Trial delayed in St. Bernard pet killings

Excerpt:

A St. Bernard Parish sheriff’s deputy and a former deputy are set to stand trial separately early next year on felony aggravated cruelty to animals charges stemming from the alleged fatal shooting of dogs on the streets of St. Bernard in the days immediately following Hurricane Katrina.

Clifford “Chip’’ Englande, a sergeant assigned to administrative duties, and Michael Minton, who is no longer working for the Sheriff’s Office, pleaded innocent in February and were scheduled to be tried together this week.

As it stands now, Minton will be tried Jan. 29 by a jury in state District Judge Robert Buckley’s courtroom and Englande will be tried Feb. 14 by the judge, a spokeswoman for state Attorney General Charles Foti said Wednesday. Link

Let's hope justice prevails.

Also see: Trial date set for [alleged] dog shooters

Graft and corruption, waste and cheating.

From The Hill:

“The amount of money that has been wasted on these so-called ‘recovery’ efforts has been mind-boggling,” said Tancredo... Citing administration figures, the lawmaker said that $114 billion has been spent on the effort... The lawmaker criticized in particular the amount that has been wasted through fraud and abuse, estimated at $1 billion.

$1 billion lost to fraud out of $114 billion is less than 1.0%. Guess I've been in Louisiana too long; doesn't seem like a lot to me.

Trial date set for [alleged] dog shooters

Arraignment of Minton and Englande was Tuesday in St. Bernard Parish.

Trial will be May 8, 9 or 10.

Full story on this page.

Special thank you to Pasado's Safe Haven animal rescue org for traveling all the way from Washington state to help and show support in this very important matter.

For those of you who didn't see my previous post on the topic, you can write a note to the judge here.

For y'all who have companion animals, or understand the love people feel for their pets, why not help Pasado by buying a T-shirt? I like "Not Without My Pets" :-).

St. Bernard dog-killers' arraignment tomorrow

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, in St. Bernard Parish, victims of flooding left their dogs at Beauregard Middle School, scrawling heartrending notes on the walls with their names, their pets' names. "Don't shoot my dog," one reads. "Very nice dog in here," says another. They left what food they could, and water.

All in vain.

Their dogs were shot and left to suffer. Shot in the stomach, the legs. Some starved to death. This, after deputies promised the owners that their beloved pets would be cared for.

This, as animal rescuers were beginning to arrive in South Louisiana to save pets' lives.

David Leeson, a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, was driving around in St. Bernard Parish shortly after the storm, looking for the small, oil-soaked dog that he'd taken a picture of. Instead, he filmed three deputies, also driving around, shooting dogs. Showing no emotion. Not putting them out of their misery, but leaving them to whimper and cry on the ground until they died of their wounds.

Tomorrow morning, two of the perpetrators - Michael Minton and Clifford Englande - are being arraigned in the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse. They have been charged with aggravated animal cruelty. They have also been sued by the pet owners.

You may write a note to the judge here. It'll be hand delivered by the folks with Pasado Safe Haven.

Read the whole story.

"A Sense of Place"

Fascinating article in Gambit about the Neighborhood Story Project. Excerpts, with emphases mine:

The fate of the poor obscures a deeper issue. With most of the projects now empty, crime is surging.[...]NOPD is deteriorating, while the drug culture, permeated with guns, is on a roll. [...]Annie Pearl Nelson, a 40-year resident of the (now empty) Lafitte housing project, has this to say in a book called The Combination:

"When I first moved into Lafitte, this was the best housing development there was. The kids could come outside and they could play. You could leave all the doors and windows open. We didn't have to worry about breakin in, robberies, or anything like this. ... But now you could see [drug] transactions goin on anywhere you might be passin. ... I've had someone run in my door twice and the police were there, and they ran in my house twice."

Okay. The "welfare culture" has yet to return to New Orleans. The National Guard's still there, so there are a lot of good guys with guns on the street.

Yet it sounds like the Wild West down there.

Is this some mass post-Katrina psychosis goin' on? Or is it possible that those at fault for the crime were not the so-called entitlement class?

Once upon a time, we lived in a violent, poor, inner-city neighborhood. Ashley Nelson puts it so well:

Ashley Nelson's grief over her parents' drug use leads to an unblinking look at reality: "People I know who sell [drugs] say, 'They just making a living cuz it's hard." But it's more than that, too. Once I asked my uncle, 'Why do people deal drugs?' He told me, 'Respect and power. ... Once you get it, you feel like a leader.'

My experience is, this stuff about respect gets all mixed up in inner-city kids' minds. Yeah, in some ways the ghetto respects a drug dealer. He's got money. People fear him. Junkies worship him. He's got the juice and he gets what he wants.

In areas where many people struggle day-to-day, and there are no better examples around - because even the moderately successful leave - the drug dealer is king. He's the role model that too many children wish to emulate.

So I applaud HUD's efforts to close down those big projects permanently and go to smaller, scattered sites and vouchers. Children need to learn that the wider world views those "street heroes" with utter contempt, as the scum they are. They should live in a more varied environment and have exposure to working- and middle-class mores.

Then we'll make a dent in this problem.

Do go to Gambit and read it all.

The formerly flooded city

Speaking of New Orleans, we were down there a few days ago.

Did some "disaster tourism" and drove around this area:








[from Google Maps]









Sad. Very sad. Yeah, lots of homes are being worked on. Some appear finished and are occupied.

Others are empty, collapsing, not gutted or boarded up. 16+ months after Katrina.

It appears that they didn't get enough of an influx of construction workers - legal or otherwise. And I'm sure that some poor souls' rehab efforts are being hampered by the snail's pace of the Road Home program.

Ripping off the gov't.

I dunno about you, but I call this fraud:

He added another "big problem" is the number of vacant trailer parks that continue to get tax-supported FEMA dollars. According to Burgess, park owners set up empty trailer parks knowing in advance they will receive money from FEMA despite the lack of demand for residents.

"That's so irritating to me," he said.

Irritating, he says. That's an understatement, sez I.

Are there no honest people left in the world?

New disaster program sign-up begins

Read all about it here. Aid is available for producers who suffered losses due to the 2005 hurricanes.

Apply at local FSA offices or USDA Service Centers.

Fact sheets are online at www.fsa.usda.gov under "disaster assistance programs."

Louisiana will reimburse FEMA only 88%

The Yahoo article is reprinted here in its entirety, because their stuff seems to disappear into a black hole after a while:

BATON ROUGE, La. - Louisiana's legislative auditor recommended Friday that the state pay 88 percent of what the
Federal Emergency Management Agency is seeking in reimbursement for hurricane recovery efforts, saying the rest of the money was either improperly spent or couldn't be accounted for.

After getting approval from a legislative budget panel, state officials planned Friday to wire that 88 percent — $335 million — to FEMA.

It was unclear how the state would deal with the remaining money, about $45 million, that FEMA says it is owed.

Legislative Auditor Steve Theriot said in some instances people with invalid addresses or duplicate homes received FEMA benefits that they shouldn't have. The state also objected to payments FEMA made to people for generators, a cost Theriot said it doesn't appear the state ever backed as a type of disaster aid.

States are required to pick up part of the cost for certain types of FEMA disaster aid, including assistance for individuals like medical care, funeral services and property damage after a disaster.

Lawmakers set aside a $424 million but asked Theriot's office to investigate FEMA's bills before making payments. Theriot's review was based on a sample of 425 of the nearly 290,000 people who received FEMA aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the state last year.

After Katrina, FEMA reimbursed for chainsaws. They reimbursed for generators - which the state of Louisiana doesn't want to pay FEMA for.

Nice going, Blanco [sarcasm]. Can't say I like your attitude. It does not seem very extravagant to me, a generator for people staying in their homes after the storm, and a chainsaw to help them clean up.

I wonder if FEMA is going to come after the recipients of that assistance and make them pay the money back.

Shame on 'em.

According to Gambit Weekly:

Emergency Management Services, the out-of-state contractor hired by the Louisiana Recovery Authority to administer the "Road Home" program, will have collected more than $87 million in fees by the end of this month from the state — but as of last week had given out less than $620,000 to only 13 homeowners...

If that ain't against the law, it oughtta be.

Warning!

Un PC but hilarious video about the New Orleans looters.

The state of the schools

All of the public school buildings in Bogalusa sustained damage due to Hurricane Katrina. Windows popped, roofs came off, interiors were damaged - along with equipment, of course.

One child we know is in Home Ec at Bogalusa Junior High. There are no sewing machines, he says, because they got wrecked in the storm.

Okay. It's a whole frickin' year after Katrina. Wonderful people all over the U.S. have donated money and supplies to our schools by the truckload. And apparently some equipment still hasn't been replaced.

Wasn't any of this insured? Hello?

Yes, as it turns out, it was. The city received 84.37 percent of the total claimed in damages, nearly a year after the storm. The date of the article is July 12, 2006. The insurer is American First Insurance.

Maybe shop around for another insurer, folks. I'm willing to pay taxes for better insurance coverage for the Bogalusa schools.

And sewing machines.

Bogalusa, Mississippi

I vaguely remember in the days following Katrina that Governor Blanco didn't know where Bogalusa was. Whether this was on radio, in The Daily News or some other paper, I don't recall now.

But the nonexistent town of Bogalusa, Mississippi found its way into the official paperwork of HR 109-377:

In another instance, Bogalusa, Mississippi had
requested water and baby food from Fayetteville. [page 11]

Fortunately the Gov was able to find us Wednesday.

From Bogalusa to Roanoke

Joe was living in Bogalusa, Louisiana where Katrina caused tornadoes.

Read the whole thing.

More shady Katrina contracts

Hurricane Katrina brought out the best in some people, and the worst in others. Or maybe some people were always bad guys, waiting for their opportunity. The Times Picayune has a good article on yet another fiasco in the wake of the storm, this time in New Orleans. Excerpt:

Behind a Largo, Fla., strip mall -- where shops ply lingerie, DVDs and drug paraphernalia -- sits a truck and trailer marked with the logo Biodefense America, one of the few traces of a company granted a windfall $8 million deal by former New Orleans Criminal District Court Clerk Kimberly Williamson Butler.

The company listed the Largo, Fla., strip mall and another address, actually a house, as the headquarters of what it contends is a "global leader in decontamination."

Butler hired Biodefense America to clean up the evidence room of the city's flooded criminal courthouse in a deal being investigated by the state attorney general.

Months after Biodefense America abandoned the job in the face of FEMA's refusal to pay for the work, the "in the news" section of the company's six-page Web site still brags about winning the top-dollar post-Katrina deal.

Biodefense America seems to have little other news to offer, save for a vague one-line mention of "numerous first responder contracts for the Health Industry in Broward county."

The company collected $200,000 from Butler as it abandoned the job. In choosing Biodefense, Butler spurned another bidder, Munters, which proposed to do the work for $3 million less than the Florida firm. Link to printer version

Ms. Butler has had a bad year. Here's a google on her, and Wikipedia's synopsis.

I look forward to the day when all these ripoff artists are doing hard time.

"Jackman to Bogalusa"

Jackman, Maine sent lumber to Bogalusa City Schools in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Daily News article here.

Some students at Forrest Hills High School made a film about it for their local student film festival. Kennebec Journal Online article.

Watch "Jackman to Bogalusa".

One list of Maine contributors to Katrina relief. Thank you!

Jackman, Maine Chamber of Commerce.

More kindness of strangers

In Boxford, Massachusetts, Walk-a-Palooza for Bogalusa:

Sixth-graders at Boxford’s Spofford Pond Elementary were likely rubbing their feet Friday night after spending part of the afternoon walking around Chadwick Field to raise money for charity. The students were taking part in the "Walk-a-Palooza for Bogalusa," a fund-raising event to help a Louisiana elementary school damaged by Hurricane Katrina last summer.

For each lap completed the students earned various amounts of money from the sponsors who signed up beforehand to support them. After each lap, a volunteer punched a hole in a card the students wore around their necks. After every fifth lap, the students received a Mardi Gras necklace. One of the hardest tasks for the walk-a-thon volunteers was keeping the students from running.

While there were volunteers with hole-punching devices and beads, there was also a handful of volunteers with spray bottles. Since spring finally decided to show up for real last weekend, the volunteers were there to make sure the walkers kept cool. Some of the students seemed to genuinely enjoy getting spritzed while others sped past the sprayers so they wouldn’t get wet. Most of the sprayers stayed off the course, but one of them, 5-year-old Wes D’Alelio, stationed himself in the middle.

"I think he’s having more fun than they are," said Kimberly D’Alelio, Wes’ mother. "He’s taking his job seriously."

Wes’ brother, Drew, was one of the walkers.

Boxford Parent-Teacher Organization Co-President Lisa Teichner said Tuesday the total raised by the students had yet to be determined as they were still collecting pledges.

Big hugs to Lisa Teichner, Boxford PTO, and Spofford Pond School.

Katrina's body count - higher?

My previous post on May 13 quoted a source saying that there were nine storm-related deaths in Washington Parish.

But does this article raise the total?

Tracy Tullos recalled the hospital staff of the Bogalusa Medical Center in Louisiana worked 24-hour shifts following Hurricane Katrina, which hit the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005.

The former director of Social Services at Bogalusa Medical Center in Bogalusa, La., located approximately 45 miles north of New Orleans, was interviewed Saturday about the hurricane and its aftermath. [...]
"We planned for every contingency -- nuclear disaster, chemical warfare, tornadoes; even terrorism -- but we never planned for having no running water. And that was of paramount concern.

"We had patients requiring dialysis. Several of those patients died," she said.

Who were these patients? Were they all nursing home residents, and thus part of those nine nursing-home deaths? Or were there a couple more poor souls not counted in the article I referenced in my May 13 post?

Previous:
Katrina's Body Count

Flooding in Flash

New Orleans dominated the national news after Hurricane Katrina. Sometimes, seems like it still does.

Over on Nola, there's a link to a great interactive graphic of New Orleans flooding - where the water came from, what time, how fast, how deep.

Fascinating stuff.

Katrina's body count

There are a number of news articles on the web, findable through Google, that say there were no storm-related deaths in Washington Parish. Search the archives at The Daily News using the phrase "died Monday, Aug. 29" and you'll get ten hits. All but one were residents of nursing homes.

Word-of-mouth suggests that these folks died as a result of the intense heat after the storm, when the power was off. Apparently nursing homes didn't have enough generator capacity to run their air conditioners. I hope they've fixed that, for the upcoming storm season.

This article seems to count those nine people's deaths as storm-related. I thnk that's realistic:

Nine parish residents and one evacuee have been confirmed dead as a result of the storm or its aftereffects.

One Bogalusa resident perished in Biloxi, according to The Daily News. I don't know who would "evacuate" from 60 miles inland to the coast before a hurricane. May G*d rest his soul.

We'll come back to this topic in later posts, because there are some little mysteries related to bodies in Bogalusa after Katrina.

Update: Air conditions corrected to air conditioners.