Cruising through the top-linked blogs in the Ecosystem today, I found this:
Yesterday the Chief said that not only had no bodies of children been found at the Convention Center, there was “no evidence of sexual assaults” either. So the Chief “acknowledged” that rapes had occured at the Convention Center and Dome on Thursday, but denied it on Friday. There’s something wrong with either the Times’ report or the Chief’s accounts. Whichever it is, it is newsworthy: What happened at both locations, in both categories, to the best of the authorities knowledge? Can at least one reporter from MSM write a straight story covering those facts? Or are those numbers so elusive as to render such reporting meaningless now, though it was no so earlier in the crisis?
Hugh Hewitt, MSM-Induced Hysteria, Sept. 4, 2005.
If you follow Mr. Hewitt’s link to the Daily Advertiser, you find:
Conditions at the Convention Center may not have been as bad as initially thought, said New Orleans Police Chief Eddie Compass.
He said no bodies of children have been found and there has also been no evidence of sexual assaults.
“News From Your Town,” The Daily Advertiser, Sept. 10, 2005
Mr. Hewitt also links an article in the TheAdvocate.com out of Baton Rouge:
Soldiers also hauled the last of the bodies out of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
[snip]
Compass also denied reports that dead children have been found in the city’s convention center, where more than 20,000 evacuees were held until last weekend.
“Body recovery begins, First sweep fails to find huge number of corpses,” The Advocate.com, Sept. 10, 2005.
CNN says the same thing:
Police reject ‘vicious rumors’ of dead children; no confirmed sexual assaults
NEW ORLEANS (CNN) — New Orleans Police Superintendent Eddie Compass rejected what he called “vicious rumors” Friday that bodies of dead children had been found inside the convention center, where Hurricane Katrina evacuees stayed for days.
“We have swept the entire convention center,” he said, and no children were found dead. Also, he said, there were “no confirmed reports of any type of sexual assault.”
For days, the convention center and the Superdome were scenes of chaos, as lawlessness gripped much of the city. Evacuees described instances of violence including sexual assault. (Posted 1:02 p.m.)
CNN, The latest on Katrina’s aftermath, September 7, 2005
These statements are at odds with this report, to which I linked on Sept. 6, 2005.
Arkansas National Guardsman Mikel Brooks stepped through the food service entrance of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Monday, flipped on the light at the end of his machine gun, and started pointing out bodies.
“Don’t step in that blood – it’s contaminated,” he said. “That one with his arm sticking up in the air, he’s an old man.” Then he shined the light on the smaller human figure under the white sheet next to the elderly man.
“That’s a kid,” he said. “There’s another one in the freezer, a 7-year-old with her throat cut.”
[snip]
One of the bodies, they said, was a girl they estimated to be 5 years old. Though they could not confirm it, they had heard she was gang-raped.
“There was an old lady that said the little girl had been raped by two or three guys, and that she had told another unit. But they said they couldn’t do anything about it with all the people there,” Brooks said. “I would have put him in cuffs, stuck him in the freezer and left him there.”
“Mayor says Katrina may have claimed more than 10,000 lives, Bodies found piled in freezer at Convention Center,” by Brian Thevenot, Times-Picayune staff writer, Tuesday, Sept. 06, 2005.
From Thevenot’s account, he and Mikel Brooks saw the remains of “a girl,” “estimated to be 5 years old” lying under a sheet. Brooks told Thevenot there was a body of a 7-year-old in the freezer but it is unclear if he actually saw that body or just heard about it. Thevenot did not report that he saw that body.
Brooks also told Thevenot that he heard the first child had been raped, and though she’d “told another unit,” the other unit didn’t act on the information.
Rumors do fly during times of chaos, but this seems awfully contradictive. On one hand we have the word of on-site witnesses, a National Guardsman and a reporter who viewed what the reporter called “the smaller human figure” lying under a sheet. Possibly neither of them actually lifted the sheet to look, just took the word of fellow Guardsmen who “estimated” her age and claimed another child’s body was in the freezer.
And on the other hand, we have the press conferences calling such reporting “vicious rumors,” the adjective “vicious” implying (to me) malicious intent.
No one can deny there was violence in the Convention Center:
“The biggest problem was that there wasn’t enough security,” said Capt. Winn, the head of the police SWAT team. “The only way I can describe it is as a completely lawless situation.”
While those entering the Superdome had been searched for weapons, there was no time to take similar precautions at the convention center, which took in a volatile mix of poor residents, well-to-do hotel guests and hospital workers and patients. Gunfire became so routine that large SWAT teams had to storm the place nearly every night.
Capt. Winn said armed groups of 15 to 25 men terrorized the others, stealing cash and jewelry. He said policemen patrolling the center told him that a number of women had been dragged off by groups of men and gang-raped — and that murders were occurring.
Capt. Winn said armed groups of 15 to 25 men terrorized the others, stealing cash and jewelry. He said policemen patrolling the center told him that a number of women had been dragged off by groups of men and gang-raped – and that murders were occurring.
“We had a situation where the lambs were trapped with the lions,” Mr. Compass said. “And we essentially had to become the lion tamers.”
Capt. Winn said the armed groups even sealed the police out of two of the center’s six halls, forcing the SWAT team to retake the territory.
But the police were at a disadvantage: they could not fire into the crowds in the dimly lit facility. So after they saw muzzle flashes, they would rush toward them, searching with flashlights for anyone with a gun.
Meanwhile, those nearby “would be running for their lives,” Capt. Winn said. “Or they would lie down on the ground in the fetal position.”
“Breakdowns Marked Path From Hurricane to Anarchy,” by Eric Lipton, Christopher Drew, Scott Shane, and David Rohde, New York Times, Sept. 11, 2005.
Considering the violence described above, it seems unlikely there were no young victims. Typically the weakest individuals are the first to fall in such situations: the elderly, the wounded or infirm, and the children.
Nevertheless it is my dearest hope that no children were killed or harmed in any way in the Convention Center. Documented proof that these reports were nothing but “rumors” will hurt the media’s reputation, but provide some relief to those of us praying for good news in New Orleans.
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