And look at what the article says at the ems site you listed:
http://www.emsnetwork.org/artman/publish/article_18427.shtml

"Their tale in just one of many self-authored articles coming out of New Orleans. The fact they are paramedics is largely irrelevant to the tale, however, there are many EMT/Paramedic personal accounts online - some even more incredible.
Please do not write to us for permission to reprint, interview, etc. They do not work for EMSN. Their story is a reprint they disseminated. Contact them through Socialist Worker or Gurney Gazette."

Look at the "Socialist Worker":
http://www.socialistworker.org/index.shtml

The "Gurney Gazette" link at the ems site is just an email address.

This story most definitely comes from a source not known for objectivity!

Considering the source, I'm convinced that the story is either a complete fabrication, or contains substantial lies.

I guess we can see why "techweenie" didn't give us the source when he posted the article here...

We had a similar story on TV 2 days ago.

A Canadian couple who won their trip to NO were stuck in their hotel during the storm. A few days later they were evacuated with a group of tourist to the Superdome. On their way they were told by some policeman not to get there because of the violence. They then headed to the convention center and found out it was a mess there also. They then decided to walk to that same bridge to get out of town. Guess what, at least 50 peoples from the convention center decided to follow them. It is quite amazing, a group of tourists with their maps leading the local population trought the city. They were turned away also and couldn't cross the bridge. The Canadian couple decided to leave the group, managed to walk to a highway were they were pick-up by a couple of black teenagers who were offering taxi services all the way to Texas.

I guess they will remember their vacations.

I guess the Canadian couple must be complete liars too - competentone?

Here's another account. All liars again?

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/police-shoot-at-tourists-escaping-new-orleans/2005/09/02/1125302726757.html?oneclick=true

"Police shoot at tourists escaping New Orleans
New Orleans
September 2, 2005 - 2:27PM

Frightened Japanese, European and American tourists told today how police fired over their heads to end their attempt to leave New Orleans.

Stranded since Hurricane Katrina hit the city on Monday, the 200 tourists were thrown out of their hotel on Thursday morning and said they were confronted by police as they attempted to get to buses to take them to safety.

Turned back to the centre of New Orleans, where looters were still roaming the lawless streets, the tourists huddled together on their suitcases under a pavilion next to the Mississippi River.

The hotel in the French Quarter told the tourists to leave saying their safety could no longer be guaranteed.

They said police gave them conflicting information. At one stage they were told to head to the Superdome arena or the city's convention centre where deadly shootings and rapes have been reported among the thousands of refugees.

Later, the tourists were told to make their way to a highway overpass where buses would take them to safety.

AdvertisementAdvertisement
The tourists dragged their suitcases through a notoriously dangerous inner city neighbourhood, got drenched in a thunderstorm and were then turned back.

"All of a sudden, police cruisers rushed in with sirens blaring," said Patty Murphy, a 57-year-old saleswoman from Massachusetts. "They were shooting over our heads telling us to go back."

The tourists, one walking on crutches, then trekked back to the relative safety of the Canal Street ferry terminal which faces the police command centre.

It has been a desperate four days for the visitors who had no power or water in the hotel.

At one stage they chartered buses to get them out of town only to be told the vehicles had been commandeered by the National Guard.

"We are lost," said Ryo Gotanda from Chiba, Japan as she ate a military ration pack handed out by police.

"We are tourists we don't know how to get around how to protect ourselves, it is like being in a jungle," said Gotanda, who studies in New York.

The worst part, she said, was walking through the tough inner-city neighbourhood. "People were staring at us, waving clubs. I was scared, for the first time in my life I thought I would die," said Gotanda.

Many tourists said they felt tremendous sympathy for the people who had lost everything in the disaster. But they also questioned the lack of organisation by authorities.

"It is incredible that a country as powerful as the United states with its huge military cannot do better than this," said 18-year-old Aitor Fuste from Barcelona.

The tourists spent the night under the concrete pavilion hoping they would be safe and trying their best to comfort each other.

"We are obviously very happy to be alive," said Genie Whitfield, from Leitrin, Ireland, who was on her honeymoon in New Orleans.

She and her husband had tried to get out before the hurricane but all the flights were booked.

"It has been quite an experience but if we have kids ... we definitely won't call them Katrina," she said.

- AFP"

Another one from AP



(New Orleans-AP, Sept. 2, 2005 10:15 AM) _ First the federal government took the buses they had hired to evacuate them.

Then their hotels turned them out onto the desolate streets.

They trudged for blocks to walk over a bridge, but officers wouldn't let them cross -- and fired a few warning shots over their heads to convince them.

And the night was coming down.

Despairing, dozens of trapped tourists huddled on a downtown street corner and waited for dark.

"I grew up in an upper-middle class family. Street life is foreign to me," said Larry Mitzel, 53, of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "I'm not sure I'm going to get out of here alive."

The fate of tourists in dozens of hotels here was caught up in the days of chaos and confusion that came after Hurricane Katrina's 145 mph winds.

Many smaller hotels shut down. The largest housed hundreds and hundreds of guests and took in refugees from the storm. How many remained Thursday was unclear.

Tourists and hotel managers alike condemned government officials for ignoring them.

"The tourists are an afterthought here," said Bill Hedrick of Houston, who came to town on business and was trapped with his wife and elderly mother-in-law.

"We're appalled," said Jill Johnson, 53, of Saskatoon. "This city is built on tourism and we're their last priority."

Peter Ambros, general manager of the Astor Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter, said, "Guests who bring business to the hotels are treated 10 times worse than the people at the Superdome."

He helped arrange the hiring of 10 buses to evacuate 500 guests from his and a nearby hotel -- at a cost of $25,000.

Then the Federal Emergency Management Agency commandeered the buses and police told the guests to go to the nearby convention center, where a crowd left without food, water or security was growing angry.

Instead, the tourists -- dragging their rolling luggage through broken glass, smashed bricks and trash -- tried to cross a huge bridge blocks away.

They were turned back when another group trying to cross began to threaten the officers, said Whit Herndon, 32, of Jonesboro, Ark.

As night approached, the tourists stuck close together on a corner of the downtown waterfront and within sight of a police gathering point.

Officers brought them food and water and promised buses would come for them. Most prepared to sleep, sheltered by a concrete overhang.

The tourists put on a game face and prepared to sleep.

Ann Robertson, a 50-year-old vocational counselor from Nashville, Tenn., looked on the bright side. They had food, there was safety in numbers -- but then she looked at the sky.

"I don't know," she said, "I never slept on the street before."

Friday morning, the tourists were still there, and still trapped

Link

So you are telling me that the account presented in the Socialist Worker is true because it shares some similar elements to the accounts presented by some un-named Canadians and by a story written in Australia?

I hope you understand, if the police were preventing people from using a public roadway to leave New Orleans, I think that it is appalling. If officers were firing in the direction of people attempting to leave in a peaceful and orderly fashion, then those officers deserve to lose their jobs.

Unfortunately, I am not seeing accounts being presented by sources that are trustworthy and verifiable. Furthermore, consistent with the suspicions I raised in my first questions, I simply cannot see any of the main-stream U.S. media outlets ignoring such a story.

Most of the main-stream media absolutely love a story involving police misconduct with hints of racism. Why aren't they reporting on this story? I suspect because the events have not occurred as these stories describe them.

Ahh....we see that the story here is not the same as described in the "Socialist Worker." The officers were dealing with a violent crowd, and actually tried to assist the tourists!

Just as we see people with agendas making accusations about who is to be "blamed" for problems from the hurricane, there are those with agendas who will twist stories (and in some cases tell out-right lies) to attempt to further their cause.

(Understand that their "cause" may be as simple as "trying to make the U.S. look bad.")

It's easy to find all sorts of "news stories" on all sorts of subjects online; you have to learn to filter those stories to determine which are attempting to present the facts of a situation as objectively as possible.

To pull a little cross-thread action on ya...

Shouldn't you really just be asking what color these tourists were? If the police fired over their head, then they MUST have been black, right?

- Skip

Go figure...The Socialist Worker, communist front rag sharing the key words of the nazi party..national socialist workers party...Yep, must be credible.

It amazes me the warm spot libs have for communists and socialists...It would be like me sourcing articles from a KKK magazine; only worse as communists/socialists were/are animals that make Hitler's fascism look like Boy Scouts.

Why wasn't the first group allowed to leave anyway ?

Ahh, you missed this part, competentone:

"They trudged for blocks to walk over a bridge, but officers wouldn't let them cross -- and fired a few warning shots over their heads to convince them."

After that, they end up huddled on the street corner.

The story is from the AP, by the way.

You and Mulhollandose can deny it if you wish, but there are multiple consistent reports from multiple different news agencies that law enforcement would not let people leave the city on foot. Why was that?

I'm not clear what happened in all of the cases. In two of the reports, the tourists had gathered up a large crowd of locals, presumably black, by the time they got to the bridge or overpass or whatever it was they weren't allowed to cross. In two others, they don't say.

These reports make it sound like law enforcement had decided to prevent crowds of people who were on foot from leaving New Orleans. Why would they do that?

Maybe they were concerned that the "mob" would not stay on the roadway out of town and instead enter the communities -- the officers were sworn to protect -- to loot and terrorize?

My understanding from the articles is that vehicles were allowed to pass, but people on foot were not, this might not be an unreasonable position if it is conceivable that these people on foot would not end-up anywhere other than in communities that were not able to provide them with shelter.

Not at all. If they were black they would have hit them. They obviously fired over their heads because they are white.

Sheesh...a whole convention full of EMTs there...but no emergency medical care to be found...sounds kinda fishy to me,.

But wow, it was really depressing seeing the step by step destruction of a city that I loved. It will never be the same.

Read the reports at the EMT website. A number of reports by EMTs at the convention who helped give care in New Orleans, despite having no equipment with them. Too bad it wasn't a police convention, though.

John- So I'm clear... Are you saying they were turned away because they were black? And the tourists (written about above) were turned away because blacks has infiltrated their group?