Disconnect on reports of dead at Convention Center

[lindisfarne]

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans reported

Brooks and several other Guardsmen said they had seen between 30 and 40 more bodies in the Convention Center's freezer. "It's not on, but at least you can shut the door," said fellow Guardsman Phillip Thompson.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_06.html

But now, the Times-Picayune is reporting the following:
At the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, just four bodies were recovered, despites reports of corpses piled inside the building. Only one of the dead appeared to have been slain, said health and law enforcement officials.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_26.html#082732

I suppose it's possible the National Guardsmen quoted in the first story were repeating a rumor and never actually had seen the the bodies. But from the story, it sounds like the reporter saw more than 4 bodies at the Convention Center(excluding the ones which were claimed to be in the freezer).

For example, at the first link, it says
Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.

"Don't step in that blood - it's contaminated," he said. "That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he's an old man." <snip> "That's a kid," he said. "There's another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut." <snip> "There's an old woman," he said, pointing to a wheelchair covered by a sheet. "I escorted her in myself. And that old man got bludgeoned to death," he said of the body lying on the floor next to the wheelchair. <snip> The scene of rotting bodies inside the Convention Center reflected those in thousands of businesses, schools, homes and shelters across the metropolitan area.

Interesting difference.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. They are hiding bodies

and I have explained repeteadly how you do it

[Why Syzygy]

2. It's a big forum

care to elaborate and/or provide links?

This is disgusting! Murder and mayhem? WHAT FOR?

Please, someone explain this to me.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Ok let me elaborate

first off I used to be a rescue worker in another country, and have seen some of the tricks

For the record in this respect BushCo is no different from anybody else, when they Fuck up in such a spectacular manner they need to get creative, for bodies in the thousands are not good for PR (and in this case the magic number is 3000... is is a sacred number)

So let me share two of the most common tricks... seen it happen in front of my eyes.

Lets just say you and twenty of your loved ones were trapped in a building and that is you and ALL your extended family... nobody asks for you, or reports you missing... and in this case the neighbor's are spread to the four winds... guess what? you were never born... and all of a sudden the number drops by 20

If a child, preferably a baby, managed to survived he or she will be adopted as far away as possible.

Second trick... for health reasons many of these disasters require that you basically open mass graves and forget about identification. This one is very convenient by the way... you push the bodies in, put some lie on it, cover them, and when you fill the paper work, you take a zero out of the total number of bodies... and for the most part nobody will care to check, and the people actually doing the work... they were given some kind of a clearance and they were made to sign paperwork.

As I said, this is not BushCo, for the tricks are used world wide... but these are the most common examples.

For god sakes we have had reports of trucks with thousands of bodies but now I can bet we will not have anywhere over 3000, I will be shocked and surprised if the official number reaches 1500 when all is said and done.

Oh and my experience with this.. the San Juanico Explosion in Mexico City in 1984... the official number was 400, the unofficial number was 1200.... and nobody could ever prove it... then again some of those bodies literally became dust and ashes... instantly.

[Why Syzygy]

15. Very Grim

Let's vote this up. People need to read this.

And I am way out of the loop. And so were they. :cry:

[nadinbrzezinski]

17. It is grim

now when governments, at no fault of their own, have a disaster... they sometimes cannot account for all the dead (next year, the Mexico City Quake) the official death toll was around 10,000 but the government admits it was probably close to 30,000... it is just that there were many bodies they never found.

Now what BushCo will fear is the other effect of disasters, the people expect the gov;ment to do something and when the perception is formed that the gov'ment did not care (NOLA and the very poor in Mexico City) anger can lead to a regime change down the road, in some cases even Revolution. That is the other reason they have to get creative

One effect of that explosion, the oil refineries from PEMEX were moved out of Mexico City... then again PEMEX had another accident in Guadalajara, which some say partly led to the PAN winning power with FOX, not that things have gotten much better... except cleaner (did not say clean, just cleaner) elections

That is the other reason why they are worried, the social effect, and I suspect one of the reasons to spread witnesses and potential voters to the found winds.

(oh and I have shared this with reporters and Congress Critters, who I am sure believe I have a very nice tin foil hat)

[stickdog]

23. How does it help BushCo to disspell the myth that the violence among

the victims kept the feds from responding in a timely manner.

Now just about every other body found is blood on BushCo's hands.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. That wasn't bushco, that was the press

which makes me go HMMMM... you see when they don't go along you have a harder time... and when CNN filed to be able to photograph things started getting dicer for them

As is I have my issues with the violence and the lack of respone... the responders SHOULD have gone in... yes I know what I am asking but in my case, been there done that, and it ain't a pleasant dance at times.

Going back to the Press, katrina seemed to radicalize them and now they are testing the edges of how far they will go... after all BushCo is a scary bunch.. and quite vengeful.. of cousre if ALL the press, except FOX starts covering the real news and stops this pansy patsy, all at the same time, there is precious little that bushco can do.

[CrispyQ]

32. The final body count of the Katrina disaster will be less than 9/11.

For god sakes we have had reports of trucks with thousands of bodies but now I can bet we will not have anywhere over 3000, I will be shocked and surprised if the official number reaches 1500 when all is said and done.

I believe you are right that they are hiding bodies. With 9/11 they had an evil bogeyman to blame. In this disaster they are (at the very least!) partially to blame & therefore, cannot let the count go higher than 9/11.

The sheeple, who can barely do math anymore, especially percentages, will not be bothered to wonder how out of 300,000 missing people, only 1% or less were casualties. Nor will they remember, if they even read it, that FEMA ordered 25,000 body bags.

[lindisfarne]

3. I just saved both of those articles to my computer; perhaps others should

as well.

[incapsulated]

4. There are only four that are actually seen

There are only four that are actually seen by the reporter writing the piece, if you exclude "another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut." And only one of those four is described as a homicide, so it is consistant.

Honestly, I don't think we will ever know, and it's a crime.

[Why Syzygy]

5. WHY does a SEVEN YEAR OLD

have her throat cut? I must be way out of the loop on this.

WTF?

[incapsulated]

8. I read all sorts of accounts...

But they were either dismissed by the police or I never heard about them again. Most of those telling these stories were evacuated from NOLA and spread out all over so I already had a sinking feeling that they would never be questioned and this story would disappear.

[lindisfarne]

9. You ask that question in a society where we allow children to grow up in

such horrible, abusive, family conditions that they grow up to be very disturbed teenagers and adults? In a society which leaves so little hope for some children that they are dealing drugs at age 12? Without adequate social supports for families, without adequate programs to help children, you end up with a society like ours with the crime rate (especially violent crimes) that we have.

Killing of children happens all the time in our society - it doesn't wait for hurricanes.

[Why Syzygy]

16. All I can say is

:cry:

[stickdog]

24. Stop spreading this bullshit. Why do you NEED to believe that

New Orleans victims behaved like savages?

Can't you understand that there's no evidence for this other than the natural sensationalism of disaster rumors and your own biases?

[lindisfarne]

6. I agree with your count but the reporter also seems to imply there were

more in his sentence "The scene of rotting bodies inside the Convention Center reflected those in thousands of businesses, schools, homes and shelters across the metropolitan area." In any case, everyone watching the media also saw several bodies which were outside the convention center but right near it.

I suppose technically they weren't "inside" the convention center but they were essentially "at" the convention center, and those people also died due to the situation at the convention center and incompetence of FEMA (lack of food, water, air conditioning, medical attention, and transportation out).

[incapsulated]

10. The whole situation was...

So inhuman and chaotic. With bodies all over the place and just left there as people were evacuated. How any "investigation" could take place with any witnesses gone and such a horror scene I don't know.

[lindisfarne]

11. This is why we NEEDED the media to be taking pictures. I don't like

conspiracy theories but I don't trust the Bush administration farther than I can through a 2-ton elephant. I'd just like to know that the count was as exact as can be, assuming honesty (ha!) on the part of the government - of course, the exact total will never be known.

The official counts are very different from what eyewitnesses were saying - the report below certainly makes it sound like there were more than 4 dead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4214746.stm
This is from a British Citizen:
""We went to a convention centre where the National Guard was based - but they just turned us away and said we would have to fend for ourselves." The group ended up sleeping rough on a 30ft-high covered walkway before being found by an Australian television crew and rescued. "Every day we woke to more dead bodies and people with guns. There was polluted water everywhere and the smell was awful. And there was no electricity. It was so dark."

And then there's this:
By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press Writer
Sat Sep 3, 7:07 PM ET New Orleans Left to the Dead and Dying
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050904/D8CD42BO0.html
"Three babies died at the convention center from heat exhaustion, said Mark Kyle, a medical relief provider."
<snip>
At the convention center, thousands of refugees dragged their meager belongings to buses, the mood more numb than jubilant. Yolando Sanders, who had been stuck at the convention center for five days, was among those who filed past corpses to reach the buses.
<snip>
Nearby, a woman lay dead in a wheelchair on the front steps. A man was covered in a black drape with a dry line of blood running to the gutter, where it had pooled. Another had lain on a chaise lounge for four days, his stocking feet peeking out from under a quilt.

(The above article was also at yahoo but the original Yahoo link in google doesn't link to the article but here is the google cache:
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:9aUfMxK6Gt8J:news.yahoo.com/news%3Ftmpl%3Dstory%26u%3D/ap/20050903/ap_on_re_us/hurricane_katrina+katrina+superdome+bodies+%22convention+center%22&hl=en

And then there's this (talking about the Convention Center):
"People here said there were now 22 bodies of adults and children stored inside the building, but troops guarding the building refused to confirm that and threatened to beat reporters seeking access to the makeshift morgue."
(It didn't sound like all the bodies mentioned at http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_06.html were all in the same location.)

<snip> and this, about the Superdome (is the police officer making up a number?)
"One police officer told Reuters there were 100 people in a makeshift morgue at the Superdome, mostly people who died of heat exhaustion, and that six babies had been born there since last Saturday, when people arrived to take shelter."
<snip> and this paragraph is contradicted by the 9/26 Times-Picayune report (see quote below):
"We found a young girl raped and killed in the bathroom," one National Guard soldier told Reuters. "Then the crowd got the man and they beat him to death."
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03464940.htm

vs. http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_26.html
"Of those, four died of natural causes, one overdosed and another jumped to his death in an apparent suicide, said Beron, who personally oversaw the turning over of bodies from a Dome freezer, where they lay atop melting bags of ice. State health department officials in charge of body recovery put the official death count at the Dome at 10, but Beron said the other four bodies were found in the street near the Dome, not inside it. Both sources said no one had been killed inside."

And still more: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2148638
"At least seven bodies were scattered outside the convention center, a makeshift staging area for those rescued from rooftops, attics and highways."

And this: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205I.shtml
Local Officials Criticize Federal Government over Response
By Joseph B. Treaster and Deborah Sontag The New York Times
"Thousands of refugees from Hurricane Katrina boarded buses for Houston, but others quickly took their places at the filthy, teeming Superdome, which has been serving as the primary shelter. At the increasingly unsanitary convention center, crowds swelled to about 25,000 and desperate refugees clamored for food, water and attention while dead bodies, slumped in wheelchairs or wrapped in sheets, lay in their midst."
---------
"There was no food or water and not a cop or a soldier to be seen. And overnight, I was told, 10 people had died.
I was skeptical of the claim and a man took me to a massive refrigerator in the center's kitchen.
Eight bodies were inside, though there was no power to keep the refrigerator on. I found the other two corpses around the back, on a loading dock.
The body of an elderly woman sat in a wheelchair covered with a red-and-blue checkered cloth. Her feet stuck out and had blood on them. Next to her was a woman wrapped in a white sheet."
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/342810p-292645c.html
Originally published on September 2, 2005

Even the coroner counted more than in the Times-Picayune (9/26) story
"It is a fact that many died at the convention center and Superdome (7 and 10 respectively, according to the most recent reports from the coroner), but according to a Sept. 15 report in The Chicago Tribune, it was mostly from neglect rather than overt violence."
http://www.reclaimthemedia.org/stories.php?story=05/09/20/2921019

vs 4 dead at Convention Center, according to http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tporleans/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tporleans/archives/2005_09_26.html.

[stickdog]

26. Nobody said that there weren't a lot of casualties.

There just weren't a lot of murders, unless you count BushCo and FEMA as homicide culprits.

[stickdog]

25. The bodies outside the convention center were killed by the

US military.

[paulthompson]

12. Same reporter wrote both stories!

Note that one of the stories is written by:

by Brian Thevenot and Gordon Russell

and the other:

by Brian Thevenot

Has Brian completely forgotten about the freezer scene described before?? He now describes what seemed to be his own first person reporting as a tale:

One widely circulated tale, told to The Times-Picayune by a slew of evacuees and two Arkansas National Guardsmen, held that "30 or 40 bodies" were stored in a Convention Center freezer. But a formal Arkansas Guard review of the matter later found that no soldier had actually seen the corpses, and that the information came from rumors in the food line for military, police and rescue workers in front of Harrah's New Orleans Casino, said Edwards, who conducted the review.

[leveymg]

18. Thevenot repeated Mikel Brooks' story w/out any confirmation

That is journalistic malpractice. Spc. Brooks is not an official source. Thevenot should have known better than to simply repeat some soldier's unconfirmed yarn spinning.

The details about the body of a seven year old girl with her throat cut and a five year old who had been raped were so extraordinary that they should not have been published without an reporter's own eye-witness, confirmation by an authoritative source, or multiple credible witnesses. Brian even embellished the account with his breathless first-person story writing to make it seem like he had seen it himself. I don't know why the Times Picayune still has him on the payroll.

I wonder whether the TP editors understand the enormity of the harm which this rumour-mongering did to the American public's understanding of what was going on in New Orleans.

Was this on purpose, or just incompetence? I wrote the TP Ombudsman at the time the story appeared. It looks like the paper revisited the story and has now retracted it. But, it's time to find out what caused this terrible breach of journalistic ethics.

Paul, or other fellow DUers, do you want to help look into this?

[paulthompson]

13. Also odd: mortician account

Here's an account from today by a mortician who has examined many bodies coming from Katrina:

He was surprised by the number of homicides — people with gunshot wounds to their heads and backs. Autopsies were performed on those victims, Roper said.

http://journalstar.com/articles/2005/09/26/local/doc4337209e961f8160575422.txt

Compare his account with this in the new Times-Picayune article:

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities had confirmed only four murders in New Orleans in the aftermath of Katrina - making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year. Jordan expressed outrage at reports from many national media outlets that suffering flood victims had turned into mobs of unchecked savages.

---

WTF???

[leveymg]

19. You might want to contact the reporter to get some numbers

Reach Josh Swartzlander at 473-7120 or [e-mail].

It would be interesting to find out whether he asked the mortician whether the ordinance used was consistent with police/NG weapons.

[stickdog]

27. Yes, but how many would it take to surprise this guy?

And where are the bodies he's processing supposedly coming from?

[stickdog]

33. About the Roper family ...

http://roperandsons.com/about.html

[lindisfarne]

14. Wasn't there a thread here about 2+ weeks ago about keeping a list of all

articles that mention bodies at various locations? Does anyone have a link for that thread?

Here is another media report (NPR) that conflicts with the official totals:
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=574&topicId=100017744&docId=l:311142037&start=6

SHOW: All Things Considered 8:00 AM EST NPR
September 15, 2005 Thursday
`Hell on Earth' at the convention center
MELISSA BLOCK, ROBERT SIEGEL JOHN BURNETT

"Ms. KATHANIA STROTHER (Child Welfare Case Manager): We have kids in here. We have dead bodies in the back. You know, we have people falling out left and right. No one has been here. All we want is someone to show up and let us know what's going on.
<snip>
The exact death toll is unknown. Police say they recovered four to six bodies. Evacuees told of scores of corpses. News reports put the body count as high as 24. <snip> The one death that stood out to most of the people I spoke with was that of a young girl whose name no one knew. Dereece Bailey(ph) is a 24-year-old medical technician who was stranded at the Convention Center with a co-worker. She had also evacuated to Austin.

Ms. DEREECE BAILEY (Medical Technician): In one of the bathrooms you had a little girl. She could have been maybe 13. She had--her neck was slit. Her clothes were like ripped so she could have been--I can say she could have been raped. But she was lifeless and a lot of people were saying that she had been in the bathroom for maybe a day or two. So I don't know."

[lindisfarne]

20. I'm hoping to get an answer to my question in Message #14 so

kick!

[stickdog]

28. Once again, there is just one account of a murder here. (nt)

[Nothing Without Hope]

21. The supposed bestial violence of the poor is a primary excuse for martial

law. Hence it is pushed and fabricated and endlessly re-described in the most graphic, horrifying detail to make us all fearful and to "justify" the idea of a military police state to control these supposed ravening hordes. Think I'm overstating the lust of the neocons for martial law? Read this entire thread, including the very important articles in the replies, and think again:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4790112
thread title: Missing A KEY POINT in *'s speech: POWER GRAB FOR POTUS AND MILITARY

Under my main Katrina bookmark folder one of the many subfolders is titled: "Reports, rumors and hyping of violence & looting." I had to start this folder not only because these reports and obvious misrepresentation of facts were so common but also because the deliberate hyping and fabrication of them is an event of national significance.

Listen to the Administration people "justifying" making Bush a military dictator by establishing a military police nation under his whim. They ALWAYS mention those "looters™." After all, I suppose, this IS supposed to be the "ownership society," and what if those scary hordes of dark-skinned poor people we keep hearing about are after our STUFF???? :eyes:

Here's one of the du threads in my "hyped violence" subfolder, from Sept 26:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1805793
thread title: Reports of anarchy at Superdome overstated

Excerpt from the OP:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002520986_katmyth26.html

By BRIAN THEVENOT and GORDON RUSSELL
Newhouse News Service

NEW ORLEANS -- ... That the nation's frontline emergency-management officials believed the body count would resemble that of a bloody battle in a war is but one of scores of examples of myths about the Dome and the Convention Center treated as fact by evacuees, the news media and even some of the city's top officials, including the mayor and police superintendent.

The vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees — mass murders, rapes and beatings — have turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according to key military, law-enforcement, medical and civilian officials in positions to know.

"I think 99 percent of it is (expletive)," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Lachney, who played a key role in security and humanitarian work inside the Dome. "Don't get me wrong — bad things happened. But I didn't see any killing and raping and cutting of throats or anything ... 99 percent of the people in the Dome were very well-behaved."

Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said authorities have only confirmed four murders in the entire city in the aftermath of Katrina — making it a typical week in a city that anticipated more than 200 homicides this year.

(snip)

I do believe that the Administration is suppressing the body count of people who died after Katrina, especially those who died from starvation, dehydration and illness (not a good time to be diabetic or need a respirator) due to the delays and outright BLOCKS by FEMA of aid to desperate people after the event. I believe that, consistent with what was said to the morticians affiliated with DHS, there are tens of thousands of dead - they were asked to prepare for up to 40,000 "new" bodies not that long after the storm. But most of those bodies are NOT due to violence, they are due to monumental, murderous NEGLECT.

I believe there are many thousands of people STILL rotting in their homes or in the streets. Even in New Orleans, this man was still exposed to the elements out in the open over THREE WEEKS after Katrinia - and this is a metropolitan area just blocks (if that) from swarms of military types who obviously have orders that don't involve gathering the dead or helping the living.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4877295
Thread title: Have you ever thought about the last minute of your life? (Beware.)

[stickdog]

22. Is it the same guy who said he guarded Clinton's hotel rooms

while he raped unsuspecting Arkansas consituents?

Just wondering ... because if not, where are the bodies? Where is any confirmation from ANY other eyewitnesses that those bodies ever existed? And why would the feds now lie about the supposed "rampant Negro violence" memes they helped spread -- considering that it's the only thing covering their bare asses?

[ladylibertee]

30. A lot of exaggeration was done.The media played a part as well.

[SoCalDem]

31. The people would would bear witness to the losses of family members

are POOF! gone./. they have been dispatched to 48 states, sliced off from the family tree.. They will be spending months , if not years, trying to locate the rest of their families.. They may not EVER know what happened to Uncle Bob, or Cousin Terri..

They are more or less out of reach of the prying reporters who have moved on to other storms, other places anyway..

We will never have an accurate accounting, and it works just fine for the govt.. they get to remove a lot of people from the "welfare rolls", and will just claim that "those folks went to (fill in any state) and got lucrative jobs..and are living it up.."

Prove that they are dead...Can't do it. they "win"

[lindisfarne]

34. I'm confused by a few of the messages here: this thread is about whether

there is a calculated disconnect between official numbers and actual numbers dead. This was never a thread about New Orleanians murdering New Orleanians, as some seem to be assuming (and criticizing the thread for). Yes, some of the dead were murdered. But that's not what this thread is about.

Whatever happened to the thread that was started within a week after Katrina about collecting media stories which referenced the dead? I should have bookmarked it! Wasn't thinking.