Their punishments are markedly less severe than those the officers received four years ago: While their previous sentences had carried a collective weight of more than 200 years in prison, the plea deal reduces that to less than 45 years in total.
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Robert Faulcon, Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Anthony Villavaso and Arthur Kaufman were all previously jailed over the shooting and subsequent cover-up after being convicted in 2011.
The convictions were supposed to mark the end of the case, with Bowen receiving 40 years in prison, Faulcon receiving 65, Gisevius getting 40, Villavaso getting 38 and Kaufman getting six.
On Sept. 4 2005, days after the levees failed and water swamped the city, police gunned down 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison, who were both unarmed, and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge.
Bringing to a close the 11-year saga of the Danziger Bridge shootings, five former New Orleans police officers received sentences of up to 12 years in the shooting of a half-dozen civilians.
Eric Hessler, an attorney for Gisevius and former New Orleans police officer, said, against popular opinion, that the shortened prison sentences did not help the case in the long term.
Almost 2,000 people died, mostly in New Orleans, when the hurricane ravaged Louisiana on 29 August 2005.
The five New Orleans officers on trial were convicted by a jury; four of them were each sentenced to decades in prison, while Kaufman was given a shorter sentence. Civil lawsuits filed by the victims’ families against the former officers are still ongoing, as the local news site NOLA.com reminds us.
“I’m thankful that our mother is still with us to see justice being served and for these officers to finally be held accountable for their crimes”, he said in a statement.
That decision prompted a back-and-forth between Engelhardt and federal prosecutors, who accused the judge of “overstepping his bounds and exaggerating the impact” of the online comments.
“While this is certainly an imperfect resolution, today’s proceeding ensures that these five defendants will be held accountable for their criminal actions”, Polite told a news conference. In some cases, higher-up supervisors or colleagues agreed to cooperate with prosecutors against the officers in exchange for more lenient sentences for their own roles in the cover-up.
The brother of a man killed by New Orleans police amid the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina says he is glad that the former officers involved in the shooting have admitted guilt.
In addition to the prison sentences, each defendant was assessed a $100 fee for each count, by the judge’s order.
The Danziger case and other police scandals led to a federal investigation of the New Orleans Police Department and eventually, court-ordered reforms.
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Englehardt went over his “concerns” about the online comments which caused his throw out the convictions, including the Department of Justice for not disclosing information. “Police misconduct and abuse will not be tolerated”, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said. Our goal is to have a police department that protects, serves and partners with the community to keep us safe.
