Katrina Coverage

From this:
During the first few days of the disaster every commentator, whether liberal or conservative, tearfully bemoaned the fact of “the poor choice those people made” by staying in New Orleans. Opting to stay eight feet below sea level while a category four hurricane is bearing down upon a city whose levees can […]

From this November 12 story:
Saint Bernard Parish sheriff's officials say they have arrested about 50 people in some 20 cases of looting since Hurricane Katrina.
The parish is still closed to non-residents, but some people allowed in to work have apparently also take advantage of their access to commit burglaries and thefts.
Major John Doran, chief of […]

From this:
When she noticed the human waste on the floor of the trendy women's shoe boutique she manages, Lindsay Foret suspected looters had soiled the store out of spite.
"I was like, 'This is horrible. There's brand new bathrooms and they couldn't even go there?"' Foret said. "I went back to the bathrooms and they were […]

That German rag offers Life After Katrina: America's New Jazz Museum! (No Poor Black People Allowed)
It contains this:
New Orleans trumpeter Irvin Mayfield… is incensed too at mainstream coverage of the storm's aftermath. "Looters? Anyone who grew up in New Orleans like I did knows that drugs run rampant here. How are you going to relocate […]

At the very least, they deserve an award for boldness:
Acting New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said Thursday that as many as 40 officers from the department's 3rd District, including the commanding captain, are "under scrutiny" for possibly bolting the city in the clutch and heading to Baton Rouge in Cadillacs from a New Orleans […]

CNN appears to have usurped the scooping rights of WAFB in this case, so lets look at them first. In "Investigation Launched Concerning Looting by NOPD Officers" they describe how one of their reporters went to the Amerihost Inn and Suites and found out that some NOPD officiers had holed up on the 10th floor […]

The police department has launched an investigation into whether officers participated in the giant looting spree that overtook the city after Hurricane Katrina, a spokesman said Thursday.
News reports in the aftermath of the storm put officers at the scene of some of the heaviest looting, the Wal-Mart in the Lower Garden District. Some witnesses […]

The NYT joins the re-writing fray with "Fear Exceeded Crime's Reality in New Orleans".
Before reading that article, you might want to take a look at "FBI investigating NOPD corruption, phantom cops; $5k bonus" and "Mortician contradicts reports downplaying crime, Part 2". Both of those, er, "amplify" the NYT's reporting:
…It is still impossible to say if […]

The 9/14 ABC report "Caviar and Camaraderie Found a Place Inside the New Orleans Convention Center" starts out like this:
The cultural spirit of New Orleans was experienced by some Hurricane Katrina survivors, who managed to dine on gourmet provisions and create a sense of community while waiting for help to reach the city's crowded convention […]

More letters about his original column have come in. Also see this. One of the latest letters contains this:
"The looters you saw on TV were criminals before Katrina. One would have to be a moron not to realize what happens when no fathers are around, and when kids grow up undisciplined and uncivilized. I recall […]