A.C. Thompson Discusses Disorder in New Orleans — ProPublica

Podcast

A.C. Thompson Discusses Disorder in New Orleans

Aug. 31, 2010, 3:29 p.m. EDT

Last week, the ongoing, joint investigation by ProPublica, Frontline and the New Orleans Times-Picayune revealed that after Hurricane Katrina an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters. The following day, we reported that federal agents had begun an inquiry into the allegations. To date, sixteen current and former New Orleans police officers have been charged with crimes related to post-Katrina shootings. And there are nine separate civil rights investigations of the department underway.

In this week’s ProPublica Podcast, Quadia Muhammad speaks to reporter A.C. Thompson about the post-Katrina shootings and new allegations. The pair discuss the NOPD’s culture of corruption, what took place in the days after Katrina hit, what caused the “shoot looters” orders confusion, why past proposed reforms to the NOPD never took hold and ultimately, how the federal government could take over the department.

Stories related to this podcast:

Federal Agents Open Inquiry Into Order Authorizing NOPD Cops to Shoot Looters

After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters

Feds Tell Two New Orleans Officers They’re Targets in Post-Katrina Shooting Probe

ProPublica Law & Disorder homepage

Frontline: Law & Disorder (watch the investigation online)

New Orleans Times-Picayune Law & Disorder series page

Follow ProPublica

Latest Stories from ProPublica

State Regulators Know Health Insurance Directories Are Full of Wrong Information. They’re Doing Little to Fix It.

Meet ProPublica’s 2024 Class of Emerging Reporters

How Lincare Became a Multibillion-Dollar Medicare Scofflaw

A 13-Year-Old With Autism Got Arrested After His Backpack Sparked Fear. Only His Stuffed Bunny Was Inside.

Republish This Story for Free

Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Thank you for your interest in republishing this story. You are are free to republish it so long as you do the following:

You have to credit ProPublica and any co-reporting partners. In the byline, we prefer “Author Name, Publication(s).” At the top of the text of your story, include a line that reads: “This story was originally published by ProPublica.” You must link the word “ProPublica” to the original URL of the story.
If you’re republishing online, you must link to the URL of this story on propublica.org, include all of the links from our story, including our newsletter sign up language and link, and use our PixelPing tag.
If you use canonical metadata, please use the ProPublica URL. For more information about canonical metadata, refer to this Google SEO link.
You can’t edit our material, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. (For example, “yesterday” can be changed to “last week,” and “Portland, Ore.” to “Portland” or “here.”)
You cannot republish our photographs or illustrations without specific permission. Please contact [email protected].
It’s okay to put our stories on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. You can’t state or imply that donations to your organization support ProPublica’s work.
You can’t sell our material separately or syndicate it. This includes publishing or syndicating our work on platforms or apps such as Apple News, Google News, etc.
You can’t republish our material wholesale, or automatically; you need to select stories to be republished individually. (To inquire about syndication or licensing opportunities, contact [email protected].)
You can’t use our work to populate a website designed to improve rankings on search engines or solely to gain revenue from network-based advertisements.
We do not generally permit translation of our stories into another language.
Any website our stories appear on must include a prominent and effective way to contact you.
If you share republished stories on social media, we’d appreciate being tagged in your posts. We have official accounts for ProPublica on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

Copy and paste the following into your page to republish:

Current site Current page