Calls for new charges in Katrina bridge shooting

By AP
Updated Sep 3, 2008, 11:07 am

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NEW ORLEANS - Religious and civil rights groups in New Orleans are calling on the district attorney to refile charges against seven police officers accused of fatally shooting two men on a bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Representatives from the groups said Aug. 22 they also want the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and for the Office of Disciplinary Counsel of the Louisiana State Bar Association to examine how the Orleans Parish district attorney’s office handled the case.

A week earlier, a judge threw out murder and attempted murder charges against the officers. The judge sided with defense arguments that prosecutors violated state law by divulging secret grand jury testimony to an officer who was a witness in the case.

Survivors of the September 2005 shootings on Danziger Bridge have said the officers fired at unarmed people crossing to get food. Two men were killed, four others were wounded.

Officers have acknowledged shooting at people but only after taking fire.

Dr. Rommell Madison’s brother, Ronald Madison, was one of the men killed. He said he just wants the truth about what happened to his brother to come out and was “pleading” for federal intervention.

U.S. Attorney Jim Letten has said his office would not intervene while the district attorney’s office had an “active case ongoing.”

The DA’s office could appeal the judge’s ruling. It also could convene another grand jury to consider new charges against the officers. When a decision on a next step is made, it will be disclosed, a spokeswoman for the office said.

Danatus King, president of the NAACP’s New Orleans chapter, said the call for new charges is meant to let the DA’s office know “the community is very, very much interested in this, very concerned and very much of the opinion that their office needs to be involved, actively involved.”

Representatives from the New Orleans chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and from Muhammad Mosque No. 46 also participated in the news conference. (AP)

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