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New Orleans Agrees to Pay $13.3 Million for Police Post-Katrina Killings


FILE - Caution tape floats in the wind over a walkway running alongside the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, Nov. 10, 2005.
FILE - Caution tape floats in the wind over a walkway running alongside the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans, Louisiana, Nov. 10, 2005.

New Orleans offered apologies and reached settlements totaling $13.3 million in civil rights lawsuits brought against the city for the killings of residents by police in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the mayor said Monday.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu said the city reached deals with 17 plaintiffs to settle all claims in the cases that have prompted local police reforms and federal investigation into suspected misconduct by numerous officers.

The settlements included families of those killed on the city's Danziger Bridge in September 2005, where two unarmed people were fatally shot.

"We are here to proclaim from the highest mountaintop that the City of New Orleans, in all of its agony and in all of its joy, can transform itself from a city of violence into a city of peace," the mayor said.

FILE - From right, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi listen to an invocation at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Aug. 29, 2015.
FILE - From right, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi listen to an invocation at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Hurricane Katrina Memorial on the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, Aug. 29, 2015.

Landrieu held a prayer service with family members and asked for their forgiveness ahead of announcing the settlements.

The families have been in litigation for years with the city and their lawsuits alleging police misconduct and cover-ups helped to change the narrative of police actions following the hurricane.

The storm led to more than 1,500 deaths in the New Orleans-area.

Those gunned down on the bridge included Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old with the mental development of a six-year-old. He had seven gunshot wounds in his back. On the other side of the bridge, James Brissette Jr., 17, was fatally shot, court documents showed.

Five ex-New Orleans police officers pleaded guilty in April to various charges in connection with the killings on the bridge. Four other people were seriously injured in the incident.

The victims of the bridge incident, all black and unarmed, were trying to survive the hurricane's wake when a group of officers, believing they were racing to the scene of a police shootout, barreled toward them in a commandeered rental truck.

The death of Henry Glover was also part of the settlement. A few days after the storm, he was fatally shot by a police officer, who was eventually acquitted. Another officer was convicted of setting Glover's body on fire.

The settlement also included the case of Raymond Robair, 48, who local media said was beaten to death by police about a month before Katrina.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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