Verdict: Five NOPD Officers Guilty in Danziger Bridge Shootings, Cover-Up

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A federal jury today found all five Danziger Bridge defendants guilty of the shootings that killed two civilians and seriously wounded four others in the days after Hurricane Katrina. The jury also found the officers guilty of a massive cover-up that lasted nearly five years. Five NOPD officers had previously pleaded guilty in the case.

The Danziger Bridge case is the most high-profile of the six cases of questionable NOPD shootings after Katrina that we've been investigating with ProPublica and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. It also is one of the U.S. Justice Department's most significant criminal prosecutions of police since the early 1990s. Earlier this year, a 158-page report by the Justice Department found that the NOPD "has been largely indifferent to widespread violations of law and policy by its officers."

Explore more of our Law & Disorder investigation here.

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posted august 05, 2011