The Violence in the Superdome was Predictable.

[txaslftist]

New Orleans was and is a city. Just a city like any other. Did it have a crime problem? Yes, but no worse than many other cities have had in the past.

What happened in New Orleans was this: The violent, the drug-addicted, the poor, the helpless, the vulnerable, the predatory and the decent were all put in a building. The vulnerable had no means to protect themselves. The decent could only protect themselves.

The lights went out. It was hot. There was no reliable news. Help that was promised did not come.


The food and water was scarce and fiercely competed for. The mentally ill had no medications. The dead lay beside the living.

Help that was promised did not come.

They waited. People grew angry, hungry, weary and desperate. The toilets did not work and the stench of feces, sweat, urine, dirt and decomposition filled the air and the darkness.

Help that was promised did not come.

The people had been told the building was a sanctuary. Instead it became a prison. But this prison had no guards, no cells to separate the violent from their victims. This prison had no lights, no food, no water, and worst of all, no activity besides waiting.

Idle hands are the devil's workshop, and where else would you expect to see his work other than in this man-made hell? The minutes became hours, the screaming, wailing and crying became the cacaphony of the damned.

The violence the people in the Superdome experienced would have happened in Milan, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York or anywhere if these circumstances had been replicated. Our history is replete with stories of monstrous behavior when ships are stranded at sea or when prisons riot or when people are lost beyond the realm of law and order and the situation becomes desperate.

Even the violence within the Superdome could have been predicted, and anyone with half an education could have told you so. Unfortunately, like in so many other ways, FEMA failed to plan for this, too. This need not have happened. Our government failed these people and they acted like people have acted throughout the ages in times of despair and desperation.

[Kali]

1. Slave ships

the description, that is what it reminds me of. And now sending these people all over the country separated from their freinds and family. WTF?

[Taxloss]

4. That's exactly what Jesse Jackson said.

Awful conditions.

[moondust]

2. Indeed.

How much security would have been there for a typical Saints game lasting several hours?

[txaslftist]

3. After the Saints game everyone knows they are going home.

The people in the Superdome didn't even know if they were going to survive.