|
On the morning of August 29, 2005, almost an hour after
Hurricane Katrina hit land, a levee broke and water poured
into New Orleans. Many people, heeding their mayor’s pleas,
fled the city before Katrina arrived but an estimated
100,000 didn’t – including police, who became “prisoners of
the hurricane’s wake.”
Also stranded: one-time NFL player Lance Madison and his
mentally disabled brother, Ronald; and 17-year-old JJ
Brissette, his friend Jose Holmes Jr., Jose’s aunt Susan
Bartholomew, her family, and extended family.
Six days post-hurricane, after waiting for rescue that never
came, enduring the heat, the stench and a lack of food, the
families, on opposite sides of the Danziger Bridge and
unbeknownst to each other, set out to find help on their
own.
The trouble, at its very core, began with shots fired on the
Danziger Bridge by unknown miscreants who fled quickly. In
later months, Detective Jennifer Dupree would avow that she
never said “Officer down” when she reported those
shots. Yes, she’d radioed for help, but not with those
words. Still, at their makeshift headquarters, officers
readying for duty heard Dupree’s call for assistance. Eleven
of them, both black and white, jumped in a truck and raced
to the bridge.
It was, as Greene says, “chaos.”
Arriving at the bridge, police began shooting before they
even understood who they were shooting at. Whether or not
they knew that the African-American civilians they shot were
unarmed is still debated but when the gunfire stopped, two
people were dead and many injured in what Greene says “was
about the worst abuse of police power… ever seen.”
I struggled for a long time over what to say about this
book. For sure, you’ll spend a lot of time picking your jaw
up off the floor while you’re reading Shots on the Bridge.
But on the other hand, there’s a lot to follow, and that
makes it a bit hard to read.
I can’t use the verb “enjoy” here, either, because what’s to
enjoy about what happened? You may appreciate the courtroom
drama, or the investigative techniques it took to see how
the cover-up evolved, but that seems secondary to what
author Ronnie Greene reports – even though it comprises most
of the book. And yet – to get there, you have to read that
astounding first half.
Some of the outcome you’ll see will satisfy you, but I’m
guessing you likely won’t be happy at the end of this
squirmy book. Still, I believe that Shots on the Bridge
is overall worth a try on this 10th anniversary of the event
– if nothing but because you can trust that it’ll make you
think. |
