BillyGoatGruff said:
This came from an email that was forwarded to a friend of mine from NO from someone we both knew back in NO who works for the paper of record there.
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"They may have downplayed the violence that happened here but happen it did. Charmaine Neville was raped on the roof of her shelter. Later stole a bus and took as many away from that shelter as she could. A N.O. Saint who lived in the east personally saw a man shot in the head for his car. and those special ops forces were brought in just to deal with the gangs. They had one order - exterminate. And they did. 2 gangs had joined forces and were so well organized they had walkie talkies and a complete blue print of the areas they were going to hit. The special forces got to them first and not one person who knows about this regrets it or feels sorry for them."
I'm not sure how much of Charmaine Nevilles story I believe. She says she personally escorted two women with no legs in wheel chairs to higher safer ground through water filled with dead babies and alligators plus led dozens of other people to higher ground, all the while she's saving these other woman in the water and says the people shooting at helicopters were only trying to get their attention, not out of anger or anything. She may have been raped but I'm still pondering the other things she has said.
Her story actually reminds me of that teenaged boy who stole a school bus, gathered folks on the way to houston, only to be denied entrance to the shelter there then arrested for stealing the bus!
The special ops mentioned were just plain ol reserve units. They may be thinking of the security group BATS, Bodyguard And Tactical Services, from Alabama that is a private security firm brought in by a big cat, Quinn, over federal contracts. But that wasn't right after Katrina. The ones there with guns were national guard units. And yes, they shot people, but these people had assault rifles and ak47s. I'd shoot too! They reported the shoot outs.
The gangs haven't left either. There are some areas you don't even drive through. LaPlace being one that is being over run with Mexican gangs now. They pay illigeals to come in and work. I have personally seen at least one whole block that looks like something out of a movie set with houses that are half finished with about 10 or more living in one house, garbage everywhere, debris like waterlogged cars sitting everywhere and shootings nearly every night. There is a drag queen gang on Magazine street, still, and I feel in my bones that MS-13 has a presence there.
While folks talk about signs...yippee!, there are some areas so blighted that even hard core residents refuse to even consider going there in the daytime.
Traffic is a joke! Takes over an hour to cross the causeway, street signs are still down, regardless of what they are saying, corruption is rampant with contractors bringing in mexicans to work for them and either stealing the money, the supplies or both and leaving. The mexicans then have no place to go, no job and not enough of a business presence alive to hire them. Contractors stealing money from people only to change their names and do it again in a new area. House prices are just sickening. I have family that can't even afford to come back to school because they can't afford rent.
It's just a huge mess. Yes, it's only been a year with most of it taken up with removing debris from 30,000 homes and businesses and I understand that it will take years before it gets better, but the in fighting in the government and with FEMA esp needs to stop!
It just stinks! On one hand, we need the tourist money so I understand why the French Quarter is up and running, slowly, on the other, we have a hard time finding simple things like food on a reg basis unless we go out of the city and who wants to go 90 miles to Baton Rouge for groceries? My husband stood in line the other night at wal mart for over 2 hours for three items of food. It's like that every minute of the day there. Sigh
My husband and his co workers have been in FEMA trailers since Jan. We are trying to find a house, but the others are fighting to get their houses fixed. They never left, have been working on co workers homes yet can't get the money to fix their own. It's like they paid insurance for no reason. Yet others come in and claim false claims and get checks in 3 weeks! Crazy I tell ya! Sorry, didn't meant to highjack your thread.
