![]() Mendoza and Cahn said in separate interviews that Riley made the remarks at a meeting at Harrah's casino, where police had established a command post. Scott, then the commander of the 1st district, is now captain of the special operations division.Īnother police captain, Harry Mendoza, told federal prosecutors last month that he was ordered by Warren Riley, then the department's second-in-command, to "take the city back and shoot looters." A lieutenant who worked for Mendoza, Mike Cahn III, said he remembered the scene similarly and would testify about it under oath if asked. "We have authority by martial law to shoot looters," Captain James Scott told a few dozen officers in a portion of the tape viewed by reporters. In one instance captured on a grainy videotape shot by a member of the force, a police captain relayed the instructions at morning roll call to cops preparing for the day's patrols. Still, current and former officers said the police orders – taken together with tough talk from top public officials broadcast over the airwaves - contributed to an atmosphere of confusion about how much force could be used to combat looting. Only one of the people shot by police – Henry Glover – was allegedly stealing goods at the time he was shot. Thus far, no officers implicated in shootings have used the order as an explanation for their actions. It remains unclear who originated them or whether they were heard by any of the officers involved in shooting 11 civilians in the days after Katrina. The accounts of orders to "shoot looters," "take back the city," or "do what you have to do" are fragmentary. Others say they understood it as a fundamental change in the standards on deadly force, which allow police to fire only to protect themselves or others from what appears to be an imminent physical threat. Some officers who heard it say they refused to carry it out. It's not clear how broadly the order was communicated. In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department. 24, 2010 and was co-published with The New Orleans Times-Picayune. This story was originally published on Aug. Since our reporting, federal prosecutors have built a string of criminal cases against 20 current or former officers. The plan addresses a range of issues, several of which we reported on in our coverage of police shootings in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Updated July 24: The New Orleans Police Department and the Department of Justice have reached an agreement for top-to-bottom reforms of the troubled police force. After Katrina, New Orleans Police Under Scrutiny
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