He Held Their Lives in His Tiny Hands

this one will break your heart further...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-children5sep05,0,113027.story?coll=la-home-headlines

September 5, 2005

KATRINA'S AFTERMATH
He Held Their Lives in His Tiny Hands
By Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writer

BATON ROUGE, La. — In the chaos that was Causeway Boulevard, this group of refugees stood out: a 6-year-old boy walking down the road, holding a 5-month-old, surrounded by five toddlers who followed him around as if he were their leader.

They were holding hands. Three of the children were about 2 years old, and one was wearing only diapers. A 3-year-old girl, who wore colorful barrettes on the ends of her braids, had her 14-month-old brother in tow. The 6-year-old spoke for all of them, and he told rescuers his name was Deamonte Love.

Thousands of human stories have flown past relief workers in the last week, but few have touched them as much as the seven children who were found wandering together Thursday at an evacuation point in downtown New Orleans. In the Baton Rouge headquarters of the rescue operation, paramedics tried to coax their names out of them; nurses who examined them stayed up that night, brooding.

Transporting the children alone was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned, said Pat Coveney, a Houston emergency medical technician who put them into the back of his ambulance and drove them out of New Orleans.

"It goes back to the same thing," he said. "How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

continued

"How did a 6-year-old end up being in charge of six babies?"

Sounds like Bush and his inner circle of thugs.

Juile

I am not sure if a 6 yo has ever been decorated for heroism, but here is a case where it applies.

And it is yet another example of how FEMA's lack of competence rises to a high crime.


A lot of people need to lose their jobs, starting with the sociopath at 1600 penn. ave.

"knowing that their parents are either dead" or that they had been abandoned,"

That's it? The second assumption is that the kids were ABANDONED?

How about assuming that the parents got separated from the kids in the chaos, and right now the parents are out of thier frickin minds with worry?????

What would lead someone to jump to the conclusion that the parents "abandoned" their kids?

:(

With all the other things that could have happened in this chaos, the second assumption was they were abandoned??? G*d, that pissed me off.

If the children had been white, I don't think that the journalist would have assumed that they children had been abandoned. Particularly egregious to put it in the article, since the children had NOT been abandoned. It turned out that their parents were frantic!

And another question. The parents put the children on the helicopter to be lifted to safety. How did the children (babies, really) end up on the highway????

They were in the custody of rescuers at one point. What the hell happened?

Something like this shows up. Goddamnit! Now watch those fucking officials arrest him for kidnapping ala the kid who took the bus and rescued about 100 people.

I'm so glad those kids are safe.

Fuck Bush, Fuck Chertoff, Fuck Brown, Fuck them all.

on edit:
Late the same night, they got an encouraging report: A woman in a shelter in Thibodeaux was searching for seven children. People in the building started clapping at the news. But when they got the mother on the phone, it became clear that she was looking for a different group of seven children, Howard said.

This paragraph is a stab in the heart. How many other children out there are freaking out because they got separated from their parents?

they have all been reunited now, in Texas. 5 are family relations, and the other 2 neighbors, I think.

Happy ending.

Thanks Kestrel!

Deamonte Love is my new hero (one of them).

Would it surprise you if he grew to be a great leader?

I'd be surprised if he didn't. :loveya:

of this disaster - one that ended well in contrast to the classic photo of the burning Vietnamese girl or the little girl looking down at her dead relatives with bloodied hands handing down.

A photo of hope - and a hope that he has all the opportunity that good people can bring. Same for the younger ones.

and bringing them to aircraft. Why the separation?

:shrug:
rocknation

the NG deserves alot more credit than what people like yourself are giving them. what have YOU done to rescue these evacuees?

What garbage. It's a perfectly valid question: How did these kids go from the custody of rescuers to wandering the streets alone?

that this is the biggest evacuation in the history of the United States. shit happens. maybe instead of focusing on mistakes made by the actual rescuers, perhaps your anger/frustrations might be better directed at those responsible for sending in the cavalry a little late and a dollar short. do what you can to help. stop focusing on the petty. flame away.

... reading of this site before you suggest anyone has failed to take to task "those responsible for sending in the cavalry."

As for your attitude that "shit happens." Yeah, and then accountability is required. Or does that frighten you?

and i lurk from time to time on this site, and an unnamed right wing site, as a moderate democrat, to see how both extremes salivate to exploit national tragedies for political gain. i don't doubt for a moment that the US government abandonded the citizens of new orleans, but i also don't doubt for a moment that people on both sides of the political spectrum will continue to alienate potential educated, undecided voters by politicizing the shit outta tragedies like this one... yes, heads need to roll, but now is not the time to focus on the politics of it all. people are dying, my friend. while bush-bashing is fun and easy, donating one's time and effort to help others in need is not. how about rolling up your sleeves and do all you can to help others in need. isn't that what the democratic party is all about?

... on "what the democratic party is all about."

You've already tossed your credibility out the window.

Those mothers gave their children to rescuers, so that those kids would be cared for. They weren't. Bottom line.

No attacks on the locals from me, but someone royally fucked up on this one.

leaving babies is nothing compared to what's going to be dug up, literally, in the next few months, sadly to say. :(

but abandoning tiny children that you have accepted responsibility for is not a petty error, it is a very big deal. The rescuers had a responsibility, once they took custody of those kids, to turn them over to a responsible adult. I have said it before: You would not rescue a kitten and then dump it on the side of the road to fend for itself. Why is it a minor deal to do that to babies?

(Of course, it could be that the rescuers did turn them over to someone else, who then dropped the ball. But someone involved in the rescue screwed up big time on this.)

Why do you imply it was the fault of the National Guard?

You said: ...the NG deserves alot more credit than what people like yourself are giving them...

Perhaps the National Guard had turned them over to someone after the helicopter ride.

The person asking how the children wound up walking alone didn't say anything about crediting or blaming the National Guard.

Surely they could've fit one of those parents on that chopper with the kids. If not, then they should've split the families into two groups, returning for the second group. Oh,... that's right. They never came back for the parents.

I’ve come to the conclusion that SHAME is the PsyOps maneuver the Dems should and can use. Yes, you have to wait until ‘after the event’ but ‘after the event’ e.g., Iraq War, NOLA, are examples where SHAME can be utilized and it is the neocon Achilles heel if not that of the entire Republican party.

Think about SHAME for a moment. How does it feel to you to feel ashamed---of something you have done or not done. If you are in the place of shame, you have been thinking about something that has already occurred. It is already in your mind. Otherwise, you would not so obviously feel shame.

I gave out 2 diff pieces of paper: 1: ¾ page outline of what CAFTA is, how it affects us (using a public.citizen.org reference) and what Taylor’s non-vote had done. 2. Ms information re: the war: small piece of paper (I think people were more willing to take just a small piece of paper) and as I presented it, I said: “Sir would you like some information about the war” and if they reached to take it, I spoke loudly for others around them to hear, ‘over 1800 dead American soldiers’ and clearly the shame registered for about 75% of those people.

I’m reminded of the very exasperated questioner re: the McCarthy hearings, asking Joe McCarthy something to this effect: “Have you no SHAME sir?”

When I was in Hendersonville today, I mapped out my interactions with probably 200 people as I walked around with my very tall, homemade sign that stated on one side: “GOP = Death” and the other, “Ask Charles about CAFTA.” I stood across from the Republican Party shelter during the parade.

1. quite a few people do not know what GOP means.
2. quite a few people do not know what CAFTA means. The ones that do are perturbed with Taylor. Concommitantly, the sign which was purported to be there, which I did not see, “CAFTA got your tongue” would have, IMHO, pretty useless if useless is defined as lots of people don’t get it except for Mr. Taylor and the GOP regulars and people who knew about CAFTA and were already convinced that it was a bad thing. In other words, I believe it would have a minimal effect if by effect you want to change people’s votes.

So, as a psychologist who has developed questionnaires, the development of materials for distribution in order to educate people has to pay attention to what people know and it has to attend to what the purpose of the material is: to educate? To shame?; to bellow? .

So, let’s back up: what’s the sample of the population like in Hendersonville, NC? I don’t know the actual number but I do know that Hendersonville is a stronghold for Taylor. He strode down the street today, shaking hands with anyone who wanted to and when I asked him, as I popped to the front of the crowd: “Mr. Taylor: Can you tell us about your CAFTA vote”, he paused just very briefly, and he stated, “I did vote for CAFTA” which we know is either a lie or very close to a lie. In any case, his vote did ot register.

Here would be my suggestions for future such gatherings (that is, the population at large, and not as associated with rallies which are associated with preaching to the choir):

1. target the distribution according to the population: Hendersonville is rural in part, quite Republican. CAFTA means lost jobs to those in textiles and agriculture, as far as I can tell. Any documentation of its effects either now or in the future need to be fully exploited and advertised.

2. More, many more Dems, need to come out. I saw 4 older ladies at the Hendersonville Dem HQ and that was IT people save for one other woman I just ran into walking around and Mary Olson and her partner, Pete.

3. Fully exploit the human emotion of SHAME, which is present except in people who are without a superego and there is no reaching them in any case (but probably only 10% of the American population overall is in this category and probably less if you could really target something they are interested in).

And here is the Shame statement for the day: “HOW MANY SOLIDERS PER GALLON DOES YOUR SUV GET?” and frankly that could really be stated otherwise (and in this, we also shame ourselves which is not a bad thing): “HOW MANY SOLDIERS PER GALLON DOES YOUR CAR GET?”

have YOU no shame for trying to exploit this terrible tragedy for political gain whilst people are still dying in their attics?

That's the problem.