In America.
Will the Katrina crisis have its own Todd Beamer? Rather than help a woman who was being raped and stabbed, US troops in New Orleans murdered an American hero who tried to ask them to help. This was posted on BoingBoing today. Get the word out.
"They killed a man here last night," Steve Banka, 28, told the Reuters news agency before he left on Sunday.
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A body lies face down in water next to the Superdome. Death was everywhere, both inside and outside the Superdome
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"A young lady was being raped and stabbed. And the sounds of her screaming got to this man and so he ran out into the street to get help from troops, to try to flag down a passing truck of them. He jumped up on the truck's windscreen and they shot him dead," Mr Banka said.
Comments
mjwise on Sep. 4, 2005 6:45 PM
The man should have never, ever jumped onto an armed unit's windscreen, especially in an essentially urban warfare situation. That is going to be interpreted as an aggressive act in any situation. I would ask my roommate what his take on this would be, but he's already been deployed down there and only can hope he doesn't have to face a similar situation.
matt-arnold on Sep. 4, 2005 7:20 PM
Really? He's completely unarmed. The troops were heavily armed. Tell me, what could he have done to them?
mjwise on Sep. 4, 2005 7:41 PM
How did they know he wasn't armed with a bomb on a suicide mission? If someone's going to shoot at rescue helicopters, why not bomb some national guard units too? I know it sounds outlandish, but they have to be prepared for all possibilities.
matt-arnold on Sep. 4, 2005 7:49 PM
Some perspective here. Who are they sent in to protect? American civilians getting raped and stabbed? Or should they go down there just to kill American civilians to protect themselves? Some military spokespeople are actually using the word "insurgency," which is completely incorrect. The few criminals taking advantage of everyone else are not organized and have no political agenda to accomplish by destroying American troops. The mindset being used is completely wrong.
mjwise on Sep. 4, 2005 8:13 PM
I'd grant you that there is no political agenda to destroying US troops. But then again, what are the political benefits of shooting at rescue helicopters? These aren't rational people they're dealing with. New Orleans had one of the highest violent crime rates in the nation before all this happened and I think almost all of those who have evacuated thus far are the innocent civilians. What do you have left? Some innocent people too still, no doubt, but the hardcore lowlifes and thugs are increasing as a percentage of the remaining population. The fact that there is a lack of a defined agenda on the part of the thugs makes them harder to deal with, if anything. The fact that the local NOPD largely disintegrated (20-30% of your force going AWOL in a military situation would be interpreted as a catastrophic desertion in most cases) doesn't help matters either.
And as I've heard said, if anyone had any terrorist attacks cooking on the back stove, now and about the next week or two in N.O. would possibly be the prime time to spring them.
Bottom line: This is an extremely dangerous situation. Jumping onto a national guard unit's truck will be interpreted in the worst way possible when it comes to matters of engagement. And as I have a roommate who will soon be if not already on those front lines, I will defer to their judgment on the matter, and not rely on second hand civilian accounts of an engagement.
matt-arnold on Sep. 4, 2005 8:23 PM
They are not 99% criminals remaining there, they are 99% innocent people who were too poor, elderly and infirm to escape. Rules have to be different with American civilians on American soil. It's safer to assume American civilians on American soil are unarmed, even more so against their own nation's military, than to assume they are armed until you find out otherwise. And if you say it's not safe to assume that in N.O. right now at all, then I ask you, safer for who?
For who?
If protecting the soldiers is the ultimate purpose and highest goal, the safest way to accomplish that would be to not send them in. They are supposed to serve and protect our citizens, not the other way around. If nobody can even report an ongoing rape and stabbing under their nose to them without becoming another victim, what are they even there for at all?
What do you want the dead man to have done? He can sit on his backside, he can attack the stabbing rapists with his bare hands, or he can try authority figures, who have the means to make a difference, to do their job, their only purpose for being there, their ONLY )(^*&)(&%(*&%ING JOB. This is good enough for you? What the hell?
drkelso on Sep. 4, 2005 8:59 PM
A couple days ago 88 armed police officers were turned away by the throngs of people at the entrance of the convention center and yet a rapist with a knife is able to get away with attacking a woman without being physically challenged? It would be kind of hard to rape a woman when being attacked by someone while in the middle of doing it. Am I the only one that sees the irony of this? And with all the trash and debris around, was there nothing anyone could have picked up to use as a weapon against this guy?
I don't know whether the soldiers were justified or not in shooting this guy. I never will. It is definitely a sad thing that happened. From the story, the man's actions appear to me to have been dangerous to himself regardless of his motive. And it is possible that the soldiers may have been overly aggressive due to the dangerous situations they were in. Those two ingredients together added up to an unfortunate situation.
There are probably going to be a lot of horrible stories like this that will emerge over the next few days and weeks.
mjwise on Sep. 4, 2005 9:32 PM
He didn't try to report a rape to them; he jumped onto their caravan after he felt he was being ignored. I am well aware that he was a person trying desperately to help in a horrible situation, but that sort of act is simply going to be regarded as hostile on the very best of occasions (try doing it to a police car sometime and let me know how it turns out for), and this is far from that, and they had no way to know he wasn't armed. You don't jump onto the front of a moving armed forces caravan -- period.
Do you even know what that guard unit was responding to? Maybe a whole group of people were being held hostage under sniper fire -- we don't know. To imply that they're just there to watch out for their own butts is to denigrate them all. They are going into a situation where 6000 years of civilization has apparently fallen apart in a matter of days to restore some semblance of order and provide safety for search and rescue personnel, and there will be accidents and unfortunate incidents.
And like I said, we are receiving at least a third-hand account of this, so I'm not sure I even believe it happened the way it was said. There are plenty of second- and third-hand accounts I've heard of sudden crime waves in Baton Rouge and Houston too, but those have panned out as rumors. There's a distinct possibility he wasn't even shot but rather jumped in the path of the truck and ended up getting hit and killed. The more I read it, the story doesn't even gel in my opinion. This Mr. Banka seemed to know an impressive amount of detail about the incident for apparently being an apparently non-involved third-party observer, and as much as I'd like to say that people wouldn't make up or embellish stories to garner attention or a media credit to their name, I know they will. This is the age of the uncorroborated one-source story AKA a rumor mill. This link has a little more detail and an even more sensational story involving the NOPD, which, if true, is even worse than the national guard story. There is always a distinct possibility that someone got trigger happy, but I will give the national guard the benefit of the doubt until I hear more corroboration for this, and I honestly don't believe this story played out the way it's been told.
drkelso on Sep. 4, 2005 11:07 PM
"as much as I'd like to say that people wouldn't make up or embellish stories to garner attention or a media credit to their name, I know they will."
Awe come on! Geraldo would never do that.
sothisislife on Sep. 4, 2005 7:31 PM
I agree. After other people have already been shooting at rescue workers and authorities, it's a shame that they ruined things for the well-intentioned people that are trying to help.
This reminds me of the case of the homeless man who was shot outside a bar in Detroit by an off-duty Michigan State Trooper. A lot of people argued that he was not "enough of a threat" to be killed, he could have been subdued another way. While that's entirely possible, I think that cops/troops are trained to shoot to kill, and there are often times that they only have a split second to make a decision.
If they perceive a situation to be a threat, then they have to make a judgment call. Given the unique situation and surroundings, unless you were there, and witnessed exactly what manner this man was behaving in, I don't think it's really appropriate to make judgment on someone else's actions or reactions. I feel like we are missing some of the facts.
Just my two cents.
(And I also think it's a bit unreasonable to send people to intense training on how to kill, and then be surprised when they do.)
Anonymous on Sep. 4, 2005 7:39 PM
We're supposed to be training them in rules of engagement and how to only kill when necessary. To train them only to shoot first and ask questions later is a failure of training.
sothisislife on Sep. 5, 2005 2:05 PM
It's a shame you don't have enough faith in your words to put your name on them.
matt-arnold on Sep. 5, 2005 3:02 PM
That was me. Sorry, Livejournal settings have changed so that it no longer prompts me to let me know I'm not logged in. I am frequently annoyed to discover that I've posted anonymously by accident.
sothisislife on Sep. 5, 2005 3:08 PM
Oh, okay. I thought someone was being all random and spineless ;)
I have a pet peeve about people who comment as 'anonymous' (intentionally).
ericthemage on Sep. 4, 2005 10:10 PM
As far as I know, cops are trained to shoot to wound, troops are trained to shoot to kill.
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