It isn’t bad enough that Mayor Ray Nagin screwed the pooch deciding about if/when to evacuate his below seal level city in the face of a hurricane, nor was it bad enough that he allowed looters to run rampant in the city in the days following the hurricane landfall. With the Federal government on hand to bail him out and the water finally receding, “Mayor” Ray Nagin has decided to order a forced evacuation of those citizens who remain in New Orleans.
Fortunately, the US military seems to understand what their duty and mission are:
The U.S. military is on the scene to help rescue people and keep order, as well as to provide food and water for people still in their homes.
Officials stressed, however, that it’s the job of the police to force evacuations if and when that time comes.
Thank God we have a professional military.
Interestingly, at least one New Orleans Police officer is not sanguine about serving the Mayor’s eviction notices:
Police Capt. Marlon Defillo said that forced removal of citizens had not yet begun. “That would be a P.R. nightmare for us,” he said. “That’s an absolute last resort.”
Although you’ll note he isn’t concerned about the legality of the notices, just about the “PR nightmare”.
This should be instructive to those of us on the outside.