Sorry, that's not what I meant to convey. Damn internet communication. I was not commenting on anyone's intellect, just the fact that the people who could not/would not leave the city included a lot of the criminal population. It is no secret that N.O. has it's share of poverty and all of the wonderful things that go along w/ that, I'm not all that surprised that (some) people are behaving atrociously.

Once again, sorry. Did not mean what you are implying.

Instrument- Don't you know it's not their fault. They were locked in the superdome for 3 days!!! Of course they're upset. So, of course, the next course of action is to rob, loot and start burning things. Come on man, get with the times!

- Skip

cleaning up a landfill is never easy,what I see now would just ensure that I never visit that place, unless I take a glass bottom boat tour to see Bourbon street.What's left is a garbage dump in so many ways.
rika

Touche. Mule, I'll buy you a beer someday and we can prolly solve all the world's problems between us.

The L.A. riots were predicted (to some extent) and the police were in place to crush it. For reasons never particularly well-explained, LAPD was asked to pull back and take no action while the riot grew, got publicized on TV and then broke out of the ghetto.

What never gets any press is what happened on the west side of L.A. where I was eating lunch. When the TV coverage got scary, all those nice well-to-do folks in their Bimmers and Jags started cutting in and out of traffic, running lights, and generally demonstrating no respect for law and order -- running, even though they were 25 miles from the riot activity.

Put humans in a similar stressful situation and they pretty much act the same. Harvard degree or not.

Nope. Not all humans. Just the ****heads.

****heads exist across the SocioEconomic spectrum.

Tom

For the last ******* time, I was not using college professors as an example of geniuses, but rather people who would be on the receiving end of a mugging as opposed to the giving end.

"Pitcher vs. catcher" thing.

Whatever, I used a bad example/analogy. :)

Considering where the people who stayed behind in N.O. exist on on the socioeconomic foodchain, I for one am not the least bit surprised at their behavior. (Some of them). :cool:

1) The L.A. riots were never predicted. The northern flashpoint of the riots happened outside Parker Center, the headquarters for the LAPD. Cops pulled back, Chief Gates was at a dinner party. One cop I knew then said "To hell with it! What can we do?" and went drinking and pool playing. He was fired the next day. So who of any merit predicted the riots? If a riot is predicted, one reaction is to call in the LAPD riot task force, then the Nat'l Guard. In 1992, there was no such LAPD task force that I remember, and the Nat'l Guard wasn't activated until two days after the riots began.

2) Although Westsiders panicked, shoot-to-kill orders were issued in a number of areas, including Beverly Hills and Burbank. Not that this alleviated much, but it was interesting that Beverly Hills police recorded the first known "kills" after the riots began.

3) The press reported dozens of stories involving the frightened affluent, who aren't just on the Westside, either, but in the San Fernando Valley and other places as well.

We apparently recall things quite differently.

Apparently. Because I worked at the Los Angeles Times then, which is around the corner from Parker Center. If anyone "predicted" anything, it would have funneled through a major purveyor of information. No one said: "There will be riots!"

So you forgot Bradley's public thrashing of Gates for creating 'contingency plans?'

After the fact. AFTER. The riots already occurred. There was much finger-pointing after the riots. And Bradley was as clueless as Gates as was the city council, etc., etc. before the riots. Everyone was clueless. Rioting usually occurs from a major, widespread breakdown in authority. None was the case in LA at the time.

So I'm still curious: who directly stated or predicted there would be riots.

Gates did. And Bradley chastized him for it, just like I said.

Wow, that does bring back the memories. I DO remember the Bradley Gates thing too. Was downplayed in the LA Slimes because of the black mayor - white police chief angle was almost too much to address.

Oh yes, now I remember. Gates said something to the effect "I (told) him there needs to be a contingency plan." And Bradley suggested something to the effect of it was the LAPD's job to come up with that. I can't remember the exact language as it was 13 years ago.

Here again, that's still no prediction that riots would occur in lieu of those cops being found not guilty. Contingency was advised - riots were not predicted.

Or, to put it another way: if there was a prediction by a high-level official, who also maintained that all was being done, bunches of fearful Westiders wouldn't be high-tailing it in their cars.

If you look at video tape of the flashpoints, then watch how everything between Beverly Hills and downtown caught fire on into the night, it simply serves that someone at Gates' level, if he did make a prediction, was not heard.

But Bradley hated Gates anyway, and vice versa.