we knew this happened

i don't think we knew to what extent. i also am shocked NOTHING has been done. although i shouldn't be shocked. next to nothing has been done (by the government) to help MOST of the people effected by katrina. OUR people, OUR country. if you don't think the rate of help to people of natural disasters is directly proportionate to their wealth and/or their color, you're just kidding yourself.

Katrina's Hidden Race War

By A.C. Thompson

The way Donnell Herrington tells it, there was no warning. One second he was trudging through the heat. The next he was lying prostrate on the pavement, his life spilling out of a hole in his throat, his body racked with pain, his vision blurred and distorted.

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It was September 1, 2005, some three days after Hurricane Katrina crashed into New Orleans, and somebody had just blasted Herrington, who is African-American, with a shotgun. "I just hit the ground. I didn't even know what happened," recalls Herrington, a burly 32-year-old with a soft drawl.

The sudden eruption of gunfire horrified Herrington's companions--his cousin Marcel Alexander, then 17, and friend Chris Collins, then 18, who are also black. "I looked at Donnell and he had this big old hole in his neck," Alexander recalls. "I tried to help him up, and they started shooting again." Herrington says he was staggering to his feet when a second shotgun blast struck him from behind; the spray of lead pellets also caught Collins and Alexander. The buckshot peppered Alexander's back, arm and buttocks........

A.C. Thompson: White vigilante justice tore through New Orleans after the storm. But no official investigation has shed light on the violence.

picture: CHANDRA MCCORMICK AND KEITH CALHOUN
A vigilante shot Donnell Herrington twice shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.