Stunning Editorial from Nola Newspaper
 

Editorial: Where is the cavalry?

New Orleans needs a show of force. Now.

Until the city is inundated with law enforcement officers from every level of government, the anarchy of the past three days will only worsen. More stores will be ransacked. More cars and bicycles will be stolen. More fights will break out over water, the most precious commodity in the aftermath of Katrina.

Only Wednesday did police officers from across the state start to appear on city streets, and then only sporadically. National Guard troops were working in parts of the city, but the beleaguered residents left in this drenched city need the troops on every corner. That is the only way to curb looting, robberies and worse. The lawlessness was intensifying to horrific levels Wednesday. Some residents said armed gangs were terrorizing people up and down Chef Menteur Highway in eastern New Orleans. There were reports of rapes and murders. In other parts of the city, looters became more and more brazen. One looter used a forklift to rip the metal security doors off a drugstore near Carrollton Avenue. At the Sports Authority in Riverside Marketplace, police had removed guns and ammunition and boarded up the place at noon. But looters broke through the plywood at 2 p.m. and stole every knife.

Not all the looting was so mercenary. Some people were taking only essentials: food, water, dry clothes.

The lack of a law enforcement presence is stunning. It is apparent that no one -- neither New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass nor state and federal officials -- were prepared for what would come after Katrina had passed through.

Not only did they not have basic communication plans in place locally, there seems to have been no strategy to get the hundreds of military and law enforcement officers on the ground who were needed to establish order immediately.

The city police officers who are on the streets don't know what the overarching strategy is and have had little or no communication with top brass.

Of course, this sort of horrific event is far beyond the ability of any single law enforcement agency. But that should have been obvious from the time Katrina entered the Gulf.

Virtually everyone involved in public safety has failed the people left in New Orleans who are trying desperately to survive.

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Do you think having 5000 Louisiana National Guardmen in Iraq is worsening the problem?