New Orleans cops lose credentials 18 years after Katrina shooting
A Louisiana police oversight board on Thursday permanently revoked the credentials of four former New Orleans officers convicted of their roles in killing unarmed civilians on a bridge in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina nearly 20 years ago.
The board, the Peace Officer Standards and Training Council, decertified former officers Robert Faulcon Jr. and Anthony Villavaso, as well as two former sergeants, Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius, for their role in opening fire on six New Orleans residents, two of whom died, on the Danziger Bridge just days after the levees broke and then orchestrated a sweeping cover-up.
Another sergeant, Arthur Kaufman, was stripped of his credentials for his role in covering up what happened.
Bob Wertz, a training manager with the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement, the overarching body of the police board, said officers convicted of felonies should be automatically referred to the agency for revocation.
However, several factors, including a 2017 change in the law on who qualifies for decertification and a delay in processing during the coronavirus pandemic, contributed to a lengthy delay in stripping the former officers of their credentials, Mr Wertz said.
The brutal violence and deception that followed the bridge shooting was just one of many instances of police brutality in the weeks before and after Hurricane Katrina that led to the U.S. Justice Department’s investigation into the New Orleans Police Department and the execution by a federal consent decree — the government’s preferred method of overhauling troubled police departments — which is still in effect.
Prosecutors had argued that Mr. Bowen, Mr. Gisevius, Mr. Villavaso and Mr. Faulcon had run to the bridge in a truck on September 4, 2005, in response to an emergency call from another officer.
Some of them were armed with assault rifles, while others had a shotgun or semi-automatic pistol.
Prosecutors said the officers immediately opened fire on members of a family walking towards a grocery store in the largely deserted town.
The officers shot James Brissette, 17, a friend of the family, several times, killing him and seriously wounding four others. The officers continued firing as the family members hurried to safety.
Several officers then pursued Ronald and Lance Madison, two brothers, who were on their way to check a dental office that belonged to their oldest brother.
Mr Faulcon shot and killed Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man with an intellectual disability, in the back with a shotgun and stamped on his back as he lay dying, prosecutors said.
No weapons were recovered at the scene and witnesses – both officers and civilians – stated that the victims were unarmed.
The cover-up began immediately, prosecutors said.
Several officers gathered in an abandoned police station to make sure their stories were consistent.
Lance Madison was arrested at the scene and charged with the attempted murder of a police officer. A grand jury later acquitted him of the charges.
The officers were convicted on 25 counts in 2011, including federal civil rights violations related to the two deaths.
A year later, the four officers directly involved in the shooting – Mr Bowen, Mr Gisevius, Mr Villavaso and Mr Faulcon – were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 38 to 65 years.
Prosecutors argued that Mr. Kaufman, who was charged with investigating the shooting, instead helped direct efforts to cover up what happened. He was sentenced to six years.
But the setbacks for the prosecution quickly piled up.
A federal judge, citing prosecutorial misconduct, ordered a new trial for the five officers, who eventually pleaded guilty and received significantly reduced sentences from three to 12 years.
According to prison records, Mr. Kaufman and Mr. Villavaso released. Mr. Bowen, Mr. Gisevius and Mr. Faulcon remain captive.
In 2016, New Orleans announced a $13.3 million settlement over three major police brutality cases from the weeks before and after Hurricane Katrina, including the Danziger Bridge murders.
In an interview, Sherrel Johnson, Mr. Brissette’s mother, said she couldn’t believe it had taken so long for the officers who killed her son to revoke their credentials.
Ms. Johnson said that Mr. Brissette was about to enter his senior year of high school when he was killed, and he had passed a Marine entrance exam.
Instead, Mr. Brissette’s body lay on the bridge with a tarp over it for three days, she said. There were so many bullet wounds in her son’s body that officials eventually stopped counting, she said.
“I think about it every day,” she says. “Sometimes I have to hold back my tears and say to myself, ‘No, no, no. You can not do that. It makes me sick,” Ms Johnson said. “After all these years it will still make me sick. The depth of the pain is so deep, it’s so deep inside me, some days I don’t know what to do.