K'Naan
Mos Def
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Soultrotta: French Edition: Introduction
Make A Move Music Video::SuckaForLife.com
Hanifah Walidah / "Do You Mind" (music video), 2008
<p>Hanifah Walidah / "Do You Mind" (music video), 2008 from maslidukan on Vimeo.</p>
Submission Guidelines
Switchgrass Books exclusively publishes literary novels that evoke the Midwestern experience, whether it be urban, suburban, or rural. To submit your novel for consideration, please follow these guidelines:
- • Switchgrass authors must be from the Midwest, current residents of the region, or have significant ties to it. Briefly tell us in your cover letter why yours is an authentic Midwestern voice.
- • We publish only full-length novels set in or about the Midwest.
- • We will not consider memoirs, short stories, novellas, graphic novels, poetry, or juvenile/YA literature.
- • Agented manuscripts will not be considered.
- • Send your complete manuscript via U.S. mail to the address below. E-mail submissions will not be considered.
- • No queries, calls, or e-mails, please.
- • Please include a resume or C.V.
Submit materials to:
Northern Illinois University Press
Switchgrass Books
2280 Bethany Road
DeKalb, IL 60115
Dream Horse Press
The Orphic Prize for Poetry book prize
Guidelines & Information for 2010The postmark deadline for entries to the 2010 Orphic Prize for Poetry is Deadline has been changed to August 31, 2010. To enter, submit 48-80 paginated pages of poetry, table of contents, acknowledgments, bio, email address for results (No SASE; manuscripts will be recycled), and a $25.00 non-refundable fee for each manuscript entered. The winner is awarded $1000 and publication, plus 20 author copies. All entries will be considered for publication.All styles are welcome. Multiple submissions are acceptable. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but if your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere you must notify Dream Horse Press immediately. Fees are non-refundable. Judging will be anonymous; writers' names should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Please include your name and biographical information in a separate cover letter. Please be sure to include your email address. The winner is chosen by the owner, J.P. Dancing Bear. Close friends, students (former or present), and relatives of the the press owner are NOT eligible for the contest; their entry fees will be refunded.
The Orphic Prize for Poetry entries may be sent, following the guidelines above, to:
Dream Horse Press
P. O. Box 2080
Aptos, California 95001-2080Make checks payable to: Dream Horse Press
Or, you can now submit your manuscript in email, save on postage, paper, and envelopes by paying online:
The American Poetry Journal Book Prize
Guidelines & Information for 2011The postmark deadline for entries to the 2011 The American Poetry Journal Book Prize is February 28, 2011. To enter, submit 50-65 paginated pages of poetry, table of contents, acknowledgments, bio, email address for results (No SASEs; manuscripts will be recycled), and a $25.00 non-refundable fee for each manuscript entered. The winner will receive $1000, publication, and 20 copies. All entries will be considered for publication. All styles are welcome. Multiple submissions are acceptable. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable, but if your manuscript is accepted for publication elsewhere you must notify The American Poetry Journal and/or Dream Horse Press immediately. Fees are non-refundable. Judging will be anonymous; writers' names should not appear anywhere on the manuscript. Please include your name and biographical information in a separate cover letter. Please be sure to include your email address. The winner is chosen by the editor of The American Poetry Journal, J.P. Dancing Bear. Close friends, students (former or present), and relatives of the the editor are NOT eligible for the contest; their entry fees will be refunded.
The American Poetry Journal Book Prize entries may be sent, following the guidelines above, to:
The American Poetry Journal book prize
P. O. Box 2080
Aptos, California 95001-2080Please make checks payable to: Dream Horse Press.
Or, you can now submit your manuscript in email, save on postage, paper, and envelopes by paying online: email
Welcome to Changes In Life
You are invited too submit to an Inspirational Anthology: The Woman I've Become
Seeking women of all ages who have experienced challenging, negative, toxic and/or abusive relationships in the past and have overcome these situations to become the woman she was meant to be. Were you raised in an overly restrictive, negative, disempowering or abusive family? Did you find yourself in a challenging or toxic relationship with men, friends, co-workers or your children? How did those relationships define the "earlier you"? What was the turning point? Was there some person(s) or event(s) that facilitated your beginning and/or continuing on this journey to greater self understanding and self definition? Who is the woman you've become?
- Critria for Submission
- Name, age, email address, phone number (optional), mailing address, title of your submission on and a short bio on a title page; your name on all other pages
No actual name will be used-->- Minimum of 500 words; Maximum of 1,000 words
- Double spaced
- Submissions should be sent as an email attachment to grampat8@comcast.net
- Submission dead-line is September 30, 2010
- If you are unable to use attachments, you can either include the submission in the body of the email or snail mail it to:
- Changes In LIfe, Anthology
- 305 Anne Ct
- Prospect Heights, IL 60070
- If your submission is accepted you will receive a copy of the anthology once it is published
- * If you are interested in joining an ongoing larger community of women sharing their experiences, log on to changesinlife.wordpress.com
What I particularly appreciate about this recording is both the sophistication and the high professionalism of the ensemble. And, of equal if not greater importance, this is not just an assemblage of technicians reading tricky charts. Listen to the solos, they are wonderful. Special note to flautist Dadisi Komolafe who is the strongest I have heard on flute since Eric Dolphy. A number of the ensemble players are alumni of Horace Tapscott’s Pan Afrikan Arkestra, and my man Sunship Theus is ‘the’ West Coast trap drummer/percussion monster. Plus, I’ve got to at least mention keyboard maestro Nate Morgan Jr., smoking trombonist Charles Hamilton, and poet deserving of mucho recognition, K. Curtis Lyle (on“Nu Finitude, for Kwa Kwa”).
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There is a lot of artistry in how BETTYE LAVETTE sings. Indeed, unlike most pop artists in their sixties, she sounds better now than she did when she started. Back then she sounded similar to a bunch of other singers, both those who had made it and those who were “want-to-be-es,” just another beautiful body and attractive voice among many trying to be the next big thing. I believe the big difference is that today Bettye is singing out of the experience of being who she became, who she is today, rather than trying to sing like she used to be.
This is no retro celebration of old music, of bygone glory, but rather this is the sound of an esteemed elder singing the life lessons extracted from a long time on the hard road that is the misnamed yellow-brick-highway of the American dream. Bettye Lavette sings about surviving the slaughter of modern American life and debt; an inner-emotional-state that runs coast-to-coast, great lakes to gulf; a journey full of exorbitant emotional tolls and a myriad of unplanned detours; a life path full of roadhouses and very few final destinations, especially so when at first (and second, and third) you don’t succeed in reaching whatever you thought was your goal. This is the music that celebrates the reality of most of us.
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BUNNY WAILER, BOB MARLEY & PETER TOSH started off as one of the quintessential reggae vocal ensembles, The Wailers. After over ten years together, sharing the hard times and the lean times, and also after a critically acclaimed debut recording, Burnin’, the bond of friendship fractured. There are any number of theories about what the centre couldn’t hold—I’ve no interest whatsoever in doing an autopsy.
What I’m interested in is the magic that all three would come out with sterling albums in the same year. Moreover, while there is no doubt that Bob Marley is not only the major name in reggae, also he is unarguably the leading composer of reggae music, nevertheless, I am not alone in considering Bunny Wailer’s Blackheart Man the superior of the their respective 1976 recordings.
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In 1976 the former Wailers trio of Bunny Wailer, Bob Marley and Peter Tosh each issued a major album, we celebrate that moment. We also feature entrancing jazz from Ghasem Babamuntu and hard, modern blues from Bettye LaVette covering a wide range of music.
Ice Cube: “Comedy Is The Path Of Least Resistance For Black People In Hollywood”
The program is called Food For Thought, a BET product. In a nutshell, 3 hosts – Harry Allen, Stephen A. Smith and Angie Martinez – interview a celebrity guest. Last night’s episode featured Ice Cube; he talked about family, music, and, of course, movies. If you’re solely interested in the movie segment, it begins around the 9:15 mark. I like Harry Allen’s segments most; thoughtful questions. And did Ice really admit to peddling buffoonery? It’s nothing that we don’t already know. But usually, the stance is a defensive one; he just seems to flat out admit it! Well, don’t hate the player, hate the game, right?
h/t Nah Right
Vintage Bigot
July 12, 2010 · 19 Comments
John Oliver, a “correspondent” for the comedy news show, “The Daily with Jon Stewart,” has been filing these really funny, but also very illuminating–in fact the best–pieces of journalism from South Africa the last few weeks. (We’ve blogged about it here before.) Last week, he decided to focus on something else: he went in search of “race riots” or racism in South Africa. What follows is predictable. Oliver can’t “find” any race riots or racism as we see in the first 3 minutes of this clip. Oliver’s whole shtick is ridiculous, so we’re not surprised. (The most memorable moment comes when Oliver asks researcher Mapeete Mohale, from the not-radical South African Institute of Race Relations: “What should white people have to do to fully earn your hate?” Her answer: “I think they’ve done all that they can.”)
So the whole thing would be forgettable until Oliver–about 3:20 into the clip–cues an interview he had with one Dan Roodt.
Now for those who don’t know Roodt. He is a white, rightwing Afrikaner figure with some objectionable views. But Roodt refers to himself as an “intellectual” and wears fine cut suits. He regularly goes on about his opposition of “interbreeding” between “the races,” about blacks’ alleged propensity for criminal acts, his opposition to Affirmative Action, and how wonderful Apartheid was for the black majority, among other things. Occasionally Roodt clothes his racism in ambiguity. Despite all this Roodt is taken seriously by South Africa’s mainstream who deem him an intellectual or enjoy his shock tactics. He regularly gets invited onto mainstream panels, is the subject of soft-ball profile articles and is provided endless column spaces and TV time to express these objectionable views. Even bloggers who should know better defend his nonsense.
More recently, he has become a regular on foreign TV news programs (particularly in The Netherlands and Belgium, I understand) and in print media stories about the alleged victimhood of white South Africans. These outlets usually let Roodt off easy.
That’s until the Oliver interview.
Over, what Oliver describes as “the next two and a half hours” Roodt proceeds to mouth the most objectionable racist garbage and “vintage bigotry.” This leads Oliver to conclude that what he had experienced was “… a tasting tour of some of the finest examples of bigotry.”
I found it astonishing that Roodt, who styles himself as somewhat web savvy (he runs an online magazine), appeared to have no clue who Oliver was or the point of The Daily Show.
Maybe because it is not broadcast in Afrikaans.
But that’s beside the point. The video has now gone viral. Roodt is on record now and there’s nothing sophisticated or ambiguous about the stuff he said.
– Sean Jacobs
13 July 2010 Last updated at 05:45 ETHow much damage has the BP oil spill done?
There have been many devastating images from the Gulf
In the months since the start of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico there have been harrowing images of birds coated in oil and dead dolphins, but just what do we know about the scale of the environmental damage done?
WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO THE OIL?
"The good news is that oil is a natural product and is relatively easily degraded," says Prof Ed Overton, an environmental scientist at Louisiana State University.
Some of the oil will be picked up by skimmers
Oil which has not been dispersed or washed up on shore will be targeted by microbes.
"They use the oil as a food," says Prof Overton.
There is an advantage in that the spill happened in the warm Gulf of Mexico, where conditions are good for decomposition. In colder climes, things can be harder.
"Contrast that with Exxon Valdez where you still have beaches where you can kick over cobblestones and still have pools of oil beneath them," says Stan Senner, director of conservation science for Ocean Conservancy.
"In the Gulf of Mexico it is a different environment. There is some greater capacity for that environment to handle hydrocarbons."
But that is not to say the oil will totally vanish.
There may be oil which becomes buried on shore, and oil may end up at the bottom of the sea in anaerobic areas - places where there is no oxygen to allow the microbes to do their work.
"We have never seen these clouds or plumes of oil dispersed in tiny droplets in the water," says Mr Senner. "We don't know how much is ending up on the bottom. Onshore, we don't know how much is being buried."
WHAT WILL THE EFFECT BE ON THE WETLANDS?
The oil can be deadly to both plants and animals, as can be seen in this audio slideshow.
The Gulf Coast's wetlands are home to a diverse range of wildlife
"The wetlands that are already impacted, if only the stems and the grass you see on the surface are affected then the recovery will be within one or two years," says Dr Larry McKinney, director of the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies.
"If the oil has penetrated down to the roots, then you are going to lose those areas altogether. [Wetlands] will go to open water and will never recover."
It's hard at this juncture to tell what the eventual effect will be on the northern Gulf Coast's habitat.
"A coating on the leaves will kill the leaves but it doesn't necessarily kill the plant," says Prof Overton.
WILL ANIMAL LIFE RECOVER?
"With events like this their impacts occur in different phases," says Mr Senner. First there is the initial wave of deaths, the animals that get covered in oil and die.
Longer-lived animal populations will take years to recover
The death toll Mr Senner is aware of already includes a "thousand bird carcasses - half of them are oiled, others are just carcasses, a few hundred turtles, 50 or so dolphins".
But those small numbers reflect the fact that only a small percentage of carcasses are recovered.
"The assumption is that the actual mortality rate is many times what has been recovered," says Mr Senner. "The rule of thumb for the bird carcasses is that they find one in 10, but that could be low."
The question everybody will be asking is how quickly can animal numbers return to normal. It all depends on the life span of the animal.
In the Ixtoc spill of 1979, there was a 60-70% reduction in shrimp in the year of the spill, but they were back to normal within one or two years, says Dr McKinney.
Then there are longer-lived animals like dolphins, whale sharks and sea turtles. If a single generation has been largely wiped out, numbers might not fully recover for 10-20 years.
And then there are the truly long-lived organisms.
"For deepwater solitary coral communities, their lifespan is in hundreds of years," says Dr McKinney.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
Continue reading the main story
- What will the effect of widespread use of the dispersant Corexit be?
- Will migrating birds be severely affected?
- How much oil has actually been spilled?
- How much is buried in fragile wetland habitats?
- What is the effect of oil on deep-sea ecosystems?
They could potentially be vulnerable to the oil or to patches of oxygen-depleted water created by the oil-eating microbes. When the microbes degrade the oil, oxygen is used up and carbon dioxide is produced.
Dr McKinney is worried about "huge clouds of low-oxygen oil dispersant mix, [which is] methane-heavy".
The plus side for fish stocks on the other hand is that, severe as the damage might be, it will be mitigated by the break in fishing.
"They have closed such large areas of the Gulf that the pressure has been reduced," says Dr McKinney. "Reducing the fishing pressure will allow more fish to remain alive and reproduce."
So stocks of fish like red snapper could be back to normal within two to four years.
But, the effect of the spill on species that are already under immense pressure - like Atlantic bluefin tuna - could be severe.
HOW WILL ECOSYSTEMS BE CHANGED?
"In ecosystems, when you wipe out large segments of them, the ecosystem responds to the absence of those things and other things come in to take their place and you don't return to the way things were," says Mr Senner. "Ecosystems are always dynamic. What we see in the Gulf of Mexico is an ecosystem that already had a number of stresses on it."
Some animals and plants may be badly affected by the disruption of the spill and not regain their previous place in the ecosystem once conditions return to normal. But they will be replaced by other organisms.
THE UNKNOWN
A lot of the thinking about the effects of the BP oil spill is informed by the work done following the Ixtoc spill of 1979.
But there are some aspects of the latest spill about which scientists find it hard even to speculate.
Marine biologists will admit that not a great deal is known about the effects of oil on organisms in deep water.
"We know almost nothing about the ecology in the deep ocean," says Prof Overton.
It may offer only a crumb of comfort, but the 2010 spill will one day provide that knowledge.
Six more cops indicted in Danziger Bridge shootings, coverup
Published: Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 11:50 AM Updated: Tuesday, July 13, 2010, 3:01 PM
Six current or former New Orleans police officers are the latest to be indicted in the sprawling civil rights investigation into shootings on the Danziger Bridge and a subsequent conspiracy to cover up what happened. Two people died and four were injured in the tragic incident that happened in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.
Three of the officers turned themselves into the FBI today.
Frank DeSalvo, the attorney representing Sgt. Kenneth Bowen, said his client, along with officer Anthony Villavaso and Sgt. Robert Gisevius, surrendered after learning that former officer Robert Faulcon had been arrested at his home in Texas early this morning.
Also indicted by a federal grand jury were homicide Detectives Sgt. Arthur Kaufman and former Sgt. Gerard Dugue, according to the 27-count indictment unsealed today.
There is no word yet today on whether Kaufman and Dugue are in federal custody.
After several years of investigations, DeSalvo said his client and the other defendants want to get their day in court.
"They have been in limbo for five years," DeSalvo said. "They want the jury to decide." Bowen, Villavaso and Gisevius have all been on desk duty since they were indicted in 2006.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is expected to discuss the developments at a 2:15 p.m. press conference in New Orleans. The officers are charged with deprivation of civil rights under color of law, as well as other charges, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, making false statements and the use of a weapon during the commission of a crime of violence.
The charges break down this way:
- Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso are all charged with a civil rights violation for shooting James Brissette, a 17-year-old killed on the eastern side of the bridge, as well as for injuring members of the Bartholomew family.
- Faulcon is charged with a civil rights violation for killing Ronald Madison, a mentally disabled man who was shot in the back with a shotgun. Bowen is also charged with a civil rights violation for kicking and stomping Madison after he had already been fatally wounded by Faulcon.
- All six men are charged with the cover-up, accused of conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements to investigators.
Holder is in town for a Justice Department conference on gang prevention and is scheduled to speak there a little beforehand.
Four of the arrested men -- Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso -- were part of the so-called "Danziger 7," officers indicted by a state grand jury in Dec. 2006 on charges of murder and attempted murder.
The officers were accused of shooting six people on the bridge over the Industrial Canal on Sept. 4, 2005.
The state case against the seven officers accused of firing their weapons that day eventually was dismissed. Former Criminal District Court Judge Raymond Bigelow agreed with defense attorney arguments that prosecutor errors invalidated the case.
But federal investigators subsequently picked up the investigation in the fall of 2008, resulting in a string of guilty pleas earlier this year. NOPD officers have acknowledged participating in what prosecutors have portrayed as a wide-ranging cover-up that began moments after the shooting stopped.
Among the guilty pleas have been three officers originally indicted as part of the state case: former Officers Michael Hunter, Robert Barrios and Ignatius Hills. Two men who arrived at the bridge after the shooting and helped lead the investigation have also pleaded guilty to orchestrating the cover-up: former Lt. Michael Lohman and former Officer Jeffrey Lehrmann.
But throughout the spring, attorneys for the remaining officers have asserted their innocence, saying the involved officers fired their weapons because they had to. Attorneys have also asserted their clients did not cover-up what prosecutors have called a "bad shoot."
Attorney General Eric Holder will discuss the civil rights probe at a press conference Tuesday afternoon.
The Danziger Bridge shootings were prompted by a radio call from an officer on the Interstate 10 highrise, who reported to police at the makeshift 7th District station that they were taking fire. The officer who called in the distress signal at some point mentioned that there were officers "down under" the nearby Danziger Bridge, language apparently interpreted by police to mean some officers had been shot.
A group of officers staying at the Crystal Palace banquet hall drove in a Budget rental truck to the Danziger Bridge, encountering a group of people walking on Chef Menteur Highway over the bridge from eastern New Orleans to Gentilly.
Attorneys for the police have always asserted that the officers shot at this group of people after first taking fire.
But in guilty plea documents filed in federal court, prosecutors have painted a different picture, saying that none of the civilians had weapons. No guns allegedly belonging to civilians were ever recovered from the scene. Officers who have pleaded guilty have stated that not long after the shooting stopped, they realized the shooting was not legitimate.
Four people were injured on the eastern side of the Danziger Bridge: Susan Bartholomew, who was then 38 years old, as well as her 44-year-old husband, Leonard Bartholomew III. Their teenage daughter, Lesha Bartholomew, was injured, as was a nephew, Jose Holmes.
A friend of Holmes, 17-year-old James Brissette, was killed. The Bartholomew's youngest child, Leonard Bartholomew IV, ran away and was not injured.
As the Bartholomews were shot by police on the eastern side of the bridge, two other men were walking up the bridge, also heading to Gentilly. Lance Madison and his brother, Ronald, were trying to get back to their brother's dentist office at the foot of the bridge.
According to the guilty plea of Michael Hunter, a group of officers followed the two men in a state police vehicle that had also responded to the radio call for help. Hunter said that a man who fits the description of Faulcon fired his shotgun from the car at the back of fleeing Ronald Madison, even though Hunter said he didn't appear to be holding a weapon.
Madison, a 40-year-old mentally disabled man, died from his injuries. His brother, Lance Madison, was arrested that day, accused of shooting at police officers. Prosecutors have called that arrest part of the scheme to cover-up the shooting, saying he was innocent of any wrongdoing.
In court documents, officers fitting the descriptions of Bowen and Gisevius -- called "Sergeant A" and "Sergeant B" -- are suspected of having helped orchestrate the alleged cover-up. Prosecutors have also accused Bowen of firing an assault rifle at people on the eastern side of the bridge, even after all officers stopped shooting and it was clear that police were not taking fire.
The Danziger case is one of at least eight ongoing federal civil rights investigations into the actions of NOPD officers, many stemming from the period after Katrina.
Three officers and two former officers were indicted last month in a different case, which accuses police of shooting a man in Algiers and then covering up the incident. The body of that man, Henry Glover, was burned in a car later discovered on the Algiers levee.
Lance Madison, shown at the Danziger Bridge in June 2006, has filed a lawsuit charging that New Orleans police on Sept. 4, 2005, falsely arrested him and shot and killed his brother, Ronald, who was mentally retarded.
Ronald Madison, with one of his family's dogs, died after being shot on the Danziger Bridge. Police accounts say he sustained one gunshot wound, while two different autopsies show he was hit with seven bullets.
The New Orleans Police Department's official account of the events on the Danziger Bridge, Sept. 4, 2005, says Ronald Madison, the "unidentified gunman," received one gunshot wound before dying, but autopsy reports (below) show he was shot seven times.
Further fact-checking also revealed that two officers were never down at the scene, the cause of the original call, and that the main complainant David Ryder, identified as a St. Landry Parish deputy sheriff, was in fact a private citizen helping with post-Katrina rescues.
The Madison family lawyer notes that the final lines of the original New Orleans Police Department Gist Sheet describing the Danziger Bridge incident were added by a different person. He says the police are trying to frame Lance Madison. In sworn testimony, the NOPD's Sgt. Arthur Kaufman said he added the lines to the report later because "I was told that by one of the other officers."
The autopsy of Ronald Madison conducted by Dr. James Traylor of the New Orleans Coroner's Office found seven gunshot wounds -- five to the back.
Three federal civil-rights lawsuits charge that a group of New Orleans police officers gunned down unarmed, innocent citizens in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina.
The lawsuits focus on an incident that happened on a bridge in east New Orleans. Two people were killed, including a mentally retarded man shot in the back; two others were maimed.
The police say they were firing in self-defense. Now, a grand jury has begun looking into the shooting.
It's come to be known as the Danziger Bridge incident.
At 9 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 4, six days after Katrina, police received a Signal 108: Two officers down, under the concrete lift bridge that spans the Industrial Canal.
Seven officers rushed to the scene.
Police say when they arrived, at least four people were shooting at them from the base of the bridge. Officers took positions and returned fire. The official police report identifies two sets of gunmen going up the east side of the half-mile-long bridge.
The investigation hinges on whether these people were the shooters, as the police maintain, or whether they were innocent civilians in the wrong place at the wrong time, as the lawsuits claim.
'I Didn't Do Anything Wrong'
One of the suspects, Lance Madison, has been arrested and charged with eight counts of attempted murder against police officers.
"I didn't do anything wrong, and I had no reason to be arrested. I was up here trying to seek help for me and my little brother, trying to evacuate from the devastation going on down here," says Madison, a 49-year-old former college wide receiver, standing at the foot of the bridge where the incident occurred.
Police say Madison and another perpetrator were firing at officers as they ran up the bridge.
Madison, a 25-year employee of Federal Express, has no criminal record and is a member of a respected New Orleans family.
The man he was with — referred to by the police as "the unidentified gunman" — was his brother, 40-year-old Ronald, who had mental retardation. His family describes him as a childlike soul who loved the family's two dachshunds and watched Three Stooges videos.
From One Tragedy to Another
Lance says that on that Sunday morning, he and Ronald — their homes flooded — were crossing the bridge on their way to another brother's dental office where they were staying after the storm.
Lance says there was a group of teenagers near the bridge shooting at people. He says that when the police arrived, they never identified themselves before opening fire.
"And we just kept running up the bridge, and that's when I noticed one of the guy's jumped out of the truck had a rifle pointing towards me and my little brother, and shot my brother in the right shoulder," Madison says.
Police say an officer saw Lance toss a handgun into the canal. Lance says neither he nor Ronald was armed.
The police report says that when the pair reached the other side of the bridge, an officer approached Ronald. At that point, the report continues, Ronald reached toward his waist and turned toward the officer, who shot him dead with one bullet.
Autopsy findings refute the police assertion. The pathologist found that Ronald Madison had seven gunshot wounds — five of them in his back.
"He was like the sunshine of our family. We really miss him. It's just unbelievable what happened. And I hope nobody has to go through what we've been through," Madison says.
But the second group on the Danziger Bridge that morning went through a similar ordeal.
Another Family's Ordeal
According to the police account, six other individuals ran up the bridge, jumped behind a low concrete barrier onto a walkway, and fired at officers.
Police say that group was the Bartholomew family: Leonard Sr., a longtime employee of the New Orleans Sewerage and Water Board; his wife, Susan; their teenage son and daughter; their nephew; and his friend.
The family contends that they were unarmed, and that they had been stranded by the storm and were walking to a Winn-Dixie supermarket for supplies.
"I never thought I'd be shot. And I never thought I'd be shot by the police. I thought the police were there to protect," says Susan Bartholomew, speaking publicly about the incident for the first time.
Her statement echoes Lance Madison's — that officers opened fire without warning. Five out of six people in her group were hit. Terrified, Bartholomew says, they took cover behind the concrete barrier on the side of the bridge.
"When I look, we're all on the ground and all you can see is blood. Everywhere. You can hear everybody hollering, moaning, everybody been shot and in pain," Bartholomew says.
"My right arm was on the ground lying next to me," she recalls. "The only thing that was attached to it was a piece of skin. It had been shot off."
The interview with Bartholomew took place in a Texas city she asked not be named, because she fears retaliation. The slight woman, who wore a crucifix around her neck, had a gray sweater draped over the stump of her right arm.
She says that after the gunfire, officers ran onto the bridge, pointed weapons at them, and told them not to look up. But she says she clearly saw blue shirts emblazoned with "NOPD."
Bartholomew's basic account was confirmed by her nephew, Jose Holmes, a 19-year-old high school dropout who works at McDonald's. His police record shows two minor, noncriminal charges.
Holmes says a bullet struck him in the right arm, shattering his bone. As he cowered behind the low concrete wall, he says a police officer walked over to him.
"He leaned over the cement block, he put the rifle to my stomach and shot me twice. They left, and about a minute later, an ambulance came and picked us up," Holmes says in an interview at a house in Atlanta, where he's staying temporarily.
Hospital and paramedic records confirm that Holmes had four gunshot wounds, including two to his abdomen. He now wears a colostomy bag and has limited use of his right hand.
Police say they shot and killed another member of that group. The Bartholomew family says it was Holmes' friend, James Barset, a 19-year-old high school senior from New Orleans' Ninth Ward.
"I'm sure if they got any kind of a heart, that they realize that what they did was wrong. And it's something they can't call back. And lives are changed as a result. My arm is missing, and I have to live with this, and I can't help but see it every day," Bartholomew says.
"Only thing I can do is try to forgive these people and move on. And that's what I've been trying to do," she says.
Families Dispute Police Reports
Fact-checking the police report reveals that critical information is wrong:
— First, there were never two officers down at the scene, the cause of the original call.
— Second, the main complainant is a man named David Ryder who was posing that day as a St. Landry Parish deputy sheriff. He is the person who identified Lance Madison as a shooter. But Ryder isn't an officer; he's a private citizen from Opelousas, La., who drove to New Orleans after Katrina to help out with rescues.
— Finally, records show that Ronald Madison, who was mentally retarded since birth, was shotseven times, not once, as the police say.
Police Superintendent Warren Riley, through his spokesman, declined repeated requests for an interview. His office referred questions to the Orleans Parish District Attorney, which is investigating the incident.
"Anytime there's a shooting involving law-enforcement officials actually involving a death in this instance, it's something that's very serious, and we want to determine if there is any criminal conduct involved," says District Attorney Eddie Jordan.
Police, 'Overwhelmed' by Katrina, Under Investigation
The Danziger Bridge incident needs to be understood in the context of a major American city that had disintegrated.
"The New Orleans Police Department was overwhelmed," says Anthony Radosti, vice president of the Metropolitan Crime Commission and a former 23-year veteran investigator with the New Orleans police.
"Radio communication was at a minimum. [The police] felt isolated, abandoned. They had no place to live or sleep. Rumors were just wild. Sniper fire, armed individuals on the street. And in some cases, that information was true," Radosti says.
An Arkansas paramedic who rode to the Danziger Bridge with police that morning told NPR that officers were involved in a five-minute gunbattle. He heard people shooting back, but he says he was hiding and he couldn't see who they were.
Radosti sympathizes with embattled officers who were trying to take back their city — up to a point.
"But aggressive law enforcement has to come with common sense. If the officers there acted with good faith, the grand jury is going to exonerate them. But if the officers acted in bad faith, playing cowboys, that has to be seriously looked at," he says.
The district attorney has not indicated whether he will prosecute Lance Madison. Jose Holmes was never arrested, even though police said he was a shooter.
Meanwhile, attorneys for Madison, Holmes and the Bartholomew family last month filed federal civil-rights lawsuits against the city regarding the Danziger Bridge incident.
>via: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6063982
