January 2007 Archives

 

State Farm has agreed to pay thousands of Mississippi homeowners hit by Hurricane Katrina likely hundreds of millions of dollars in a landmark settlement that’s expected to reverberate across the storm-ravaged Gulf Coast.  The company agreed to a deal under which it will reopen thousands of homeowners’ claims and is likely to pay as much as $500 million, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood announced Tuesday. There’s no cap on the payout. The insurer will have to pay at least $50 million under the deal negotiated with the Scruggs law firm, which represents the majority of Mississippi homeowners who sued State Farm.

In a related development, State Farm will settle more than 600 individual Mississippi homeowners’ Katrina claims for roughly $80 million, according to a person with direct knowledge of the negotiations who didn’t want to be named because the settlement is confidential.

The settlement applies only to Mississippi homeowners — not to the thousands in Louisiana who are suing State Farm and other insurers, arguing that wind and rain ravaged their homes. Homeowners’ policies cover wind and rain damage, but not flood damage, which is covered by federal flood insurance.

Homeowners could begin receiving insurance checks within a few weeks, after the class-action settlement is approved, as expected, by U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr. As part of the agreement with State Farm in Mississippi, Hood agreed to drop a criminal probe against the insurer related to its claims-handling process.

Phil Supple, a spokesman for State Farm, the USA’s largest home insurer, said its goal has always been to "reach a just, speedy and efficient resolution to these matters." A settlement "is in the best interest of our policyholders," Supple added.

About 35,000 Mississippi homeowners are eligible to have their claims reopened. For about 1,000 Mississippi residents whose homes were reduced to slabs by Katrina, State Farm will offer at least 50% of the homeowner’s insurance on the property structure. The average house in Mississippi costs about $200,000, Hood estimates. Thousands more will receive lower amounts.

Homeowners who don’t want to settle with State Farm can still sue the insurer. But the deal "gives a new opportunity for thousands of people to recover their insured losses through a quick process," says Zach Scruggs, an attorney who, with his father, Richard Scruggs, negotiated with State Farm.

State Farm is fighting hundreds of other Katrina-related lawsuits along the Gulf Coast, including in Louisiana. Attorneys in those cases said they hoped the Mississippi development would cause State Farm and other insurers to settle quickly.

"State Farm knows where to find me," says Madro Bandaries, who represents dozens of Louisiana homeowners disputing State Farm’s payouts after Katrina. "They cannot, in my estimation, go to Mississippi and do one thing and then not go to Louisiana."

The Housing Authority of New Orleans has continued to bar over seven thousand families from entering their homes. The majority of which were not damaged by the storm. These families have been displaced for 18 months without access to basic households goods, critical documents, family mementos, and most importantly their housing. That all changed a week ago on MLK Day 2007 when over 500 survivors and supporters took back St. Bernard Housing Projects.
 
“You don’t want to go to war with New Orleans!” chanted residents of St. Bernard Houses alongside supporters from May Day New Orleans, Survivors Village, and the Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund as they marched around the gated and locked St. Bernard Houses. At noon the protestors, who far outnumbered HANO and NO police, stormed the gates liberating 1,500 of the seven thousand units of NO public housing that had been held hostage by the city and state governments. “They had other plans for this housing, other than letting us back home…we will not let them gentrify New Orleans.”       

“These housing projects belong to us” said Endesha Juakali of Survivors Village and Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund.  “Residents of St. Bernard are legal lease-holders. As far as we are concerned, we are being illegally prevented from returning home”. Once inside, residents and supporters helped one another clean homes, cook food and set-up for what might be a long occupation. This is only the beginning." 

Survivors Village Public Housing Fact Sheet

Myth: Families who are attempting to return to public housing have no legal right to return.

FACT:  HANO’s actions amount to illegal eviction.  Every resident has a current, valid lease.  A lawsuit is being filed against HANO to force it to honor its lease agreements.

Myth: Most of the public housing was destroyed or severely damaged.

FACT:  Of the 7,300 homes thousands had NO DAMAGE, are immediately inhabitable, but are fenced off. The cement and cinder block construction makes them more durable than newer construction, and even the few that flooded do not need to be gutted like wood and drywall construction.    

Myth: People who lived in public housing shouldn’t be able to return to the developments.

FACT:  The U.S. Government published international guidelines on the rights of Internally Displaced Persons: the primary right is the Right of Return for ALL people, regardless of circumstance.  

Myth:  HUD and HANO have effectively worked to open public housing for New Orleans residents.

FACT:  Alphonso Jackson used hundreds of thousands of dollars for labor and materials to board up and fence in housing developments instead of doing the minor repairs that would have allowed residents to return.   Delay has caused thousands more dollars of damage.  Jackson should be prosecuted, not praised.  

Myth: Displaced public housing residents are better off where ever they have evacuated. 

FACT:  Many of the public housing residents who are still scattered across the country will lose their assistance on June 30th.  Being homeless in a strange city with no support system is not ‘better off’.  

Myth: Public housing allows people to remain unemployed while the government subsidizes their rent.

FACT: The majority of public housing residents hold jobs which don’t pay enough to support them or their children.  Friends and family rely on each other for free childcare and support.  

Myth:  If public housing residents are allowed to return to the housing developments, crime will increase.

FACT:  The crime is already back in New Orleans, but public housing is not.  Most residents are single, working mothers and their families. Crime preyed on these neighborhoods— it didn’t live there.

Housing activists and former tenants gathered at the St. Bernard public housing development Monday to clean apartments, reclaim lost belongings and protest a policy that has kept their homes shuttered since Hurricane Katrina.

Organizers from a housing-rights group, Mayday NOLA, said its members intended to occupy units and remain at the "survivors village" until residents have reached a satisfactory agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

"The residents are the voices demanding justice, and we are inside because of their organizing, and in solidarity with their struggle for their homes," said a letter issued by activists.

Crowds massed outside the sprawling 7th Ward complex as small groups strolled the mostly vacant courtyards. Housing Authority of New Orleans security officers remained on the fringes, though some tenants said they had been threatened with arrest for trespassing.

A HANO spokesman could not be reached for comment, and a HANO officer on the scene declined to speak with a reporter.

"These people just want to come home," said Brenda Joseph, a Gentilly resident who escorted her niece, a former St. Bernard resident, to her apartment. As her niece’s children happily displayed toys and other items left behind, others piled mattresses and trash outside the buildings.

It was unclear how the complex’s gates were unlocked, but all of them were open in midafternoon. Vehicles filled the neutral ground, many of them bearing Texas license plates, and the smell from open-air grills filled the air. An impromptu disc jockey set up speakers and spoke of honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as the O’Jays’ "Family Reunion" blared.

Before Katrina, the St. Bernard complex housed 963 families, but the abandoned, fenced-in ruin is slated for demolition along with several other of the city’s public housing complexes. The decision to raze the complexes led residents to file a civil rights lawsuit against HUD and HANO, saying the agencies are preventing low-income black families from returning to the city.

Inside St. Bernard on Monday, several banners hung in a central courtyard bearing slogans including "Let Us Come Home," "Housing Is a Human Right," "HUD/HANO Displaced Us, Not Katrina" and "Recovery Means Everybody." According to Mayday NOLA, the banners were also hung at the Lafitte, C.J. Peete and B.W. Cooper complexes.

A HUD spokeswoman said in December that the agency was considering reopening some units to former public housing residents in those other three complexes, all of which had been slated for demolition, while other parts of the complexes are demolished and rebuilt. About 40 families already have been allowed to return to Cooper.

"I don’t think it’s fair that they open up one of the projects and not open the rest of them," said former St. Bernard resident Phyllis Lewis as she sat outside one of the apartments. "Give us our house back."

Lewis, who is living in New Orleans, angrily denounced the policies that kept her out of St. Bernard, saying developers and government officials want to turn the complex into condominiums. "We already knew before Katrina they wanted this land," she said.

Next to Lewis, Teka Russell threw some items into a trash heap.

"I came to see what they was going to do about reopening," she said. Russell now lives in Houston, and Monday was her first opportunity to get back inside her old apartment and retrieve papers she needed to give the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"We’re doing the first step," she said of cleaning out the building. "What’s the next step?"

PHRF Press Statement - January 3, 2007
Blanco Ordered "Shoot to Kill" Instead of "Search and Rescue"
Police officers aren’t the only ones to blame for deaths of Brisette and Madison.

The Peoples Hurricane Relief Fund condemns the actions of government officials in the aftermath of the deadly hurricanes of 2005. Instead of issuing an order to assist and rescue victims of Hurricane Katrina in the days following the flood, Governor Blanco issued an order to "shoot to kill" Katrina victims. This executive order resulted in the murders of James Brisette and Ronald Madison by the New Orleans Police Department. George Bush, FEMA, and the National Guard are equally to blame for those crimes and numerous other human rights violations including wrongful imprisonment, racial discrimination, neglect resulting in death, and the separation of children from families which all constitute crimes against humanity and are punishable under civil and human rights law.
Click image to download flyer (.pdf)

The People’s Hurricane Relief Fund (PHRF), Mississippi Disaster Relief Coalition (MDRC), Black Activist Coalition on Katrina (BACK), and the US Human Rights Network (USHRN) will hold the US government accountable for these crimes against humanity committed against the victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita through an International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The tribunal will be held August 28th through September 2nd, 2007 in New Orleans. The goals of the Tribunal are not only to hold the US Government accountable for these crimes but also to win restitution and reparations for the survivors of their numerous human rights violations.

PHRF calls on anyone who was a victim or a witness to any of the countless crimes committed by government officials from August 29, 2005 to September 8, 2005 to come forward and testify at the International Tribunal.  If you are interested in helping to organize, support, or contribute to the International Tribunal contact (504) 301-0215 or info@peopleshurricane.org

Friday, December 29, 2006
By Laura Maggi, The Times Picayune

Seven New Orleans police officers were indicted Thursday on an array of murder and attempted-murder charges stemming from a shooting on the Danziger Bridge six days after Hurricane Katrina, which victims have portrayed as an ambush by police that left two dead and four wounded.

The state grand jury refuted the New Orleans Police Department account of what happened on Sept. 4, 2005, which had been portrayed by officers as an appropriate response to reports of both sniper fire and people shooting at police officers near the bridge, on Chef Menteur Highway in eastern New Orleans.

The grand jury separately cleared Lance Madison, a man whom police arrested that day and booked with attempted first-degree murder for allegedly shooting at law enforcement.

Ronald Madison murdered by New Orleans Police officiers on September 4, 2005 on the Danziger Bridge in New Orleans. Madison was trying to escape the flood and humanitarian crisis prompted by the government failures and racist neglect. Four police officers — Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, Sgt. Robert Gisevius, officer Anthony Villavaso and officer Robert Faulcon — were charged with the first-degree murder of James Brissette, 19. Faulcon was also charged with the first-degree murder of Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old mentally retarded man whose body was found riddled with seven gunshot wounds to his back. Three more officers face attempted-murder charges.

The charge of first-degree murder carries a potential death sentence, which prosecutors said was warranted because the accused had shot the men while trying to harm or kill others. Chief Judge Raymond Bigelow, who received the grand jury indictments, said he would not set bond for the officers facing the first-degree murder charges.

Criticizing Jordan

In a written statement, the only one he would make about the indictments on Thursday, Orleans Parish District Attorney Eddie Jordan said, "We cannot allow our police officers to shoot and kill our citizens without justification, like rabid dogs. The rules governing the use of lethal force are not suspended during a state of emergency. Everyone, including police officers, must abide by the law of the land."

New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley asked the public to remember that all seven officers will have their days in court. He called the indictments one the saddest days in the department’s history.

"I would like to remind everyone, this is but one step in the judicial process that will determine the future of these officers. This is not when it ends," he said at an evening news conference.

Riley also objected to the statement by Jordan that people had been shot "like rabid dogs," calling the phrase "unprofessional, highly prejudicial and highly undignified."

Representatives for both police unions — the Police Association of New Orleans and the Fraternal Order of Police — said their groups stand behind the indicted officers, pointing out that grand juries as a practice hear only the prosecution’s evidence, and so heard no testimony defending the police.

The four officers facing murder charges also face varying counts of attempted first-degree murder for allegedly shooting other people wounded on the bridge.

In addition, Robert Barrios was charged with four counts of attempted first-degree murder. Michael Hunter was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder. Ignatius Hills was charged with one count of attempted second-degree murder. Bigelow gave all the officers 24 hours to turn themselves in to the Sheriff’s Office, setting bail at $100,000 for each attempted-murder count.

One-sided hearing?

Only Eric Hessler, the attorney for Gisevius, attended the afternoon proceedings in Bigelow’s courtroom. Afterward, Hessler said his client is innocent, pointing out that all of the officers were cleared by an internal Police Department investigation.

"The grand jury only heard evidence that the district attorney wants them to see," Hessler said. The indictments do not lay out prosecutors’ case against the seven officers, only charging them with the fatal shooting or attempted murder of specific victims. But the version of events by several people who survived the incident has been detailed in three federal lawsuits brought in late summer against the city government and Police Department.

These lawsuits portray a group of people who were trying to survive with scant food and water after Katrina, stranded along a strip of Chef Menteur that was surrounded by flood waters.

On Sept. 4 about 9 a.m., Ronald and Lance Madison walked near the top of the Danziger Bridge, returning to their brother’s dental office on Chef Menteur Highway after a failed attempt to go to their mother’s home in eastern New Orleans. Ronald Madison, who was severely retarded, had insisted on staying in the city because he could not bear to leave behind the family dachshunds, Bobbi and Sushi. His older brother, Lance, decided to stay with him, according to the lawsuit.

At the same time, according to the lawsuits, another group of people was walking at the base of the bridge on a trek to a nearby Winn Dixie to retrieve food and water. The group of six had been staying at the Friendly Inn Motel, located next to the dentist’s office where the Madisons had camped out.

Suddenly, the people on the bridge were confronted by a hail of gunfire coming from a group of men in "dark clothing" who had emerged from the back of a rental truck at the foot of the bridge, the lawsuits said.

These men turned out to be the seven heavily armed, out-of-uniform police officers indicted on Thursday, although in the lawsuits, the victims say they never identified themselves as such.

In his lawsuit, Jose Holmes Jr. describes jumping behind a concrete barrier to escape the bullets. Officers shot Holmes several times even though he lay prone on the ground, the lawsuit alleges, One officer stood over him and shot him twice in the abdomen, according to the suit.

During the shooting, Holmes’ friend James Brissette — called James Barsett in the lawsuit — was killed. His uncle, Leonard Bartholomew III, and cousin, Lesha Bartholomew, also were shot several times. His aunt, Susan Bartholomew, lost her arm after being shot by a "large-caliber" weapon. The gunmen also fired on Leonard Bartholomew IV, Holmes’ 15-year-old cousin, but missed.

In his portrayal of the events that morning, Lance Madison has backed up police claims that there was gunfire near the bridge, testifying at a Sept. 28, 2005, magistrate court hearing that six teenagers in white T-shirts shot at him and his brother.

"We tried to run for our life," Madison told a magistrate judge.

But then the truckload of NOPD officers appeared, shooting Ronald Madison in the shoulder. Lance Madison testified that the teenagers never shot at police.

Although the Madisons kept trying to run down the bridge to get out of the line of fire, at least one of the officers pursued, shooting Ronald Madison seven times in the back, according to a lawsuit filed by Lance Madison and his mother, Fuki Madison.

Shipped to prison

After his brother was killed, Lance Madison was surrounded by Louisiana State Police officers. A 25-year employee of Federal Express with no criminal record, Madison was arrested and booked that day with eight counts of attempted murder for allegedly shooting at police officers and another man on the bridge that day.

Madison was booked at Camp Greyhound, the temporary jail set up after Katrina and later shipped to Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel. At the Sept. 28 proceeding at Hunt, Orleans Parish Magistrate Court Judge Gerard Hansen found probable cause for Madison’s arrest because of a police report that he had tossed a gun into the Industrial Canal from the Danziger Bridge. Police said they found the weapon the next day in the canal.

But at that same hearing, Hansen lowered Madison’s bond — he was later released without any bond — and said he didn’t believe police had caught a guilty man.

"I could be wrong, but I’ve been doing this for 32 years, and I think I have a gut reaction on this," he said, according to a transcript. "If I actually thought you were up there shooting, I would raise the bond to $2 million."

Police accounts of the events on Sept. 4 have been starkly different from those of Holmes, the Bartholomews and Lance Madison.

A department news release dated Oct. 4, 2005, offered this version of events:

The seven officers rushed to Danziger Bridge in the rental truck in response to radio reports of two police officers who were "down" under the bridge. Police also had a request for assistance from David Ryder, self-identified as a St. Landry Parish sheriff’s deputy, who reported that several people on the bridge were shooting at rescue workers. When officers arrived, they were "met with gunfire" from four people on the bridge, the news release stated. At that point, the police returned fire.

In the six-page police report filed for the Madison arrest, Sgt. Arthur Kaufman gave a similar account, although at one point he says 7 people on the bridge that morning "opened fire" on the 7th District officers who arrived on the scene. The report describes two of the shooters continuing to fire as they ran over the Danziger Bridge toward the Friendly Inn Motel, which is where Lance Madison was arrested.

After the "scene was secured," Ryder arrived and identified Lance Madison as one of the people who shot at rescue workers.

Police impersonator?

But according to documents gathered by the attorneys representing Madison and the other victims, Ryder was not in fact a sheriff’s deputy, from St. Landry or anywhere else. Indeed, he has a criminal record that includes a conviction for false imprisonment, arrests for battery on a police officer and possession of cocaine, according to court documents from Nacogdoches County, Texas.

"The public expected first responders to stay and protect, and they did that," said Michael Glasser, PANO president.

Both Donovan Livaccari, FOP employee representative, and Glasser called the indictments a political gambit by Jordan to win the allegiance of voters distrustful of police officers. Both also said that Jordan misled several of the officers involved, granting them immunity so they would testify and then indicting them.

For Lance Madison and his family, the indictments proved that he should never have been arrested on the bridge or charged with firing at police, his attorney said Thursday. "They are relieved that Lance has been vindicated," said Mary Howell.

The Madisons hope additional witnesses will come forward now that charges have been filed against police officers, a sentiment echoed by Anthony Radosti with the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a watchdog group that has been directing potential witnesses to the district attorney’s office. "We know that there were a lot of people out there who saw and heard what happened," said Howell.