AP: Officers' lawyers want charges dropped in post-Katrina shootings

Officers' lawyers want charges dropped in post-Katrina shootings

1/3/2007, 5:56 p.m. CT
By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN
The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Attorneys for two of the seven police officers charged in a deadly
bridge shooting in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath asked a judge Wednesday to throw out
charges against their clients, saying testimony they were forced to give a grand jury
is being used against them.

Lawyers for Officer Ignatius Hills and Sgt. Kenneth Bowen argue in court papers that
they testified under a court order that prevents District Attorney Eddie Jordan from
using their testimony to prosecute them.

"The state cannot meet its heavy burden of proving that all of the evidence it proposes
to use was derived from legitimate, independent sources separate and apart from Bowen's
grand jury testimony," Frank DeSalvo, an attorney for Bowen, wrote in a motion.

On Dec. 28 the grand jury indicted four officers, including Bowen, on murder charges and
three others on attempted murder counts in the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings on the Danziger
Bridge that killed two men and wounded four other people.

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