Guilty Plea in Katrina Police Shootings

At first, the story of police shooting unarmed people looking for food in the wake of the Hurricane Katrina destruction and a rumored police cover-up sounded like the plot of a television drama.

But the story of the shootings and attempted police cover-up was proved all too true this week with yesterday's guilty plea from retired police lieutenant Michael Lohman, who admitted to faking witness statements and incident reports and planting a gun on suspects to make their shooting appear to be justified.

Lohman faces a maximum sentence of five years and will be sentenced May 26.

The case is shining a light on the breakdown of law and order after the storm. And the Lohman case is giving support to arguments raised by critics of the police department that officers were responsible for much of the mayhem that spread throughout New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina brought out the worst in people and government agencies, but few performed as poorly as local police in the storm aftermath. Aside from multiple reports of unjustified police shootings, police were accused of abandoning their posts, looting and beating prisoners.

Supporters of police say the conditions after the storm, such as severed communications with officers in the field, caused some officers to bend the rules, but overall police acted responsibly.

The guilty plea from Lohman, a 21-year police veteran, could be just the first in a case that underscored the desperation and violence that washed over New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region in the hours after Hurricane Katrina hit land in late August 2005.

Six days later, a group of unarmed people tried to cross the Danziger Bridge to get food at a grocery store. Police, fearing the start of widespread looting, opened fire on the group and claimed the residents had shot at them. Two people in the group were killed, one of whom was Ronald Madison (his siblings appear in the picture above) and four others were wounded.

Seven officers were charged with murder or attempted murder in the case, but a state judge threw out the charges. Federal investigators took over the case.