NEW ORLEANS – The police department said Thursday it is investigating a dozen officers in connection with looting during the lawlessness that engulfed the city after Hurricane Katrina.
News reports in the aftermath of the storm put officers at the scene of some of the heaviest looting, at the Wal-Mart in the Lower Garden District. Some witnesses, including a Times-Picayune reporter, said police were taking items from shelves.
“Once we actually got the video, we started our investigation,” acting Police Superintendent Warren Riley said. “The investigation does in fact show police officers with some items.”
Of the 12 officers under investigation, four have already been suspended for failing to stop looting, Riley said.
“It was not clear that they in fact looted,” Riley said of the four suspended officers. “What is clear is that some action needed to be taken, and it was not.”
Riley drew a distinction between taking useful items such as food and jeans, which he contended didn’t amount to looting in a crisis, and taking luxuries such as jewelry.
He said incidents in which officers took Cadillacs from a dealer’s lot were not looting because the officers used the cars to patrol the area.
Earlier this week, the city’s police superintendent, Eddie Compass, resigned after weeks of criticism about the department’s conduct during Katrina and its aftermath. On the same day, the department said about 250 police officers could face discipline for leaving their posts without permission during the crisis.
Meanwhile, business owners started streaming back into newly reopened sections of the city Thursday morning at Mayor Ray Nagin’s invitation, some vowing to rebuild, some saying they were pulling out.
The areas thrown open to business owners were the French Quarter, the central business district and the Uptown section, which includes the Garden District, a leafy neighborhood of antebellum and Victorian mansions. The neighborhoods escaped major flooding during Katrina.
Under the mayor’s plan, residents of those neighborhoods will be allowed to return today, a move that could bring back about one-third of the city’s half-million residents.
Serious health hazards remain because of bacteria-laden floodwaters, a lack of drinkable water and a sewage system that still does not work, said Stephen Johnson, chief of the Environmental Protection Agency.
“There are a whole lot of factors that need to be weighing on the mayor’s mind,” Johnson said.
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