Who did police shoot dead in New Orleans? posted by Richard Seymour

New Orleans may well have more mercenaries and National Guards operating in it than there are citizens left at the moment. All to the good if you didn't want eye-witnesses to murder. Rumours abound about unofficial lawlessness, anarchy, murder, rape etc. But little of this has actually been seen.

According to a number of sources, New Orleans police shot dead five men after 'gunmen' attacked contractors. All of these sources cite 'authorities' and the reports appear to derive from news agencies. It was reported that none of the contractors were killed.

There was some confusion about the numbers at first, as a number of reports said six people had been killed. (This report says it was 'aid workers' rather than 'army contractors' which came under fire). MSNBC initially said the same, but it has edited its page. But these all imply that the shots were fired at 'gunmen' who opened fire on a group of contractors or aid workers. And it now appears that eight people were shot at, five of whom were actually killed The BBC claims that those who were killed were 'thugs'. You get the point. Many many news reports said cops shot some bad guys when they tried to kill some good guys.

Curiously, however, The Australian cites an AP report which says that the five killed were contractors. Same in Ireland Online. Same report in Turkey and Canada. If 'gunmen' shot at the contractors, then how the hell did the police manage to be the ones who killed them? Note that the five shot dead were shot as they "as they walked across a New Orleans bridge". That is, it was exactly the same people who were alleged to have been killed by 'gunmen' that were killed by police.

So, assuming the Associated Press is not unfairly maligning them, why did the New Orleans police murder a bunch of army contractors as they walked across the Danziger Bridge?