center, NOPD supervisors told him that
it was too dangerous because of the violence and people shooting at Police.
Major Shoop told me that he had not heard of any shootings himself and that his
group had driven past the Convention Center on a daily basis since their
arrival in New Orleans and hadn’t experienced any problems or threats. I had a
conversation with Major Shoop on the drive to the collection Point transporting
the medical patients. I told Major Shoop that I had not seen any violence
except by the Police earlier that morning during the hours of darkness when
NOPD Units fired a shotgun in the air over the people gathered out front of the
Convention Center when one man tried stopping an NOPD car to inquire about
getting assistance and food and water." Wait one
minute! I recognized and realized instantly what Bill was describing in the
last sentence of the above paragraph was the killing of Danny Brumfield by a
NOPD officer. As I mentioned earlier, I never asked him to expound on what he
experienced early Thursday morning because the dates did not sync. I called
Bill up immediately so he could expound
now.
In my almost seven years of interviewing
Katrina responders and survivors, what I've learned is that you can literally
interview someone for seven years and learn something new (not different,
something new) every time. But what about the discrepancies around what day Mr.
Brumfield died? I have seen reports that said it occurred during the early morning hours of 9.2.05. I have
seen reports that said it occurred during the early morning darkness of 9.3.05.
Personally, I have no doubt that what Bill, a veteran homicide detective from
Manatee County Florida, witnessed was Mr. Brumfield's demise. I began to wonder
though how all "published reports" could be 24-48 hours off. I then
located the article titled, "Rapes, killings hit Katrina refugees in New
Orleans," which I believe to be the first public mention ever of
Danny Brumfield. Once again, going back to my experiences interviewing Katrina
survivors. It took me months to figure out that due to the trauma, most of them
had no concept of time. They knew what they experienced, but could not
affirmatively tell you when it happened. And for some who had literally never
been out of their neighborhoods, they did not even know where they were taken.
It was when I began documenting the responders, who took photos, sent
electronic messages, completed daily reports that I was able to figure out a
firm timeline of events for the survivors. Back to the NOPD shooting at the
convention center, there are a few more reasons why the Saturday morning date
used in the NOPD report didn't seem plausible to
me:
- The military marched on the convention center on Friday, bringing food, water and positioning snipers on rooftops. If the shooting happened that night, there would have been dozens of government eyes on it.
- The media descended on the convention center on Thursday 9/1, and Fox's Shepard Smith and Geraldo Rivera were broadcasting live Friday evening. Geraldo had made arrangements for a RV. If he would have heard shots, cameras would have been rolling.
- Major Butch Shoop of the Texas Dept. of Wildlife and Parks told Bill Waldron on Thursday 9/1 "when he asked for volunteers to come help get me out of the Convention Center, NOPD supervisors told him that it was too dangerous because of the violence and people shooting at Police." So whatever happened must have already happened before TDWP went into the convention center the afternoon of 9/1 to get Bill.
You may be asking why does it matter what day
Mr. Brumfield was killed. For years I've been wandering what Chief Compass was
talking about when he referred to the convention center being a dangerous and
violent collection point when all other reports showed that it was probably the
safest place to be. This is what I now believe happened. What Bill witnessed
around 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. on 9/1 was Mr. Brumfield being run over by a NOPD
patrol car, then being shot in the back by an officer on the passenger side. A
third law enforcement officer then fired a shot over the crowd's heads to keep
them at bay, while they sped off down the boulevard towards the Harrah Casino
command post. Somewhere in between that command post and the Hyatt Regency
where Chief Compass was, the details of what happened right in front of Bill's
eyes were flipped. What Compass heard was that citizens were shooting at his
officers.
The following is from a U.S. Justice Dept. press release: "On December 9, 2011, a
federal jury found former NOPD officer Ronald Mitchell guilty of committing
perjury and obstructing justice for providing false and misleading information
during a civil deposition in connection to a lawsuit filed by the family of
Danny Brumfield. According to the evidence presented at trial, Mitchell, while
seated in the passenger’s seat of a patrol car, shot and killed Danny Brumfield
on Convention Center Boulevard in New Orleans a few days after Hurricane
Katrina."
Here is where I'm going with this. The
Superdome's scheduled 9/1 evacuation was doomed after the MP was shot and FEMA
evacuated. But according to Coach Blanco, buses were scheduled to roll to the
convention center. That mission became doomed as well when the convention
center was declared a "No Go Zone" by the NOPD leadership;
unfortunately, as Nagin's "SOS" plea for buses for the convention
center was just hitting the wire services. If it were not for that big fat
'non-truth' that made its way up the NOPD chain of command, the NOPD leadership
would not have taken the defensive stance that very well may have caused buses
on their way to the convention center to be diverted. Nagin may never have sent
out that specifically-worded "SOS" and the media would never have
descended on the convention center when they did. The media breaking news
blurbs would have been "we're live at the convention center where
"refugees" are being loaded on to buses to be taken out of the
city." But instead, those buses that never showed
were used to transport the military into position. It all made sense now. The
final piece of a seven-year jigsaw puzzle.
Now, how do I confirm my theory of what was
told to Chief Compass about the police encounter at the convention center?
Contacting Compass was not an option for me. So, on the evening of the second
Saturday in May '12, I emailed Mayor Nagin again. To my surprise, two hours and
twenty-five minutes later at 8:41 p.m., he responded back with the following:
"I don't see how
anyone in JP could have firest {sp} hand insight on what really happened in New
Orleans. Don't forget about the Gretna incident and them pumping their
floodwater into the 17th street canal further flooding New Orleans. You should
talk to someone like Chief Warren Riley to get a more accurate story. I could
not put everything that happened in my book as Chief Compass is a friend. He
did a good job but reach his limit, particularly after his friend committed
suicide. My second book has more and should be released later this
year." Because of the cooperation from the
Katrina responders, I was able to amass a Katrina timeline like no other. When
referring to Compass' Katrina experiences, the affect on him from the NOPD
suicide(s) has been for years mentioned as the primary contributing factor. The
only problem is that according to all "published reports" those two
NOPD officers were found dead on Friday night 9.2.05, and Saturday 9.3.05; Days
5 and 6 of the disaster. Meaning, the tragic deaths of two of his men does not
explain (to me) the origins of those Day 4 wild stories like "eighty-eight officers being beaten back by an
angry mob at the convention center." However, what does seem to
explain it is that Compass was not told the truth about the circumstances
surrounding the shooting of Mr. Brumfield. At least this is what I'd like to
think.
I kept the Gmail thread going and replied back
to Nagin, immediately letting him know that I was not looking to shed any more
bad light on his old friend Eddie Compass. On the contrary. I told him that I
met Eddie at a Christmas party given by his in-laws, where we embraced and
exchanged introductions. Yes indeed, I liked him right off the bat. After a
wonderful dinner of some of the best food I have ever tasted, I went and sat
down next to Eddie. He began talking about Nagin, Anderson Cooper and
Douglas Brinkley. It had been only fifteen months since
Katrina and emotions were still high for many. The only positive thing he had
to say about someone was Spike Lee, director of When the Levees
Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. I saw where things were going so I
jumped in to tell him I was working on a Katrina book. He then told me it would
take one million dollars to get his story. This worked out fine for me. I had
no money and I did not want to cause any problems for his wife who still worked
for the City of New Orleans by letting him vent in writing. I would see Eddie
and his family one more time at the following year's Christmas party in '07. We
found some time to sit down and play a couple games of chess. He beat me twice
like I stole something from him, lol! We all just had a good time. It was very
easy to see why everybody loved
Eddie.
Back
to the thread, I went on to share my research findings with Nagin. I took him
through the aforementioned eleven-point sequence of events on 9/1, which
included the expanded version of sequence #3 and the convention center
shooting. I also shared with him the affect that his 9/1 WWL-FM plea for help had on me. I told
him what happened when I heard him say, "Get every doggone Greyhound bus line in the country
and get their asses moving to New Orleans." I was
so traumatized by the whole thing; I thought he was telling me to get my ass
moving to New Orleans. Six days later I was on a Continental Airlines 757
flying from Las Vegas McCarran International Airport to the Gulf Coast
(IAH).
Honestly, I was amazed he was even
communicating with me; even though I was one of the best at getting powerful
people to share their Katrina experiences with me. I believe they all felt good
about my objectivity, sincerity and thoroughness. On 2.9.12, I read the
Times Picayune story titled "Ray Nagin is focus of federal grand jury
probe." What I would like to believe is that on that May '12
evening I took his mind off of whatever was coming his way, if only for a
couple hours. I pictured him chilling somewhere with cold libation in one hand
and his Blackberry in another, going back in time with me to those surreal days
of Katrina. I could tell he was impressed with all the hard work I had put into
this project. As for answers to my many questions, he was not as forthcoming as
I would have liked. Nevertheless, the great thing about my knowledge of Katrina
was that whatever he said was useful data to me. I still had two more questions
to run by him. Mayor Nagin confirmed my theory about Eddie Compass not
receiving accurate intelligence from the field. Specifically, he was not told
the truth about the early morning shooting at the convention center. Lastly, I
wanted Nagin to confirm his recollection of Lt. General Honore walking through
the Superdome crowds Wednesday evening (Day 3) to the Hyatt Regency to deliver
a message to him, as the general wrote in his book
Survival. Nagin's response was "I do not recall Lt. General Honore walking
thru Superdome to deliver any messages to me from Governor. Good luck with your
book." That was it, my last-last interview. Or was
I through with him?
I knew what he was saying by how he ended the
message. Nagin was through communicating with me. But for some reason I felt I
was not through with him. I fought the urge to extend our thread for two days,
saying to myself "Don't do it Darryl, don't do it. You have
what you need." What did I do? I emailed him back.
My tone was almost like: 'you did a hell of a job that first week of Katrina';
'thank you for your help in my Katrina research'; an 'in conclusion'; a
benediction. Anyway, he had a one word reply, "Enough." Such a
powerful and definitive word coming from the man I credit with influencing me
to drop everything, leave Las Vegas and join the Louisiana version of the Peace
Corps. A man who I now credit for ending my 349-week odyssey. Enough. Last
month I read a Times Picayune article titled "Mayor Ray Nagin took
$50,000 payoff, granite, consulting gig, businessman says."
Enough. It was time for me to complete the epic story of the good fight; the
story of the first week of Katrina; the story I call "CONTRAFLOW."
Although, I never did learn the origins of Coach Blanco's 9/1 Westbank visit. I
can only hope that one day former Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco writes her
own memoirs and answers that mystery. Yeah, guess I've done ENOUGH! ...or have I?
It's now some 385 weeks, and I'm still at it. I'd like to say Mayor Nagin was my last interview. Sadly for him, I was most likely his last interview before this latest headline, "Former Mayor of New Orleans Is Charged in Sweeping Corruption Case." In August '06 Lt. Gen. Honore said, "I think in time, history will wash Katrina well.” Well, I’m in the Katrina research laundry room General (2005-2013), still...
by M. Darryl Woods
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