A necessary resignation?
Excerpts from an AP/Yahoo story:
Police Superintendent Eddie Compass resigned Tuesday after four turbulent weeks in which the police force was wracked by desertions and disorganization in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath....
As the city slipped into anarchy during the first few days after Katrina, the 1,700-member police department itself suffered a crisis. Many officers deserted their posts, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. Two officers Compass described as friends committed suicide.
Neither Compass nor Mayor Ray Nagin would say whether Compass was pressured to leave....
New Orleans evacuees at a shelter in Baton Rouge disagreed over the chief's legacy and whether he should have resigned.
"It's about time," said Larry Smit, 52, who owns a construction company. "Get rid of all of them. They ain't doing anything."
But truck driver James Dordain, 41, said Compass had been doing a good job with an understaffed department and faced with an unprecedented natural disaster.
"They pushed a good man to the breaking point," said Dordain, referring to other government authorities. "When they came, it was really too late."...
Lt. David Benelli, president of the union for rank-and-file New Orleans officers, said he was shocked by the resignation.
"We've been through a horrendous time," Benelli said. "We've watched the city we love be destroyed. That is pressure you can't believe."
Benelli would not criticize Compass.
"You can talk about lack of organization, but we have been through two hurricanes, there was no communications, problems everywhere," he said. "I think the fact that we did not lose control of the city is a testament to his leadership."
But in fact, chaos reigned in New Orleans as Katrina's floodwaters rose. Gunfire and other lawlessness broke out around the city. Rescue workers reported being shot at.
At the height of the Katrina chaos, Compass fed the image of lawlessness in the city by publicly repeating allegations that people were being beaten and babies raped at the convention center, where thousands of evacuees had taken shelter. The allegations have since proved largely unsubstantiated.
Ronnie Jones, a former Louisiana state police officer and a criminal justice instructor at Tulane and Southeastern Universities, said communication and transportation problems after the storm forced commanders on the ground to operate without any direction from above.
"In the midst of that, I think any chief would have had trouble dealing with things," Jones said. "In a crisis you have to coordinate forces. I don't think he had the resources, the radios, the communications to do that."...
Before Katrina hit, Compass already had his hands full with an understaffed police department and a skyrocketing murder rate, even as the rate dropped dramatically in other cities.
Despite more than 10 years of reform efforts dating to before Compass took office, police were dogged by allegations of brutality and corruption. Several studies indicated that the public's reluctance to cooperate with police was a factor in the city's crime problem.
Before Katrina, New Orleans had 3.14 officers per 1,000 residents — less than half the rate in Washington, D.C.
Dissonance and Disrespect is glad Compass is gone:
When Compass was put to the test, he and many of his men failed. Even if his force was hampered by breakdowns in communications and the local authorities' incompetence, there was no excuse for any of them to desert or become looters....
Compass sealed his fate with his hysterical claims of mass murder, rape and riot in the Superdome and Convention Center, claims that have now been disproven as exaggerated urban legends. His comments provoked public hysteria and may have indirectly contributed to the deaths of people who stayed to drown in their own homes rather than test the rumours of what was going on in the emergency shelters for themselves....
Kevin agrees:
If Nagin did not ask for Compass's resignation, that only proves how incompetant Nagin is and how he needs to be replaced if New Orleans is going to rebuild.
However, Cajun Cross Fire (in a blog written before Compass' resignation) praised the chief:
New Orleans is a wonderful city, but it has been in the throes of a struggle for its moral core with street gangs and drug dealers for some time....
When the opportunity arose, this shadow rule of savagery rose to the surface. They shot at rescue workers and those attempting to close the levee for a reason. The city was finally totally in their hands and its residents their captives to victimize as they pleased…Black and White alike. They had no intention of giving it up peacefully. This was a war for control of territory in the most basic sense....
What took place this past week was a war for the soul of New Orleans and too many so-called Black leaders stood tall on the wrong side. Somehow they could fabricate justification for what happened in the name racial solidarity.
Not all mind you. Mayor Nagin, Police Chief Eddie Compass, and some outstanding police officers and fireman performed heroically. They deserve our undying gratitude for trying desperately to maintain some semblance civilization in the most trying circumstances. For attempting to save lives while they they were under attack by gunfire. There were many heroes, but those stories are buried by a mainstream media looking for what? Controversy! Truth was the first victim of Katrina!...
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