What can one say but … Charles Pierce. This happened in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina:

One of the things that the country looked at briefly, and then determined that it would look upon it no longer, because what it meant was that the country’s anesthetic lies had lost their potency, occurred on September 4, 2005 on the Danziger Bridge, which carries US-90 (Thanks commenter Bobby Dupont.) across the city’s Industrial Canal. That night, a group of lawless New Orleans Police, all pretense of maintaining civic order literally thrown to the winds, rolled up in a Budget rental truck on a group of citizens who had taken shelter behind some concrete barriers near the bridge and committed an act of unimaginable official terrorism. The cops leaped from the truck and opened fire. Officer Robert Faulcon blew away with a shotgun blast one Ronald Madison, Jr., a 40-year old mentally-challenged man. Faulcon shot Madison in the back. Sgt. Kenneth Bowen jumped out of the front seat of the truck and sprayed the area with an AK-47. Sgt. Robert Gisevius, Jr. jumped out of the back of the truck and opened up with an M-4, while Anthony Villavaso II let go with his own AK. Somewhere in the storm of bullets, another man named James Brissette was killed, too. Four others were wounded.

After the shooting, the cops concocted a plan to cover up what they did. A sergeant named Archie Kaufman, the lead police investigator into the events at the bridge, helped them do it. Evidence was faked. Fraudulent reports were filed. Most of this barbering was done to further the notion that the police had been under fire, in deadly danger, and that the fusillade was unleashed in self-defense against a mob from a city that had become barbarous.

But the Trayvon Martin shooting was an anomaly! And hoodies!

The NOLA police involved were all found guilty, eventually, and this week they were sentenced. Almost seven years later.

Going back and reading earlier stories of the incident, there really is a resemblance to the aftermath of the Trayvn Martin shooting. There was a claim the shooting was in self-defense (later found to be bogus); little care was taken to collect or or preserve evidence properly; the local police seemed to have no interest in investigating or prosecuting anyone.

A state grand jury brought indictments two years after the shooting. The FBI was called in and were still investigating five years after the shooting.

I certainly don’t think all police are capable of this, but … anomaly, my ass. This shows us why it is not at all unreasonable to suspect a police cover up whenever white on black violence goes unprosecuted.

This is from last year’s trial testimony, btw:

After the barrage of bullets stopped, while Susan Bartholomew was lying on a concrete walkway of the Danziger Bridge, the men shooting at Bartholomew’s family ordered her to raise her hands.

But Bartholomew recalled realizing that would be impossible.

“I couldn’t do it, because my arm was shot off,” she said softly. “I raised the only hand I had.”

The good news is that most of the perps got long prison sentences. The bad news s we haven’t seemed to learn anything.