"Former New Orleans police Officer David Warren had claimed not to know if he hit anybody when he fired a shot with an assault rifle four days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall," the New Orleans Times-Picayune editorialized on Monday."Given Mr. Warren's award-winning marksmanship, his claim was never believable," it continued. "Friday federal prosecutors accused the former officer of needlessly killing Henry Glover.
"In announcing the indictments against Mr. Warren Friday, U.S. Attorney Jim Letten also announced indictments against two officers accused of setting Mr. Glover's body on fire and two other officers accused of obstructing the investigation into Mr. Glover's death. One can't read the indictments without feeling outrage over what was done to Mr. Glover."
As the New York Times noted, "The circumstances surrounding Mr. Glover's death were first reported in late 2008 in an article that was a collaboration by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute and the nonprofit investigative news service Pro Publica."
But on Friday, the key member of that collaboration, A.C. Thompson, wrote that the whole story has still not been told.
"When I began investigating the mysterious death of Henry Glover, one of the most notable aspects of the case was the lack of documents," Thompson wrote.
"Here was a New Orleans resident found incinerated in a car just a few hundred feet from a police station in September 2005, shortly after Hurricane Katrina. Yet there was no sign that anyone in authority had ever conducted any sort of investigation. The New Orleans Police Department told me in 2008 that they knew absolutely nothing about Glover's demise.
"Today's indictment suggests that was not true. The 11-count indictment accuses police officers of shooting Glover and torching his corpse, physically attacking his brother and another man, and then attempting to conceal it all.
"What's most striking about the charging documents is what they do not address: the extraordinary number of officers in the department who were likely aware of these events as they unfolded. … Numerous — possibly dozens — of other officers were likely present at the site of the alleged beatings."
The indictments are not the only legal action. "Charlene Green, the mother of Glover's child, filed a wrongful death suit this week on behalf of her teenaged son, Henry Glover Jr.," columnist Jarvis deBerry wrote Friday in the Times-Picayune. "The suit follows reporting done by The Times-Picayune and ProPublica, a non-profit newsroom that worked with this newspaper in an investigation of police shootings after Katrina."
And as the New York Times said, "The case is one of at least eight investigations into actions of the New Orleans Police Department being conducted by the federal government.
"Most of the investigations concern events in the chaotic days after the storm. The best known, concerning the shootings of civilians on the Danziger Bridge that left two dead and four wounded, resulted in five guilty pleas from current or former police officers.
"Last month, the Department of Justice announced that it would conduct a full-scale investigation into the patterns and practices of the police force, a step that usually results in a legally binding blueprint for wholesale reform.
"In a sign of just how grim the view of the police force is in New Orleans, the mayor himself formally solicited such a review, citing a need for 'systemic and transformational change.'"
Andrew Langston, 83, Founded Rochester's WDKX
"Andrew A. Langston founded Rochester's only African-American-owned radio station in Rochester in 1974. And from small beginnings, WDKX-FM (103.9) has become a power in the community for discussion and entertainment from a growing audience. Mr. Langston, who was chief executive officer of the station, died Thursday, according to station officials. He was 83," Jeffrey Blackwell wrote Saturday in the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, N.Y.
"Shiera Coleman, vice president of broadcast for the Rochester Association of Black Journalists, worked for Langston as an intern and later on-air with the station's morning show.
" 'I had a lot of respect for him - to be able to create this business from the ground up and have it succeed for all these years when a lot of people didn't think that it would succeed,' she said.
"'He overcame all the obstacles, and you know he was just a great man.'"
"WDKX-FM (103.9) went on the air on April 6, 1974, with the initials of Frederick Douglass, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X - African-American leaders revered by Mr. Langston. And in the tradition of his heroes, the station has become a voice for the community and for young people."
The National Association of Black-Owned Broadcasters gave Langston its "Pioneer in Broadcasting" award in 1990. Just as his peers did, he complained that ratings services did not count his audience properly and that white advertisers figured they could reach his listeners by buying time on white-owned stations that also played some black music. He told this writer then that WDKX was losing $2 million a year on such audience misreadings.
Rochester Mayor Robert Duffy said, "During times when radio stations were being bought by major corporations, Mr. Langston held on to WDKX, which is now one of the few independently owned radio stations in the country."
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