CNN/AP: Chief: 249 New Orleans police officers left posts

[DeepModem Mom]

Chief: 249 New Orleans police officers left posts
Tuesday, September 27, 2005


NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- Nearly 250 police officers -- roughly 15 percent of the force -- could face a special tribunal because they left their posts without permission during Hurricane Katrina and the storm's chaotic aftermath, the police chief said.

Police Superintendent Eddie Compass plans to assemble a tribunal of four of his assistant chiefs to hear each case and sort the outright deserters from those with a legitimate reason for not showing up for work. In all, 249 officers were found to have been absent without permission, he said in an interview published Tuesday in The Times-Picayune....

***

Mayor Ray Nagin said the city attorney's office will review Compass' plan to ensure that it falls within civil service regulations. Compass did not say how many of the 249 officers are asking to return. The department has about 1,700 officers....

***

At a news conference September 5, Deputy Police Superintendent Warren Riley had said between 400 and 500 officers on the 1,600-member police force were unaccounted for.

Some lost their homes and some are looking for their families. "Some simply left because they said they could not deal with the catastrophe," Riley said....


http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/09/27/neworleans.police.ap/index.html

[flowomo]

1. compass isn't assembling anything....

he resigned.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1164328

[valerief]

2. Maybe they didn't want to get eaten by alligators

When they had no homes and no water and no food and had no hope of getting any nourishment or safe haven.

Duh.

[zara]

3. How could they have chosen family over duty?

[RedCloud]

4. 400 to 500 unaccounted for.

Maybe we have a very tragic scene or they don't really know how many didn't report the first time around!

[bemildred]

5. You can't get dumber than this.

He thinks he's running an army at war.

[Kailassa]

6. I guess he'd like to shoot them

It doesn't seem to occur to Riley that many might just be dead.