LA Times: Everything was under control, problems just "rumors"

[Cosmoline]

“This place is going to look like Little Somalia,” Brig. Gen. Gary Jones,

Well since this idiot was mouthing off before even setting foot in NOLA, I choose to regard him as a blowhard.

WHERE IS THE EVIDENCE OF THIS "INSURGENCY" THEY SUPPOSEDLY FOUGHT?? WHERE IS IT? WHERE ARE THE BULLET HOLES IN THE HUMVEES? WHERE WERE THE FIRE FIGHTS!

WHERE ARE THE BODIES
WHERE ARE THE BODIES
WHERE ARE THE BODIES!!??

Making claims that thousands of Americans suddenly turned into raving Somalian madmen because they were in a disaster area is very serious. It's the sort of claim you had better be prepared to support with hard evidence or shut the heck up. The only hard evidence of large scale criminal activity (other than by the cops themselves) was of looting abandoned and washed-out stores. This was completely preditctable under the circumstances and was hardly the same as mass murder.

Oh! Hey! There was a gunshot in the darkness just now. THERE'S A SNIPER IN SPENARD!! RUN AWAY!! CALL IN THE NATIONAL GUARD!!

I like this one:

But their fears were based on actual experiences. The day after the hurricane, Pervel was carjacked as he tried to check on his other properties in the neighborhood. Two guys clubbed him on the head with a sledgehammer

Clubbed in the HEAD with a SLEDGEHAMMER and he's up on his porch the next day, no problem?

The situation was VERY serious, and babies did die from exposure and dehydration. Many, many old people were left to die unspeakable deaths. ALl of this was made MUCH WORSE as a direct result of panic-stricken officials calling off the relief effort and even evacuations from hospitals out of histrionic fears that NOLA-white people+water=Somalia

 

[torpid]

A good rule of thumb regarding catastrophes in general:

Don't believe what you see and hear on the TV and radio.

Don't believe what you read in newspapers, books, magazines, or on the internet.

Don't believe word of mouth from friends, relatives, and and acquaintances.

Don't believe your own eyes.

Don't believe.

Don't.

D.

.

 

[oneslowgun]

I don't know what to belive.. Everyone agrees that you should't trust the MSM, and everyone says not to trust what you read on the internet. Then later, when there are more reports both on the internet, and in the MSM, that its ok to belive THAT. Although it may not be possible, I wish I could be shown just ONE place I could get some un-biased backed-up-by-facts news source. Don't believe what you see on the MSM, don't believe what you read on the internet, don't believe what you hear on the radio, don't believe what the "talking heads" say, Don't believe what the Government says... Where does it end? If NO information can be trusted, and NO ONE can be believed, where does that leave US? Where does that leave ME when I want information?

I guess the only things I should believe, are the things I personally see happen... But wait, that would make me an "eyewitness" and every one knows that "eyewitness" accounts can't be trusted.

Sorry for the rant, but if everything we see,hear,read is biased, or a lie, or not supported by the facts, what the hell do we, or anyone really know?

OSG
(Who is getting tired of spending 2 hrs. trying to verify every 2 paragraph news report.)

 

[dustind]

You have to research things and use your reasoning skills. I usually get my facts from the internet. I am pretty good at finding multiple good sources of information and weeding out the garbage.

Another complaint about the media in addition to the ones already stated is that they are very lazy. Every on-the-ground report I have read contains comments about hundreds of reporters in one tiny area doing nothing. If each reporter actually worked eight hours a day they should have more to report instead of repeating things over and over.

On every topic that I have outside information about or that is a hobby of mine I find that the media does about as good of a job as they do on gun control.

 

[Byron Quick]

I basically have to gauge different media sources of news by judging their accuracy when there is a reports on a subject I know about.

Judging by that yardstick, if a reporter says that the sun will rise in the east in the morning...I'll be out with a watch and a compass.

It's not to say that their hearts are not in the right places...it's just that journalism schools must have ceiling SAT scores for admittance: Whoa, you scored 700. Point too high for admittance.

Basic error on blood types. High school level biology. Major media. Hellooo!

AWB sunset media hype. Some store in a Dallas suburb. NPR reporter going on and on with inaccurate and misleading claims about the AR15. Then he describes shooting the AR 15 on the store 100 yd indoor range. That caught my attention. That's one sweet indoor range. Called them on the phone. They've got an indoor range, all right. 50 yards. Owners said the reporter never asked about range lengths. Journalists' biggest problem is that they have delusions of competency.

 

[Bartholomew Roberts]

One thing I like to do to verify information is multi-source the info. This means you verify each story from independent sources. An important point to note here is that 20 different newspapers reprinting an AP newswire is just a single source - not 20 different sources. Also since news agencies liberally borrow from each other, you always want to verify that stories that sound very similar are actually independent stories and not a LA Times byline reprinted in the local paper or an "ABC News reported that" quote. Likewise, a single Internet post that is repeated 1,000 times by the people who have read it is still a single post, even though it may not be apparent from the subsequent posts.

Another good method is to check partisan sites for information, say Free Republic on one side and DU on the other... between the two of them you will see plenty of opposing views and information that you wouldn't get if you relied on only one. The downside to this is it works primarily with controversial political issues. With plain ol' news it is less reliable.

Finally, like Byron suggested use what you already do know to gauge the accuracy of your media sources and try and establish which ones do a better than average job of reporting facts accurately.

All three of these should apply whether the source is MSM, Internet, or your neighbors down the street.

 

[WYO]

Things probably weren't as bad as the media reported then or as good as the media reports now. There is a lot of stuff that will never be documented, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. I believe that there are more dead people than they will ever find. I believe that some had bullet holes in them. There are no crime scenes because they all got contaminated, figuratively and literally, and the evidence washed away or has or will be cleaned up with all the other trash. Some things can be proved or disproved, but a lot of things cannot be proved or disproved. We will never know the big picture.

 

[Cosmoline]

I believe the coroner. He was just on CNN announcing there were no murder victims among the dead at the Superdome.

The process of ID'ing the bodies continues, but thus far the verdict is that the reports of mass violence were either urban myth or highly exaggerated.

Unless a swarm of gators invades NOLA, the dead are not only likely to be found they WILL be found. It's impossible not to find them in that heat, esp. after a few weeks! Bullet holes still show up even after the water has done what it does.

The only place where the bodies might indeed disappear are in remote fishing ports where the storm surge physically took them back to the Gulf. There was no such surge in NOLA--just a one-way flow of water over the levy. What happens in NOLA literally stays in NOLA> There's no other place for it to go--it's like a giant bathtub.

 

[NCP24]

You trust the coroner when who knows how many federal lawsuits will be filed? Doesn’t this seem a little odd coming in the wake of the restraining order? Sounds like certain officials are covering their arss.

 

[bountyhunter]

Where are these bodies, I wonder?

Well, nobody will ever know the real number of dead for a couple of reasons..... well known to people in southern La (my in laws still live there).

1) There are (or were) many small fishing towns along the south edge which were just wiped away. I don't know how many people went with them. Most of the towns did not appear on maps.

2) You won't get a good handle on the true number of dead until you weigh all the gator poop. It is not a delicate subject, but gators feed on carrion and (unlike the shark rumors) there were indeed many gators coming up for the buffet.

As to the initial count of "thousands dead", I know where it came from: the day after it hit, many people were setting out in small boats to rescue people on rooftops.... and those boats had to navigate around floating corpses that seemed to be everywhere. Got that straight from peiople who were doing it.

Maybe it looked like more than they thought, but I am still not at all certain the final death toll (if all could be counted) would not be at least a couple of thousand or more.

 

[Cosmoline]

The coroner isn't exposed to any liability as long as he does his job. To fake the pathology reports and cover up a potential murder would itself be a crime, however, and would have to include a conspiracy of not just the coroner but the pathologists and everyone else helping with the process. Then the process would have to be repeated over and over again, each time risking discovery and prison time for covering up a felony.

OTOH, none of these people risk anything by reporting the truth if they find evidence of a crime. They cannot be prosecuted or taken to civil court. What would be the grounds?

 

[Cosmoline]

The death toll may well be over a thousand. The issue is whether or not the reported widespread violent crime and murder really took place in NOLA or whether it was rumor and myth.

 

[NCP24]

The coroner isn't exposed to any liability as long as he does his job. To fake the pathology reports and cover up a potential murder would itself be a crime, however, and would have to include a conspiracy of not just the coroner but the pathologists and everyone else helping with the process. Then the process would have to be repeated over and over again, each time risking discovery and prison time for covering up a felony.

OTOH, none of these people risk anything by reporting the truth if they find evidence of a crime. They cannot be prosecuted or taken to civil court. What would be the grounds?

With the mess they had it wouldn’t take much to loose a few key bodies now would it? So do we believe the first set of reports or the timely second accounts, either way certain people have been untruthful.

So which version of the story do we believe? Common sense tells me- large city + tons of traumatized people + extremely poor living conditions + little food & water + no government infrastructure…equals what? Everyone keeps a level head, all criminals turn into saints and we all have a party?

or

Large city + tons of traumatized people + extremely poor living conditions + little food & water + no government infrastructure…equals social breakdown. This version coincides with the first reports.

 

[mrming]

I also don't buy that cause of death would be immediately evident on a body left out in the southern heat for two weeks, much less left out moist.

Corpses tend to split open in hot humid weather from decompostion gases/maggots within the first week around here.

I suspect they'll be finding remains for quite some time while they are knocking down houses. Or, just flat out missing them. Over a million people dislocated by Gov and self will make it impossible to get even a ballpark of whom is missing and who isn't.

 

[NCP24]

Its amazing what a federal lawsuit does.

 

[Cosmoline]

NCP--what lawsuit? On what grounds? As has been pointed out thousands of times on this board alone, the police cannot be forced to pay damages for failing to protect an individual. But a cop who hides a murder victim can not only be sued, he can be sent away for many decades on felony charges.

It amazes me that folks are so convinced that the rumors of mass murder were correct they're engaging in JFKesque conspiracy theories involving pathologists, cops, coroners, and lord knows who else. I suspect years from now after all the official statistics and findings are out, there will be a group of people who remain convinced that NOLA became Mogadishu after the flood.

I well remember what the bodies of wee dillos smelled like down in the parishes after a day or two. I don't believe people would miss a decaying body in a house--or even in the block.

 

[NCP24]

The NRA Restraining Order??? WOW did you forget about that?

 

[Cosmoline]

That has to do with law enforcement disarming citizens, not with citizens killing other citizens en masse. I have a right to keep and bear arms whether or not people are running amok.

 

[WYO]

What mrming said. Add to that the amount of critters that will eat the rotting corpses, such as rats and birds.

I am not trying to exaggerate the death toll from crime by any means, but anyone expecting a CSI type investigation is going to be badly disappointed.

There also is a distinction between "violent crime" and murder, and the absence of a murder does not mean that violent crime did not occur.

Personally, I think the anti-gun types like the L.A. Times are freaking out over the long term ramifications of the whole deal, and they are trying to damage control it by saying not much happened.

 

[Cosmoline]

This goes way beyond the LA times, and it was DEMOCRATIC LIBERALS such as NOLA's police chief were were instrumental in spreading the rumors. Many antis on line have taken the reports of mass slayings as positive evidence that civilians cannot be trusted with arms, and indeed it was these rumors which were used to justify the confiscations.

I would have wanted to be armed in NOLA primarily to protect myself against the police and overly aggressive first responders. As many first hand accounts on this forum have shown, these are the ones who came closest to being armed & murderous gangs after the storm.

 

[CentralTexas]

This is meant

as a dig to the government only!
CT

 

[Cosmoline]

LOL

 

[thorn726]

funny how no one had a problem jumping all over "those people in the dome" etc, just a few days ago, no one was suprised at all how crazy things were.....

i was really not believing the "10 000 bodies" but i also think the violence is being downplated here,

repelled police at convention center?

what about that report? all lies? everyone forgot about that?

 

[NCP24]

That has to do with law enforcement disarming citizens, not with citizens killing other citizens en masse. I have a right to keep and bear arms whether or not people are running amok.

I don’t think you’re seeing the whole picture. I don’t have time to go into it right now, but I can see a gross negligents claim on the police dept and use vacarious liability to include the city for starters, on top of whatever civil right violations I can pull out of the Constitution.

Many antis on line have taken the reports of mass slayings as positive evidence that civilians cannot be trusted with arms, and indeed it was these rumors which were used to justify the confiscations.

Of course they will try to use it. My rebuttal is the police and city officials could not be trusted to protect the innocent law-abiding people who were victimized by the local criminals, just as they can not be trusted now for going back on their earlier statements. Both failed to act in a timely manor prior to Katrina and given the fact the city provided transportation to the evacuees and left them unprotected without proper nesscessities including police protection, all the while the police conducted illegal searches and seizures and terrorized the people of New Orleans. We all witnessed it on national TV, we all heard the officials make the claims and now you want us to believe it never happen…..

Well that’s a rough thought I pulled out of my arss, but I think it makes a point.

 

[Baba Louie]

News will always be edited to reflect the MOST tragedy, suffering and hardships they can glean from a 30 second snip and sound-bite. Take one or two (or a few score) instances and televise them over and over, watch the Mayor, Chief of Police and Governor say and do stupid things over and over, listen to the Presidental sound-bite of the day (always chosen to reflect his best moment)... fit it all in 30 - 45 - 60 second segments... fade...

Sell advertising.

Yep. That's the daily news.

yawn...

The truth? What's that?