ProPublica: Law and Disorder

Key Convictions Overturned in Killing by New Orleans Police

A.C. Thompson — 2012-12-17T17:03:49-05:00

After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters

A.C. Thompson — 2012-07-24T16:35:21-05:00

Former New Orleans Cop Sentenced in Perjury Case

A.C. Thompson — 2012-04-11T17:22:19-05:00

Judge Hits New Orleans Cops with Harsh Sentences

A.C. Thompson — 2012-04-04T17:31:19-05:00

New Orleans Police Officer Convicted of Perjury, Obstruction in Post-Katrina Shooting

A.C. Thompson — 2011-12-09T14:52:33-05:00

Report Slams Former New Orleans Police Honcho for Mishandling Probe of Post-Katrina Killing

A.C. Thompson — 2011-08-26T11:18:54-05:00

Five New Orleans Cops Convicted for Their Role in Post-Katrina Shootings

A.C. Thompson — 2011-08-05T15:26:26-05:00

Case of New Orleans Cops Accused in Post-Katrina Civilian Shootings Goes to the Jury

Aarti Shahani — 2011-08-02T16:26:20-05:00

Trial Opens of New Orleans Police Officers Charged in the Danziger Bridge Shootings

Aarti Shahani — 2011-06-29T11:46:11-05:00

Judge Orders New Trial in New Orleans Police Case

A.C. Thompson — 2011-05-04T17:20:52-05:00

Judge Hands Out Tough Sentences in Post-Katrina Killing by Police

A.C. Thompson — 2011-03-31T13:20:37-05:00

Feds Find ‘Systemic Violations of Civil Rights’ by New Orleans Police Department

A.C. Thompson — 2011-03-17T15:40:56-05:00

Post-Katrina Shootings by Police: Where Things Stand

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-12-29T09:49:52-05:00

In Wake of Glover Verdicts, What’s Next for New Orleans’ Troubled Police Force?

A.C. Thompson — 2010-12-10T16:52:42-05:00

Editor’s Note: The Long Road to Justice for Henry Glover

Stephen Engelberg — 2010-12-10T12:23:47-05:00

Jury Convicts Three, Acquits Two in Post-Katrina Police Shooting

A.C. Thompson — 2010-12-09T23:20:27-05:00

Former Cop Sentenced in Post-Katrina Shooting of Unarmed Civilians at Danziger Bridge

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-12-02T12:02:13-05:00

NOPD Officer With History of Complaints Against Him Testifies in Post-Katrina Police Shooting

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-12-01T15:52:37-05:00

In Post-Katrina Killing, NOPD Cop Testifies Why He Shot Man, Another Explains Why He Burned the Body

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-11-30T15:18:58-05:00

Testimony in Post-Katrina Shooting by Police Offers New Details on Alleged Cover-up

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-11-23T15:32:12-05:00

Testimony: New Orleans Police Investigator Knew About Police Involvement in Post-Katrina Shooting

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-11-19T14:08:52-05:00

In Post-Katrina Police Shooting, Photographer and Cop Witnessed Key Events, Didn’t Come Forward

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-11-18T12:06:20-05:00

Trial Underway of Five New Orleans Cops for Post-Katrina Shooting

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-11-12T13:04:20-05:00

Some of the Complaints Levied Against Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann

A.C. Thompson — 2010-10-24T08:18:27-05:00

No Discipline for New Orleans Cop in 15 Shooting Incidents, 50 Complaints

A.C. Thompson — 2010-10-23T20:09:12-05:00

New Orleans Judge May Limit Defense Options in Glover Case

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-10-01T14:30:31-05:00

Two NOPD Officers Charged in Post-Katrina Death

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-09-30T18:23:02-05:00

NOPD Officer Gets Three Years For Cover-Up of Danziger Bridge Shootings

Sabrina Shankman — 2010-09-22T17:38:26-05:00

Federal Agents Open Inquiry Into Order Authorizing NOPD Cops to Shoot Looters

Robin Fields — 2010-08-26T19:11:12-05:00

Feds Tell Two New Orleans Officers They’re Targets in Post-Katrina Shooting Probe

Marian Wang — 2010-08-11T11:28:46-05:00

In New Orleans, New Evidence of a Beating by Police

A.C. Thompson — 2010-08-08T06:39:05-05:00

The New Orleans Times-Picayune has uncovered evidence that police officers physically attacked two city residents and a working photojournalist on Sept. 1, 2005, three days after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

The story helps explain a mysterious scene we reported about last December in a joint project with the Times-Picayune and PBS’ FRONTLINE, one of a series of reports documenting violent encounters between citizens and officers of New Orleans Police Department in the aftermath of Katrina.

So far this year, federal prosecutors have charged 16 current and former NOPD officers with crimes allegedly committed after the levees failed. Two others have been indicted in connection to the death of a man just before the catastrophe.

The latest news centers on a violent encounter that occurred on Religious Street, not far from the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center. Responding to a shooting incident, officers severely beat two handcuffed men they suspected of firing at police, leaving one of the men missing numerous teeth, reports Times-Picayune city editor Gordon Russell.

It seems the officers had the wrong guys: According to Russell, the two men weren’t armed, and police didn’t have evidence to detain or jail them.

When Lucas Oleniuk, a photographer for the Toronto Star, began clicking off photos of the episode, he got caught up in the violence. Oleniuk says police hurled him to the ground, kicked him, and seized his cameras. The cops returned the equipment but pulled out a memory card containing the digital pictures the photographer had snapped.

The New Orleans Police Department has issued no official statement on the story, though a former captain who was present that day denied seeing any physical abuse.

Russell himself witnessed the aftermath of the apparent beating – a scene he described in the December report but hadn’t been able to piece together until now.

Check out the FRONTLINE video below, and get the whole story here.

Six More Charged in New Orleans Danziger Bridge Shootings

A.C. Thompson — 2010-07-13T17:39:04-05:00

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder today announced the indictment of six current or former New Orleans Police Department officers in connection to the Danziger Bridge shootings, which occurred during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The new indictments stem from the shooting of six civilians on Sept. 4, 2005 by a squad of police officers, a bloody episode that left two people dead and four severely wounded. Our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune have the details on the fresh charges here.

The troubled New Orleans police force – which is the subject of at least eight ongoing investigations – “is a priority for this Department of Justice,” said Holder in a press conference streamed live on local TV news websites.

Since February, federal prosecutors have charged 16 current and former cops for offenses allegedly committed during the chaotic days after the levees failed, inundating the city and crippling the local government. So far, five have pleaded guilty.

Last month, federal investigators charged an officer with murdering Henry Glover, an offense that could carry the death penalty, and others with torching Glover’s body and attempting to conceal the crime. Federal agents are also scrutinizing several other post-Katrina episodes, including the shootings of Keenon McCann, Danny Brumfield, Jr., and Matthew McDonald by cops.

One of the people indicted today played a role in several of these cases. Former NOPD Sergeant Gerard Dugue, who is accused of trying to cover up the true circumstances of the Danziger shootings, also investigated Glover’s death and supervised the police department’s probe into the killing of Brumfield, who died after being shot in the back at a close-range. This spring Dugue retired from his job as a homicide detective.

The Justice Department is also conducting a broader survey of the police force’s policies, which could lead to federally supervised reform and restructuring of the department. In May, Mayor Mitch Landrieu, who was elected earlier this year, invited Justice to conduct the review, saying in a letter that “I have inherited what is described by many as one of the worst police departments in the country.”

The Killing of Henry Glover: Who Else Knew?

A.C. Thompson — 2010-06-11T21:35:57-05:00

When I began investigating the mysterious death of Henry Glover, one of the most notable aspects of the case was the lack of documents.

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.

To recap:

David Warren, the former officer indicted for allegedly shooting Glover with a .223 rifle round, was accompanied by another officer when he fired the shot.

At that point, a man named William Tanner tried to help Glover, driving him and his brother to seek medical assistance at an elementary school that had been commandeered by a SWAT team of officers. (Tanner didn’t know that Glover had allegedly been shot by a police officer.)

The SWAT officers at the school failed to provide Glover with any medical assistance. Instead, prosecutors say, Lt. Dwayne Scheuermann and Officer Greg McRae “kicked and hit” Tanner and Glover’s brother, Edward King, without cause.

Numerous – possibly dozens – of other officers were likely present at the site of the alleged beatings. In an interview this week, a SWAT officer told me 50 to 60 cops were camped out at the school at any given time in the days after Katrina. (The officer declined to comment directly on the Glover matter.)

After Glover died, prosecutors say in the indictment, Scheuermann and McRae set fire to Glover’s body as it sat inside Tanner’s 2001 Chevrolet Malibu, which was parked on a Mississippi River levee.

That spot lies a remarkably short distance from the NOPD’s 4th District headquarters. All my reporting shows many other officers were aware that a man had been reduced to ashes there—it’s hard to fathom how cops stationed a few hundred feet away could have failed to notice such an inferno.

Yet none of these officers apparently saw fit to speak out about what happened at the time, or to alert superiors to possible misconduct by their peers.

When I began looking into Glover’s death, nobody at NOPD had conducted any sort of probe—in fact the burnt car was still sitting in the weeds just down the street from the police station.

His mother, Edna Glover, told me she’d gone to the department and made a police report, but had never received any real help in uncovering what became of her son. In the months to come, perhaps she’ll finally get a full accounting.

And hopefully, somewhere along the way somebody will ask the question: Who else within the NOPD knew about the sad and horrible death of Henry Glover?

New Details Emerge in Glover Case

Ryan Knutson — 2010-05-27T13:21:41-05:00

We are inching closer to understanding what happened to Henry Glover, a 31-year-old New Orleans resident whose bizarre death in the days after Hurricane Katrina has been the focus of several ProPublica stories and has spurred a federal investigation.

In a report obtained by the New Orleans Times-Picayune, police acknowledged they had driven a car containing Glover’s body to an isolated spot along the Mississippi River, saying they did so to “secure” it. The car was later found there, burned, with Glover’s charred remains inside.

Glover had been shot outside a shopping center on Sept. 2, 2005. His brother and a friend say they flagged down a passer-by, who drove them in his Chevy Malibu to a nearby police compound. They say they begged police to help Glover, but instead were beaten and handcuffed as Glover bled to death.

Despite a missing persons report filed in November 2005 by Glover’s mother, the New Orleans Police Department did not investigate Glover’s death until February 2009, prompted by an article published by ProPublica and The Nation and supported by the Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute.

A draft report begun at that time by homicide detective Sgt. Gerard Dugue contests the accounts given by Glover’s companions in several regards. It says officers, in a vehicle with its siren lights on, chased the Malibu into the compound after they noticed it speeding and driving erratically. It says there were two men with Glover, not three. Perhaps most significantly, the report alleges that Glover was already dead when the car arrived.

In an interview, New Orleans Police Capt. Jeff Winn told Dugue that he had ordered another officer to move the car to get Glover’s body away from more populated areas. The report says one officer drove the Chevy Malibu to a levee with Glover’s body in the backseat; another officer followed, and then drove the first officer back to the police compound. The report does not explain how the car came to be set on fire.

Dugue never completed the report because his computer was seized in August 2009 by the FBI, the Times-Picayune reports. Dugue had been implicated in the cover-up of post-Katrina shootings on the Danziger Bridge, in which officers fired upon six unarmed civilians, killing two. He was also involved in the investigation of the shooting of Danny Brumfield, who was shot to death by police outside the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.

Glover’s is one of eight cases being examined by the U.S. Department of Justice related to police misconduct after the hurricane. The Danziger bridge incident has resulted in charges against five officers; four have pleaded guilty.

Missing Persons Report in Glover Case Failed to Receive Attention

Ryan Knutson — 2010-05-25T14:13:03-05:00

Henry Glover’s mother filed a detailed missing persons report about her son two and a half months after he disappeared, but an article in today’s New Orleans Times Picayune says police didn’t look into the matter for three years. Glover was shot walking into a shopping center in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina. His burnt remains were later discovered in the backseat of a car.

ProPublica, in collaboration with The Nation, the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, the Times-Picayune and PBS Frontline, has worked to discover what happened to Glover after the shooting. His friend and his brother flagged down a stranger, William Tanner, who drove the men to a nearby police compound in his Chevy Malibu. Instead of helping Glover, however, police beat and handcuffed his companions. Then, an officer confiscated the Chevy Malibu, with Glover still in the backseat, and drove away. Days later, the car was found burned, with Glover’s charred remains inside.

The missing persons report was filed by Glover’s mother in November 2005, a few weeks before another report came in about a police officer firing his gun at a man on the same date and in the same shopping center as Glover was shot. Even then, the Times-Picayune reports, police failed to investigate or connect the two reports.

Glover’s is one of eight cases being examined by federal investigators related to police conduct in the aftermath of the hurricane. One case, in which police allegedly killed two civilians wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge, has resulted in charges against five former officers. Four have pleaded guilty.

Authorities Charge Fifth Former NOPD Officer in Danziger Case

Ryan Knutson — 2010-05-24T14:23:04-05:00

Authorities charged a fifth former New Orleans police officer in connection with the Danziger Bridge shooting, in which officers fired upon six unarmed citizens, killing two, in the days following Hurricane Katrina.

Ignatius Hills, 33, was charged last week with one count of conspiring to obstruct justice and one count of failing to report a crime.

According to the charges, Hills wrote a report that accused one of the civilians of attempting to murder a police officer, when in fact Hills had “no first-hand knowledge of any wrongdoing” by the suspect. Prosecutors also allege Hills lied to a state grand jury. The four other officers who have been charged have already pleaded guilty.

The New Orleans Police Department has been the subject of intense scrutiny from both federal investigators and ProPublica, in collaboration with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline.” Our coverage has helped bring to light several cases in which NOPD officers shot civilians.

The Justice Department has acknowledged it has eight ongoing investigations into conduct by police in the chaos following the hurricane. Earlier this month, the agency announced it had started a probe to identify ways the NOPD can break its pattern of violence and civil rights infractions.

Justice Department Opens Probe of NOPD

Ryan Knutson — 2010-05-18T13:32:17-05:00

The U.S. Department of Justice, responding to a call for help from local leaders, has begun a probe into the New Orleans Police Department, initiating a process meant to bring reform to the long-troubled force.

The NOPD has faced persistent allegations of civil rights violations, particularly in regard to officers’ actions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

In collaboration with our partners, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline,” ProPublica has helped bring several cases to light in which NOPD officers shot civilians in the chaos after the storm. The Justice Department has confirmed it has at least eight ongoing civil rights investigations that focus on the department. Four former police officers have already pleaded guilty for their involvement in a shooting incident on the Danziger Bridge in which two people died and four were wounded.

The Justice Department review, which comes at the request of New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, will focus on “allegations of excessive force, unconstitutional searches and seizures, racial profiling, failures to provide adequate police services to particular neighborhoods and related misconduct,” according to a story in the Times-Picayune.

If the police department is deemed to have a “pattern or practice” of violating people’s civil rights, the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act gives the federal government an array of tools to compel changes, including appointing a federal judge to monitor the force.

Big Changes at New Orleans Police Department

A.C. Thompson — 2010-05-06T16:22:35-05:00

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu today announced the selection of a new superintendent to head the city’s troubled police force.

Ronal Serpas will leave his post as chief of the Nashville police to take the reins from Warren Riley, a veteran New Orleans Police Department figure who has led the force since shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005.

A string of controversies—some of them stretching back to the Katrina time period—buffeted the department during Riley’s tenure, drawing the scrutiny of both the national media and the federal government.

The U.S. Department of Justice has confirmed there are at least eight ongoing civil rights investigations focused on the police force. Federal investigators are examining a series of incidents in which police officers shot civilians in the aftermath of the hurricane, and have already garnered guilty pleas from four ex-cops in connection to shootings on the Danziger Bridge that left two dead and four wounded.

Collaborating with other media organizations including the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS Frontline, ProPublica helped to expose several of the cases now under investigation, including the shootings of Keenon McCann, Henry Glover and Matthew McDonald.

Yesterday, Landrieu invited the Justice Department to deepen its scrutiny of the police force, asking U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder for an “independent investigation” that will improve the police department’s disciplinary systems and “introduce best practices for public safety.”

The invitation from Landrieu appears to set the stage for the Justice Department to seek thorough reforms of the police force using the 1994 Violent Crime Control Act. The law provides Justice Department attorneys with an array of legal tools—including long-term monitoring by federal judges—aimed at revamping police departments deemed to have a “pattern or practice” of violating people’s civil rights.

Since 1997, Justice Department lawyers have used the act to restructure 21 law enforcement agencies, according to a 2009 study by criminologist Sam Walker and attorney Morgan MacDonald published in the George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal.

In those cases, Walker and MacDonald wrote, Justice Department attorneys sought to institute systems to flag problem cops, improve officer training and rewrite rules for using force.

Fourth New Orleans Police Officer Charged in Post-Katrina Shooting at Danziger Bridge

Ryan Knutson — 2010-04-17T15:17:54-05:00

Federal investigators charged another New Orleans police officer in connection to the Danziger Bridge shootings, in which two civilians were killed and four were wounded in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The Danziger Bridge shootings are among a string of violent post-Katrina police encounters we’ve investigated in collaboration with PBS “Frontline” and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Officer Robert Barrios, who was charged with conspiring to obstruct justice, became the fourth police officer charged in the case, and the fifth person overall. Three former officers have already pleaded guilty to charges related to the shooting. Barrios reportedly resigned from the force shortly after being charged.

Marion David Ryder, a civilian who impersonated a police officer the day of the shooting, also was indicted this month on charges of lying to federal agents and unlawful possession of a handgun.

The charge against Barrios came in a bill of information, which is only allowed in cases where the defendant has waived the requirement that a grand jury issue charges. That usually indicates the defendant is cooperating with the case.

The Times-Picayune reports that Barrios was in the back of a vehicle with four other officers when they responded to a report that officers were shot while on Interstate 10, which is parallel with the Danziger Bridge.

Ex-Cop Michael Hunter Pleads Guilty in Danziger Shooting

A.C. Thompson — 2010-04-08T09:37:02-05:00

Former New Orleans police officer Michael Hunter pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges of conspiring to obstruct justice and failure to report a felony for his role in the Danziger Bridge shootings, which occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He’s the third ex-cop to admit guilt in the ongoing case.

On Sept. 4, 2005, Hunter and other officers barraged a group of civilians with gunfire, killing two and wounding four others. The latest guilty plea, covered in depth by our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune, offers fresh details about that bloody day.

The judge who accepted Hunter’s guilty plea said she was “sickened by the raw brutality of the shooting and the craven lawlessness of the cover-up” by police.

With the Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline,” ProPublica is investigating a string of violent encounters between police and civilians in the wake of the hurricane, examining the deaths of Danny Brumfield, Matt McDonald, and Henry Glover, as well as the non-fatal shooting of Keenon McCann.

Fourth Person Indicted in Danziger Bridge Shootings

A.C. Thompson — 2010-04-02T10:26:25-05:00

Federal prosecutors yesterday indicted Marion David Ryder—known as David Ryder—in connection with the Sept. 4, 2005, shootings on the Danziger Bridge, charging him with lying to federal agents and unlawfully possessing a handgun.

Ryder is the fourth individual to be indicted in the case. Two former New Orleans police officers have pleaded guilty; a third was indicted earlier this week.

Ryder, 45, is an intriguing character. A convicted felon with no law enforcement experience, he pretended to be a deputy sheriff working for St. Landry Parish in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Armed with a cheap 9-mm handgun, he was posing as a deputy when New Orleans Police Department officers shot six civilians on the Danziger Bridge, according to a bill of information filed in court by federal prosecutors.

Prosecutors say Ryder deceived FBI investigators during two interviews in 2009, falsely claiming he had been shot at by civilians as he chased them through a trailer park located between the bridge and a nearby highway.

Ryder’s statements to NOPD sergeant Arthur Kaufman figured prominently in police reports on the bridge shootings. According to the initial report, Ryder “positively identified Lance Madison as one of several shooters who fired upon him,” and said his brother, Ronald Madison, also shot at police. Ronald Madison, a mentally disabled 40-year-old man, was shot five times in the back by police and died in the parking lot of a motel at the foot of the bridge. Lance Madison was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing.

Since 2008, the U.S. Department of Justice has been scrutinizing the NOPD’s actions during the week after the storm made landfall, dispatching prosecutors from the department’s Civil Rights Division to orchestrate a steadily widening probe. Authorities have acknowledged investigations into the deaths of Henry Glover, Danny Brumfield and Matthew McDonald, as well as the non-fatal shooting of Keenon McCann.

Third Cop Indicted in New Orleans Bridge Shooting Case

A.C. Thompson — 2010-03-31T11:44:47-05:00

Federal prosecutors yesterday indicted New Orleans police officer Michael Hunter for his role in the Danziger Bridge incident, during which officers shot six citizens, killing two, days after Hurricane Katrina.

The indictment, on charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and providing false information about a felony, makes Hunter the third New Orleans Police Department figure to be charged. In recent weeks, two ex-cops have pleaded guilty to similar offenses.

Hunter is the first officer who was actually on the bridge on Sept. 4, 2005, and fired shots to face charges. The other two, who have already entered guilty pleas, were involved only in the police department’s investigation of the shooting incident.

It remains to be seen if the Justice Department will ever charge officers for the killings of Ronald Madison and James Brissette, or for wounding four other people, rather than for their roles in the cover-up that followed. Given the volume of bullets flying that day, the number of victims and the missing evidence—ex-cop Jeffrey Lehrmann admitted to watching another officer kick shell casings off the bridge—figuring out exactly who shot whom may pose an epic challenge for federal investigators.

In concert with our friends at PBS “Frontline” and the New Orleans Times-Picayune, ProPublica has been scrutinizing the Danziger bridge incident, as well as the shootings of Matthew McDonald, Danny Brumfield, Henry Glover and Keenon McCann, all of which transpired in the week after Katrina made landfall. Our reporting found the NOPD conducted a series of deeply flawed investigations into these violent encounters between cops and civilians, failing to interview witnesses, collect key evidence or thoroughly question the officers involved.

Feds: We’re Investigating Baton Rouge Police, Too

A.C. Thompson — 2010-03-26T17:50:51-05:00

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Baton Rouge Police Department’s actions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, according to the Baton Rouge Advocate. The newspaper says Alejandro Miyar, a spokesperson for Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, acknowledged the probe on Thursday.

Word of the federal investigation follows reports in the Advocate detailing allegations that Baton Rouge police “routinely harassed black people, resorted to unnecessary violence and conducted illegal searches in the days after Hurricane Katrina.” The stories, based on complaints made by out-of-state police sent to Louisiana to assist local officers, have been challenged by Baton Rouge police officials.

The new probe further expands the Justice Department’s workload in the state. Prosecutors are already examining a string of incidents in which New Orleans Police Department officers shot at least 10 civilians during the week after Katrina roared ashore. Two former New Orleans cops recently pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from the shooting of six people on the Danziger Bridge on Sept. 4, 2005.

With our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline,” ProPublica scrutinized the NOPD in “Law & Disorder,” a series of stories looking at the shootings of Matthew McDonald, Keenon McCann and Danny Brumfield. Those shootings are among the incidents now being investigated by the Justice Department.

In Baton Rouge, More Allegations of Police Misconduct After Hurricane Katrina

A.C. Thompson, ProPublica — 2010-03-15T15:25:04-05:00

Yesterday, the Baton Rouge Advocate published a damning exposé detailing allegations of misconduct by Baton Rouge police officers in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

After a four-year legal battle, the paper finally got a cache of police department documents describing a pattern of racist and abusive behavior by Baton Rouge officers in the days after the storm ravaged the Gulf coast. The cops are accused of using demeaning language; routinely harassing African Americans; physically abusing citizens; and seeking to “make life rough for New Orleans evacuees so they would leave town,” according to the Advocate, which has posted the documents online.

Here’s the twist: The accusations were made by other cops, 55 state troopers from New Mexico and Michigan who had been sent to Baton Rouge to assist with post-storm policing. The out-of-state cops were yanked out of Baton Rouge after only two days because of their concerns about misconduct.

The visiting officers said Baton Rouge cops referred to African Americans as “heathens” and “animals” that “needed to be beaten down.”

In response to the newspaper’s questions, Baton Rouge Police Chief Jeff LeDuff said some of the allegations against his officers were “maybe blown out of proportion.” He also said his department had investigated the incidents and dealt with any policy violations uncovered.

Five years after the hurricane, controversy about police tactics in the aftermath of the disaster continues to swirl. In recent weeks, two former New Orleans cops have pleaded guilty to federal charges in connection to high-profile shootings on the Danziger Bridge. Federal agents are investigating four other police shooting incidents from the time period.

We’re covering these violent encounters in an ongoing series with the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline.”

Algiers Police Shooting Report Altered, Sources Say

Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi, Times-Picayune and A.C. Thompson, ProPublica — 2010-03-13T23:45:23-05:00

A police report about the shooting of a man whose burned corpse was later discovered in a car on the Algiers levee after Hurricane Katrina apparently differs from the report originally written by the sergeant whose name appears on the document’s cover page, sources close to a federal investigation into the matter say.

The report attempts to explain why an officer fired his rifle at a man he thought was looting an Algiers strip mall on Sept. 2, 2005, four days after Katrina.

Though the officer, David Warren, did not think his shot struck anyone, details of the incident described in the report square with the shooting of Henry Glover, who perished in police custody later that day and whose corpse was later incinerated in a car on the levee.

The report offers a few more details about what may have happened to Glover, the subject of an intensive federal civil rights probe expected to result in police indictments.

That probe is occurring against the backdrop of another sprawling probe into the shootings by New Orleans police of six people on the Danziger Bridge on Sept. 4, 2005, which have led to two guilty pleas by officers who say they participated in a wide-ranging cover-up. All told, the FBI has confirmed at least seven civil rights probes into the New Orleans Police Department.

The report about the Sept. 2 shooting incident raises as many questions as it answers.

For instance, the initial incident report purports to have been written by Sgt. Nina Simmons. But sources close to the case say she did not write it, at least not in its present form.

While Simmons, then a supervisor in the Algiers-based 4th District, filled out and signed the NOPD’s standard cover page for a police report and submitted a report to superiors, a source said she did not write the following two typewritten pages.

The report is vague about whether the man who was shot at posed a threat to Warren, saying the officer saw something in the man’s right hand “which he perceived was a weapon,” causing him to fear for his safety and fire. In general, officers aren’t supposed to fire their weapons unless they are facing a person posing a physical threat to themselves or others.

Although protocol requires all weapons discharges to be reported to the Public Integrity Bureau, in this case, the report says, Warren’s superiors simply reviewed the shooting and deemed it justified. That course was followed, the report suggests, because Katrina made following normal practices impossible. Experts who examined the report said there isn’t enough information in the report to determine whether the shooting was proper.

City ‘Plagued by Looters’

And while police incident reports are generally dry recitations of the relevant circumstances, the Warren incident report pauses at several points to make reference to the conditions around the city.

“It should be noted that at this time the entire City of New Orleans was plagued by looters at almost every section of the city,” it says, after describing the alleged looter’s truck. “It is also a fact that Police Officer Kevin Thomas had been severely wounded by being shot to the head by a looter. These brazen criminal acts had all police officers on high alert.”

The NOPD declined to answer questions about the report, citing the ongoing federal investigation. NOPD spokesman Bob Young provided this statement: “The information that you are requesting is part of the federal investigation currently in progress. The NOPD will not comment on any part of the ongoing federal investigation. The NOPD has cooperated with the federal investigators and will continue to cooperate throughout their investigation.”

Simmons’ attorney, Townsend Myers, declined to comment, while Warren’s attorney did not return a request for comment.

Shooting Reported Promptly

Warren’s attorney, Joseph Albe, has previously acknowledged that federal investigators think his client shot Glover, although he has disputed that the known facts definitively connect Warren to that shooting. Warren left the force in 2008.

In an interview last month, Albe explained Warren’s situation like this: Warren was guarding a building at the time, and because two men were “charging” toward the building, Warren felt he was in danger. He fired his rifle once, not knowing where the bullet landed, then called ranking officers and reported the shooting.

“He did exactly what he was supposed to have done,” Albe said.

A newcomer to the NOPD at the time of Katrina, Warren was actually stationed in the 7th District in eastern New Orleans, Albe said. But Warren lives on the West Bank and wasn’t able to get to that flooded area of the city, so after the storm he reported to duty at the 4th District.

On Sept. 2, supervisors paired Warren with Officer Linda Howard, a more experienced officer, assigning them to protect the 4th district’s detective bureau, on the second floor of a shopping complex that included a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. Both Warren and Howard were on the second-story balcony outside the bureau, according to the report.

The shooting actually took place behind the complex, according to the report. The officers heard a car approaching. As they moved to the part of the balcony facing a narrow parking lot bordering Seine Street, referred to as a “back service alley,” Howard saw a white pick-up truck with a “Firestone” logo, according to the report.

Two men got out of the truck, heading quickly toward the rear gate of the building, she said.

The report states that Warren, who was in uniform, identified himself as a police officer, yelling, “Police—get out!” One of the men looked at him and continued toward the building, the report states. Warren then saw “an object” that he “perceived was a weapon.”

A handwritten “resisting arrest report” also obtained by The Times-Picayune is less specific about what Warren saw. This document, also signed by Simmons, as well as then-Lt. Gary Gremillion, says Warren spotted an “unknown type object” in the alleged looter’s right hand.

Officer Thought His Shot Missed

In both reports, Warren, who won a precision shooting award in the NOPD’s academy, says he feared for his safety. He fired his gun in the direction of the suspect below him. Both men then took off down Seine Street.

After the shooting, Warren believed “he missed the suspect,” the report states.

Howard could not see Warren fire his weapon from her position, according to the report. She did not return a call for comment.

In the last three paragraphs, the report states that after the shooting Warren notified Simmons, although it doesn’t say when. Other officers looked for a shooting victim, but couldn’t find one, the report states.

The report notes that knowledge of the incident went up the NOPD command structure to 4th District Capt. David Kirsch and Lt. Robert Italiano, head of the district investigative unit. The required notifications to the Public Integrity Bureau and other units could not be made because of the storm, the report says.

Kirsch and Italiano, along with the on-scene supervisor, eventually concluded the use of force by Warren was justified, the report states. The NOPD’s operations manual notes that state law defines the justifiable use of deadly force as when an officer is in “imminent danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm” or must protect another person from the same level of threat.

Kirsch did not respond to a request for comment; Italiano, who has since retired from the force, declined to comment.

Key Facts Absent From Report

Experts who reviewed the report at the request of reporters said the document left many questions unanswered—including whether Warren acted properly in pulling the trigger.

“It’s impossible to tell from the report whether you had a good shoot or you didn’t,” said Ron McCarthy, a former Los Angeles police officer who has consulted for the U.S. Justice Department on shooting incidents.

In his view, key facts are absent from the report, including Warren’s distance from the citizen he fired at, and how long he waited before notifying his superiors of the incident. McCarthy also wondered what became of the white pick-up described in the document. “What about the truck?” he asked. “That’s missing from the report.”

However, he tempered his criticism by saying the department couldn’t do a thorough investigation until the crisis had abated. “It’s unreasonable” to expect officers to do full-blown investigations under catastrophic conditions, said McCarthy, who has trained police in multiple countries.

McCarthy also found some positive signs in the document, starting with the fact that Warren chose to alert his bosses to the incident. Officers, he said, have “a tendency not report to shootings in circumstances that are chaotic or out of control, like Katrina.”

David Klinger, an associate criminology professor at the University of Missouri-St.Louis and senior research scientist with the Police Foundation in Washington, wasn’t ready to draw firm conclusions from the report.

“Given the thinness of the document, it’s very hard to assess” whether the shooting was appropriate, said Klinger.

Klinger said he thinks NOPD brass should have gotten a more complete picture by conducting interviews with Warren and Howard when the situation in New Orleans stabilized. Such an approach would have generated “a fine-grained statement” from Warren.

In Klinger’s view, “The officer’s been done a disservice because we cannot know what officer Warren was thinking when he pulled the trigger.”

Klinger, who wrote a book titled “Into the Kill Zone: A Cop’s Eye View of Deadly Force,” said it’s crucial for police departments to investigate all police shootings—including those with no apparent victims. It’s not uncommon, he said, for officers to believe their bullets have missed when they’ve actually wounded or even killed citizens.

It doesn’t appear that any investigative team was called in to examine the shooting, although the report concludes with the revelation that civilians in the 3400 block of Seine Street—one block from the strip mall—told officers a man had been shot nearby and was taken to the hospital by “an unknown person.”

The report notes that the homicide squad was not called, although department policy requires homicide detectives to evaluate any police shooting that results in injury or death. Although the report was written in December, after the immediate chaos caused by the storm had subsided, the report said the unit was not available in “the wake and aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.”

If Warren had missed the man he shot at, NOPD policy would call for the incident to be reviewed by a Public Integrity Bureau investigator and, eventually, a team of supervisors to determine whether the shooting was an indication that more training or discipline was warranted.

But it doesn’t appear that review happened. These reviews are triggered by the assignment of an “ASI number,” which is assigned to each officer-involved shooting, said Felix Loicano, former commander of the Public Integrity Bureau. “That is what generates the next step,” he said.

The NOPD declined to comment on whether such a review took place.

Algiers Man Is Flagged Down to Help

Given Glover’s location, it’s difficult to understand how Warren would not have realized it if he had been shot.

William Tanner, an Algiers man, has said he was driving by and encountered Glover, his brother and a friend near the intersection of Texas Drive and Seine Street. That is about a half-block from the balcony perch where Warren said he was stationed—a spot in clear view of the shopping center.

Tanner was flagged down by Glover’s brother, Edward King, who said a man had been shot and needed assistance.

After getting the injured man in the car, Tanner said he decided the hospital was too far away and instead opted to drive to a nearby elementary school, where the NOPD’s SWAT team had set up camp.

But at the SWAT encampment, Tanner and King have said, they were handcuffed, beaten and yelled at. Officers indicated they believed Glover was a looter and offered him no assistance.

Eventually, one of the officers took Tanner’s keys and drove off with his car. Glover’s body was still inside, Tanner said. It’s not clear when he died.

While the police let the other men go, Tanner did not learn for weeks what had happened to his car. Eventually, a federal agent alerted him that its burned remains were on the Algiers levee, not far from the 4th District station. Glover’s charred body was pulled out of that vehicle, according to the Orleans Parish coroner’s office.

Second Ex-Cop Pleads Guilty in New Orleans

A.C. Thompson — 2010-03-11T16:40:13-05:00

March 12: This story has been updated.

The second guilty plea in the Danziger Bridge case today revealed additional details about the conduct of New Orleans police after Hurricane Katrina and suggested more prosecutions of higher-ranking officers are yet to come.

Former police detective Jeffrey Lehrmann pleaded guilty to failing to report a felony in connection to a Sept. 4, 2005 incident in which officers shot six civilians on or near the bridge. Two people were killed.

According to a document filed by federal prosecutors, Lehrmann helped cover up police misconduct by concocting evidence portraying the citizens who were shot as gun-wielding criminals.

Lehrmann also participated in a scheme to plant a gun at the scene, the document says, and even helped create a fictional witness whose “statements” were included in a 54-page police report on the shootings. (The New Orleans Times-Picayune first raised questions about the existence of bogus witnesses to the bridge incident in 2007.)

Prosecutors’ case against Lehrmann also points to a bigger fish: His supervisor—unnamed in the court documents—who allegedly provided the planted gun and committed other crimes during the investigation.

Lehrmann’s supervisor at the time was Sgt. Arthur Kaufman. A call to Kaufman’s attorney, Stephen London, was not immediately returned, but London has acknowledged to the Times-Picayune that Kaufman is a target of the federal probe.

The Danziger investigation just is one of many examples of questionable post-Katrina police work. Late last year ProPublica, the Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline” began scrutinizing other violent episodes that occurred the week after the hurricane made landfall, including the fatal shootings of Danny Brumfield and Matthew McDonald, and the non-fatal shooting of Keenon McCann. All of the men were shot by NOPD officers.

Our investigation identified a disturbing pattern: In case after case, NOPD officers conducted superficial investigations before concluding their fellow cops had acted appropriately. The U.S. Department of Justice is now looking into these shootings as well.

Update: Stephen London, Arthur Kaufman’s attorney, called us back today to say, “I’m not particularly concerned with what Mr. Lehrmann says because it’s not true.” Kaufman is still on the payroll at the NOPD and has not been suspended or placed on administrative leave, London added.

Second Figure Charged in Post-Katrina Police Shootings

A.C. Thompson — 2010-03-10T12:17:12-05:00

A second former New Orleans Police Department officer has been charged in federal court in connection with the Sept. 4, 2005 shootings on the Danziger Bridge. Jeffrey Lehrmann, who left the NOPD to work for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was charged last month with concealing a crime, according to court documents unsealed Tuesday and obtained by our partners at the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Late last year, ProPublica, PBS “Frontline” and the Times-Picayune teamed up to examine a string of violent encounters between police and civilians that occurred in New Orleans during the week after Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

The bridge incident was particularly notorious. Police officers shot six citizens, killing two. Lehrmann, tasked with investigating what happened on the bridge, “participated in the creation of false reports” and provided “false information to investigating agents,” according to the bill of information filed by the U.S. Department of Justice.

As the Times-Picayune noted, Lehrmann also plays a central role in another ongoing controversy: While working as an NOPD detective he helped build the case against Michael Anderson, whose murder conviction was overturned recently when a judge found that prosecutors had failed to turn over key evidence to defense lawyers.

Last month, former NOPD Lt. Michael Lohman pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice in connection with the bridge shootings.

FBI Confirms Investigations Into Post-Katrina Violence Widening

A.C. Thompson — 2010-03-05T17:11:59-05:00

If you’ve been following our Law & Disorder series, there are a couple of fresh developments.

Our partners at the Times-Picayune have some new information about the expanding federal probe of the New Orleans Police Department, confirming that the FBI is investigating two more shootings described in stories we published in December.

Also, the city’s inspector general publicly accused (PDF) Police Superintendent Warren Riley of illegally obstructing attempts to scrutinize police misconduct and disciplinary files.

“As you know, the relationship between the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) and the citizens of New Orleans has been poor,” wrote Inspector General E.R. Quatrevaux in a letter sent this week to outgoing Mayor C. Ray Nagin and posted on his office’s Web site.

Quatrevaux is in the process of establishing an independent monitoring body to oversee the NOPD. In the letter, he faults Riley for barring his staffers from reviewing records on police misconduct, discipline and shooting incidents. The Times-Picayune has more on the controversy.

Former New Orleans Detective Pleads Guilty in Katrina Shooting Cover-up

A.C. Thompson — 2010-02-24T17:41:14-05:00

Former New Orleans Police Department Lt. Michael Lohman today pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiring to obstruct justice, in connection with one of a string of violent encounters between police and civilians in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Police shot at least 10 people during the week after the storm made landfall. (We have been investigating the shootings, along with our partners the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline.”)

Lohman’s guilty plea stems from the so-called Danziger Bridge incident of Sept. 4, 2005. Responding to an emergency call that day, New Orleans police officers shot six citizens—killing two—on and around the span.

The Times-Picayune has been covering the Danziger Bridge shootings from the start and it has the latest.

Lohman helped orchestrate the police’s investigation of the shooting, a probe portrayed in the bill of information as an attempted cover-up. The former lieutenant was involved in planting a handgun at the scene, drafted phony police reports, and lied to federal agents, according the court document. (The New York Times has good details on the alleged cover-up. And we at ProPublica have posted the bill of information in our easy-to-read document viewer.)

Lohman’s plea is the clearest indicator yet that the federal government—which for more than a year now has been investigating the New Orleans Police Department’s actions in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina—is mounting a two-pronged probe: federal prosecutors and the FBI are scrutinizing incidents in which police shot civilians in the chaotic days after the storm, as well as the alleged efforts of other officers to cover-up those shootings.

Defense attorneys familiar with the widening federal probe say the Justice Department is looking at the death of Henry Glover as a possible cover-up, as well. Glover was shot on Sept. 2. 2005—possibly by NOPD officer David Warren—and died, according to three witnesses, at a makeshift police compound in the Algiers section of New Orleans. His charred remains were later discovered in an incinerated car dumped on a Mississippi River levee.

Federal agents began examining Glover’s death after ProPublica, in conjunction with The Nation magazine, reported on the case in late 2008.

In recent weeks, the Justice Department has begun looking at three other post-Katrina incidents—the shootings of Danny Brumfield, Matthew McDonald and Keenon McCann, all of whom were shot by NOPD officers in the week after the hurricane made landfall. Brumfield and McDonald died; McCann was injured but survived to file a lawsuit against the police department. He was shot to death by an unknown assailant in 2008 while the suit was pending.

The NOPD, like most police departments, conducts an investigation every time an officer opens fire on a citizen—the goal is to make sure the shooting was proper and justified. As a general rule, officers are allowed to use deadly force only when confronted by a person posing a physical threat, either to the officer or another civilian.

However, a joint effort by reporters with ProPublica, the New Orleans Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline” found that NOPD investigators did little to determine whether officers acted appropriately when they shot Brumfield, McDonald and McCann. NOPD detectives collected little physical evidence, spoke to few civilian witnesses, and conducted brief interviews—ranging from seven to 12 minutes—with the officers involved in the shootings.

Post-Katrina Shootings by Police Get Federal Attention

A.C. Thompson, ProPublica, Laura Maggi and Brendan McCarthy Times-Picayune — 2010-02-19T08:59:01-05:00

Federal agents have broadened their investigation of the New Orleans Police Department and are now looking into three post-Katrina police shootings detailed in a news series published by ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and the PBS series “Frontline” in December.

Assistant Superintendent Marlon Defillo of the NOPD confirmed that the FBI has subpoenaed documents relating to the shootings—which included police investigative reports, as well as other related files—in the past two months.

Separately, two independent experts who reviewed the newly available autopsy report of Matthew McDonald, one of those shot, said it raised fresh questions about the shooting and its circumstances. One expert said the man, a 41-year-old drifter from Connecticut, may have been hit by the single round that killed him as he lay prone on the ground. The other expert criticized efforts to gather evidence, calling the New Orleans coroner’s forensic work in the case “incomplete at best.”

In the news series, “Law & Disorder,” reporters at ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and PBS “Frontline” examined police conduct in the wake of Katrina. The series focused on three confrontations between police and civilians: the fatal shooting in Faubourg Marigny of McDonald, the 41-year-old drifter; the fatal shooting of an 45-year-old Danny Brumfield Sr. in front of the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center; and the nonfatal shooting of Keenon McCann on an Interstate 10 overpass.

Sheila Thorne, a special agent in the FBI’s field office in New Orleans, confirmed that agents were “looking into the circumstances surrounding Matthew McDonald’s death.” She declined to discuss the other two shootings featured in the series.

Jim Gallagher, spokesman for the local Fraternal Order of Police lodge, said Thursday afternoon that he was unaware that the FBI probe had widened and that he was not in a position to comment.

The federal subpoenas are the latest development in the long-running investigation of the NOPD. For more than a year, agents have been examining two controversial post-Katrina episodes: the Danziger Bridge incident, during which officers killed two civilians and wounded four others; and the death of Henry Glover, who witnesses say died while in NOPD custody in Algiers. Federal investigators believe a police officer shot Glover, according to the officer’s lawyer and other sources close to the probe.

DA Declines to Charge

Out of all of the police shooting cases examined in the news series, the McDonald case was perhaps the most mysterious.

Exactly when the NOPD concluded its own investigation into the McDonald shooting is unknown, as are the department’s findings about the case. Police said in their initial report they could find no other witnesses to the incident.

The NOPD has repeatedly refused to provide reporters with the supplemental report by homicide detectives that determined whether or not the shooting was justified. City Attorney Penya Moses-Fields earlier this month stated in a letter that the report could not be released because the case is “the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation,” although she did not explain which agency was investigating.

The Orleans Parish district attorney’s files show the police documents on the case were turned over to the agency in May 2007, said Chris Bowman, communications director for the office. The DA’s public corruption unit, which at the time looked at every officer-involved shooting, reviewed the case and decided in September 2007 that criminal charges were not warranted, he said.

“It was refused because there was no evidence that was contrary to what the police said happened,” Bowman said.

According to the NOPD’s seven-page initial incident report, Lt. Bryant Wininger confronted McDonald on the afternoon of Sept. 3, 2005, because he was clutching a white plastic bag containing a handgun and a bottle.

McDonald was ordered by police to drop the bag, but he refused, instead reaching inside, according to the report. He then allegedly raised the bag toward Wininger, who fired his AR-15 assault rifle at McDonald as he began turning away, the report stated.

After again ordering McDonald to drop the gun, Wininger fired a second shot, and McDonald fell to the ground, the report said.

Wininger has declined to comment on the shooting. The day of the shooting, he was patrolling in a white pickup truck with three other officers: Det. Nicholas Gernon, Sgt. Daniel Scanlan and officer Nick Pearson. NOPD officers are barred, by agency policy, from speaking to the media.

‘Swept Him Under the Carpet’

A hard-drinking drifter from the Northeast, McDonald left behind family members and a girlfriend in Norwich, Conn. McDonald’s relatives didn’t know he’d been slain by an officer until they were contacted by a reporter in late 2009.

His sister-in-law, Kerry McDonald, said the police department “led us to believe it was a civilian” who killed McDonald. In her view, the NOPD “just swept him under the carpet like he was discarded garbage and nobody cared about him, which was not true.”

A friend of McDonald’s who met the Connecticut native on the streets before Katrina and hung out with him after the storm said he doesn’t recall his friend ever carrying a gun.

Mike Perez, a frequently homeless man who contacted reporters after the initial story appeared in December, said the two men spent the days after the storm looking for places to crash and alcohol to drink. During their time together, he never spotted the 9mm handgun that police reported taking from McDonald after he was shot.

Perez, however, remembered his friend picking a white plastic bag out of a trash can that morning to hold beer and water bottles.

The two men had been drinking beer in the French Quarter just hours before McDonald was shot, Perez said. Perez, who was waiting for his brother to arrive to drive him to Baton Rouge, invited McDonald to come along.

McDonald agreed but said he needed to try to get some money from a friend first, heading off toward Rampart Street, he said. McDonald never returned, and when Perez’s brother arrived, he left.

Autopsy Report Analyzed

As federal agents begin looking at the McDonald killing, one key piece of evidence has recently resurfaced.

In December, the coroner’s chief investigator, John Gagliano, told reporters the McDonald autopsy had been misplaced and could not be found.

After the stories appeared, a CNN producer who’d obtained that document several years ago provided it to reporters.

The six-page autopsy report shows McDonald was slain by “one penetrating gunshot wound” to the left back, which broke ribs, punctured a lung and caused internal bleeding. Tracing an upward trajectory, the bullet moved from “bottom-to-top” as it tore through the man’s body, according to the autopsy.

Two independent experts reviewed the autopsy and available police documents at the request of reporters and focused on the angle of the fatal shot.

James Lauridson, a forensic pathologist and former chief medical examiner for the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences, said he was able to draw some conclusions about the circumstances of the shooting from the documents. He saw two likely possibilities.

McDonald was “possibly crouched down in a protective manner” when Wininger fired, said Lauridson. “The other alternative is that he was flat on his face.”

The police report is thin on details, but it suggests Wininger fired the fatal shot as McDonald was standing and trying to pivot away from the gunfire. According to the NOPD report, Wininger took two more shots at McDonald as he lay on the pavement after he allegedly continued reaching for the gun in the white bag. Neither of those shots “appeared to have wounded him,” the report stated.

In Lauridson’s opinion, the possible discrepancies between how the police report describes the shooting and the autopsy findings are understandable. In a shooting situation, he noted, emotions run extremely high, and the people involved often have trouble accurately remembering all the details.

Louis Levy, who worked as a forensic pathologist for several North Carolina counties, also studied the autopsy and police report. Levy, who now performs autopsies for private clients, thinks McDonald “could’ve been standing up, but leaning forward as if he was going to dash away from the police” when he was shot. He didn’t think McDonald was shot while lying down.

However, Levy said it was hard to be certain because the forensic work was “incomplete at best.” He faulted the Orleans Parish coroner’s office for failing to collect the bullet—or bullet fragments—and McDonald’s clothes from West Jefferson Medical Center, where police state in their report they took McDonald after he was shot.

The garments, Levy explained, could have been stained with gunshot residue, which would offer clues about the distance between McDonald and Wininger when the shot was fired.

Coroner Declines to Comment

The autopsy, conducted by pathologist Samantha Huber, noted the body was inside a body bag on a blood-soaked green sheet. No clothing was in the body bag received by the coroner’s office, the report stated, which also noted that “no projectile” was present in the body.

The report did not state how the coroner’s office received the body.

Minyard declined to comment on Thursday, saying he would need to review the autopsy and could not talk until Monday.

But the longtime Orleans Parish coroner has often discussed the gruesome and difficult conditions that faced his team of forensic pathologists after Katrina. With the New Orleans morgue flooded, doctors dissected more than a thousand bodies in makeshift forensic centers in oppressive heat with inadequate resources.

Many bodies were seriously decomposed because they were left out in the heat, but that doesn’t appear to be the situation with McDonald.

The autopsy was conducted on Sept. 13, according to the report, which noted the body was “slightly cool to the touch due to prior refrigeration.” The report found “minimal rigidity.”

For McDonald’s loved ones, the autopsy hasn’t diminished their skepticism about his death. John McDonald doesn’t believe his brother would have disobeyed commands coming from a police officer aiming an assault rifle in his direction. “Matt would’ve put his arms up and said, ‘All right, you got me.’ He would’ve laid down,” John McDonald said. “He would’ve laid down.”

Tom Jennings of “Frontline” contributed to this report.