Portal talk:Disasters and accidents/Eyewitness accounts/St Bernard Parish

Balance other stories

This would provide a good balance to one of the stories saying this is all a form of genocide against blacks. They should be combined into one article. StuRat 20:37, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Violence worse than reported

I have spoken to a member of the Army, Louisiana State Police, and asked about the immediate efforts to rescue people from the rising waters. Most people who responded with boats were turned away from the rescue efforts. Only a few actually worked and were only allowed to assist if they had an armed police officer in the boat (sniper was what I was told). The reason was the widespread violence. The State Police officer said that the State Police ran out of ammunition. My friend who is a local police office delivered a load of ammunition to the New Orleans Police (we live about 50 miles west of New Orleans). I know a retired New Orleans policeman who received a call for help from a NOPD officer who was "under siege" by thugs piling bodies outside the doors and firing upon the police station. There are numerous reports of violence including snipers, rapes and buildings looted. From those who were there, the situation is often compared to the fight for Baghdad.

The violence overwhelmed local officials and eliminated much of the normal local government and civilian response.

Wow. thanks for these reports

The main article and some of the comments... wow. Thank you for writing so plainly and just saying what you saw. I hope that the wikinews authours take a lesson from this and stop trying to selectively use quotes in a vain attempt at editorialising and simply concentrate on discerning facts from the rabid opinions of political opportunists.

Certainly authors of stories shouldn't put their opinions in stories, but they also should ensure that stories are balanced, by telling both sides, and should keep unreliable sources out of the story entirely. For example, an alleged first-hand account might say "Yankee imperialist hooligan government overthrown after big storm", if it was planted by North Korea, LOL. StuRat 11:31, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't think an eyewitness report needs to be balanced. By definition, it reports on what was seen. (whether the report itself is fair and neutral is another matter). -Edbrown05 22:16, 9 September 2005 (UTC)