Katrina Chronicles II

Crossposted @
http://www.middlemostpost.com

As I said before, this was written by a dear friend of mine who rode out Katrina in the French Quarter. To read the previous post go here
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=8543985&blogID=60268391&Mytoken=fd5bab8b-30fa-4a2e-a79d-b4f497bceada
and I suggest you read the whole thing on his blog.

As we came to the corner of Canal and N. Peters St., I was first struck by the amount of people. There were media vans everywhere, mostly in the center of the street. It was a literal circus, people running everywhere, other locals like us making their way across Canal into the areas that we were determined not to tread. Suddenly, there's a young man next to me, he's asking me if I know where "that" restaurant is that is open and serving food. I had to honestly choke back a laugh at this point, he seemed to not have a clue as to what was going on. I told him as much, that the only two places open were bars, that they only had beers and cigarettes if he was lucky. He smelled like he hadn't bathed since way before the storm or possibly that he had waded through the disgusting floodwaters. I stepped back, trying to get away from his funky odor and suspicious demeanor. He asked again about any open businesses, not seeming to grasp even the simple news I had just told him. I told him he was out of luck, joking that if he found fresh hot food to come tell me where it was... As I was telling him good luck and trying to get rid of him, I heard Katya say something close to:

"What the FUCK!?!?!"

Next thing I know, there is a Police cruiser at my knees, literally. There is a Cop brandishing a 12 gauge shotgun directly at my face, screaming that we need to hit the ground:

"NOW MOTHERFUCKER!!!!! NOW!!!!!"

Needless to say, we all hit the ground. Katya, Bob, myself, even our stinky friend. I was so ready to just lose it at this point, words fail me. I really thought that we were going to the only place worse than the Superdome or the Convention Center. I thought we were going to jail, possibly somewhere worse.

Suddenly, as quick as we were down, we were up again. He, the cop, he's telling us to flee. He's telling Katya, Bob and I to get the FUCK out of there. We do just that. As we hit the center of Canal St., we turn and see that it was our inquisitively smelly friend they were after. They were beating him senseless, the cop from before and the two other cars full of cops that pulled out delivered a serious beating onto this man. They were stomping and screaming and threatening and humiliating him so seriously that I remember thinking that he must have done something wrong. I didn't realize until much later that you didn't have to do much to get beaten that way, considering the circumstances...

I would post this in the katrina group but you have to be a donor to post there. I did donate about a year ago but have since lost my star?

I am dumbfounded at the abuse of power being enacted by this Administration.

I can only imagine what Katrina did to their demeanor . . .