Antebellum blasts of steamboat whistles still rumble through the French Quarter of New Orleans.
In early morning air heavy like cream the birds still sing. Carriages sway through the streets and artists display their work on the fence around Jackson Square.
And throughout New Orleans the awful pains of Katrina endure.
Not just the well-documented failure of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to properly protect the city with the flood control systems it was mandated to build and did not. But these stunning engineering errors and construction deficiencies, so egregious and destructive, so callous, seem nowhere as chilling as the behavior of the New Orleans Police Department.
Locals will tell you the department has been corrupt for decades. One man who lives here told me this is partially attributable to New Orleans being a relatively small and close knit city. So many people know one another that when a cop sees a suspect he knows at a crime scene, the suspect is often told to run.
Which is what Leonard Bartholomew IV was doing on September 4, 2005.
He was running when members of the New Orleans Police Department shot him and five other unarmed civilians up on the Danziger Bridge. Two of these men died.
The initial police report was doctored. Four months later, the seven policemen involved gathered in a gutted former police station for a secret meeting to fine tune their cover up and align their lies.
In December 2006, the Danziger Seven were indicted by the State of Louisiana on charges of murder and attempted murder. In August, 2008, the case was thrown out of court by Orleans Parish District Judge Raymond Bigelow, who cited prosecutorial miscues.
But now New Orleans has a new mayor. And the New Orleans Police Department has new leadership. The United States Department of Justice is involved. Fresh charges have now been filed against five of the seven policemen.
The chill of the Danziger Bridge still sends shivers though the otherwise warm night when squad cars flashing blue lights slice through the damp darkness with untold menace.
