Corruption cases put New Orleans cops up against wall

NEW ORLEANS — Allegations of corruption and coverups in the New Orleans Police Department have prompted the U.S. Justice Department to consider a little-used tactic that could force changes — and restore public confidence.

Other venues will no doubt cover this more extensively, but it’s interesting to note that the federal government is taking action against the police department in a heavily Democratic city. Which is as it should be, but not as we’ve come to expect from the Obama Justice Department.

It’s long been known that the NOPD is highly corrupt. Gun confiscations during Katrina made national news (and a federal law suit), but stories of NOPD officers systematically confiscating citizen’s guns are well known.

“The Constitution does not take a holiday, does not get suspended during a storm, even one as catastrophic as Katrina,” says Perez”

There are people on both ends of the political spectrum who should get that memo. At some point, that quote is going to be used against a public official somewhere in the country.

Merely because local officials can’t keep order during a large disaster doesn’t mean that they can rob people of their right to self defense. In fact, it’s during those times that citizens will need their right and ability to defend themselves all the more.

In disaster preparation, local officials are told that it will be 48-72 hours before federal resources can be in place and operational. For the first 12 hours local officials will be pretty much on their own, longer if the disaster is more than just local. It will be at least 12 hours before the state and unaffected communities from outside the immediate area can muster aid and send it in. It will be 24 hours after that before the feds are on the ground and doing anything other than standing around figuring out what they are going to do. Local law enforcement will be overwhelmed, hell, many of them will be victims in one way or the other. If the disaster is large enough (Katrina) civil order will break down for a while. The September 11 attacks in New York City and Washington, DC, while devastating, were devastating for geographically small areas. If an entire city, say Boston, were hit be an earthquake, then police, fire, EMS, and other vital services would be disrupted while also being overwhelmed. It’s situations like that where being able to defend yourself against the inevitable predators is vital. Which the police and other public officials in NOLA conspired to take away by confiscating guns from lawful citizens who decided to stay in dangerous areas to protect their property. You can read about that by using Google to search for it. Beware that there are some nut jobs out there with posts about it, but that’s the price of having the Internet be pretty much unfettered.

The bottom line here is that the rights enumerated in The Constitution are not granted by the government. They are rights inherent in a free society and all that The Constitution does is spell them out so even dimwitted public officials should be able to understand them. Except in New Orleans, apparently.