***updated with photo/links…Shawn Wasson at Bare Knuckle Politics has the video/police department comment on criminal investigation…***

Caught on tape:

Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.

There will be a criminal investigation, and the three officers were to be suspended, arrested and charged with simple battery Sunday, Capt. Marlon Defillo said.

“We have great concern with what we saw this morning,” Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. “It’s a troubling tape, no doubt about it. … This department will take immediate action.”

The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resignation last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.

The APTN tape shows an officer hitting the man at least four times in the head Saturday night as he stood outside a bar near Bourbon Street. The suspect, Robert Davis, appeared to resist, twisting and flailing as he was dragged to the ground by four officers. One of the four then kneed Davis and punched him twice. Davis was face-down on the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.

Meanwhile, a fifth officer ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials and explained he was working, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.

Take anything reported by AP with a grain of salt, of course. But this does not look good:

More photos/video stills here.

Meanwhile, the NOPD is being investigated for this:

Louisiana officials are looking into allegations that New Orleans police officers stole Cadillacs from a dealer as Hurricane Katrina closed in.
At first, the city’s police chief said officers were using the cars for patrols. He said that was not looting. Now the department will only say it is cooperating with the state investigation.

The Cadillac dealer president says more than 150 cars were taken, including 88 new Cadillacs and Chevys, used cars and customers’ cars and two restored classic cars. Doug Stead says that amounts to more than four (m) million dollars in losses.

He says the cars recovered so far have various amounts of damage.

Remember: The NOPD doesn’t call it “looting” when its own employees do it. It’s
“appropriation of non-essential items during the height of Katrina, from businesses.”

And there’s this new report:

One of the 73 people listed as victims of Hurricane Katrina was actually shot by police.

Officer Ronald Mitchell shot and killed Danny Brumfield, 45, outside the convention center, the New Orleans Police Department confirmed Friday. Police said it happened about 2 a.m. Sept. 3, in the darkness before the National Guard arrived and began evacuating the convention center.

A police statement released after the Associated Press asked about the shooting said that moments after Mitchell and his partner heard what appeared to be a gunshot, a man jumped onto the hood of their patrol car swinging something shiny. It was attempted murder of a police officer, a four-paragraph news release said.

That wasn’t what happened, say Brumfield’s daughter, Shantan Brumfield, and his niece Africa Brumfield, both of whom were there and both of whom the Associated Press interviewed by phone.

They say the officer who shot Brumfield had hit him twice with a squad car before doing so — a nudge the first time, a heavier bump the second. That was when he leaped onto the hood and was shot, they said. Afterward, they said, the car ran over him, and other officers didn’t come to investigate for several hours.

The police force is such a mess that thousands of National Guard troops may stay in New Orleans until March to regain control of the city.

No wonder former police superintendent Eddie Compass tucked tail and ran.

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Euphemism of the day
The New Orleans police meltdown
The New Orleans P.D. meltdown