NEW ORLEANS -  Three police officers charged in the killing of two unarmed residents on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina and a cover-up that followed pleaded not guilty on Wednesday. Sgts. Robert Gisevius and Kenneth Bowen and Officer Anthony Villavaso stood before a federal magistrate in green prison garb, shackled at the waist and ankles. They will remain jailed at least until a hearing Friday. A tentative trial date is set for Sept. 13.

Magistrate Louis Moore Jr. read the counts — 13 against Bowen, 11 against Gisevius and 10 against Villavaso. Former officer Robert Faulcon made his initial court appearance Tuesday in Texas, where he was arrested, but has not entered a plea. The charges against the four carry a maximum sentence of life in prison or the death penalty, although U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said the Justice Department hasn’t decided whether to seek the latter punishment.

The family of two victims — Ronald Madison, who was killed, and his brother, Lance, who survived — sat in the front row of the packed courtroom. Gisevius cried quietly as he stood with his lawyer. "We’ll be able to pick this indictment apart," said Frank DeSalvo, Bowen’s lawyer. "There is a lot of fantasy there."

Bowen, Gisevius and Villavaso were suspended without pay after the indictments were released Tuesday, NOPD spokesman Bob Young said on Wednesday. Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to charges they helped cover up the shootings. Prosecutors have said police fabricated witnesses, falsified reports and plotted to plant a gun to make it appear that the shootings were justified.

The shootings at the Danziger Bridge happened Sept. 4, 2005, six days after Hurricane Katrina smashed levees and left the city flooded and in chaos. Bodies floated in filthy flood waters. There were reports of looting and gunshots rang out throughout the blacked-out city. It was in this backdrop that police, desperate to regain control, were called about 9 a.m. that morning after reports of gunfire at the bridge. Seven heavily armed New Orleans police officers stormed the bridge. Prosecutors said they shot at the first people they saw, people they say were crossing the bridge to find food. When it was over, two men were dead and four others lay wounded on the hot concrete.

The indictment claims Faulcoun shot mentally disabled Ronald Madison, 40, in the back as he ran away on the west side of the bridge. Bowen is charged with stomping and kicking Madison while he was lying on the ground, wounded but still alive. Madison’s brother, Lance, was arrested and charged with trying to kill police officers. He was jailed for three weeks before being released without indictment.

Bowen, Gisevius, Faulcon and Villavaso also are accused of shooting at an unarmed family on the east side of the bridge, killing 17-year-old James Brissette and wounding four others. Sgt. Arthur Kaufman and retired Sgt. Gerard Dugue, who helped investigate the shootings, were charged with participating in the alleged cover-up. Charges against them include obstruction of justice. Kaufman and Bowen "specifically discussed using Hurricane Katrina to excuse failures in the investigation, and thereby to help make any inquiry into the shooting go away," the indictment states.

Kaufman allegedly took a gun from his home and claimed to have found it at the crime scene a day after the shootings, then lied about that gun under oath and in reports, prosecutors said. Dugue is accused of lying to a federal agent when he said he had no concerns about the truth of the officers’ statements. "In fact, he had many ‘red flags’ and ‘question marks’ about the officers’ stories, but he reported the questionable information as fact and relied upon it without qualification," the indictment says.

The charges, unsealed Tuesday, are the culmination of a two-year probe by the federal government. An internal police investigation found no wrongdoing by officers. A state grand jury convened to look into the matter charged seven officers with murder or attempted murder, but a state judge threw out all the charges in 2008.

NEW ORLEANS – A Mississippi man was charged Thursday with firing a shotgun at three black men in New Orleans who were wounded in what prosecutors said was a racially motivated attack in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath. Roland Bourgeois Jr., a 47-year-old white man, is charged in a five-count indictment with firing a shotgun at the men in the city’s historic Algiers Point neighborhood on the south side of the Mississippi River while they tried to leave the center of the city after the August 2005 hurricane.

Bourgeois and others discussed shooting black people and defending the neighborhood from "outsiders" after the storm, the indictment says. He allegedly bragged that he "got" one after the shooting, then retrieved a bloody baseball cap belonging to one of the victims. "When (he) was advised that the man he had shot was still alive, Bourgeois referred to the injured man using a racial epithet and threatened he would kill him," the indictment says. Bourgeois also warned a black resident of Algiers Point that "anything coming up this street darker than a brown paper bag is getting shot." Bourgeois, now a resident of Columbia, Miss., faces a possible life sentence if convicted of charges that include committing a hate crime with a deadly weapon with intent to kill. A spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Jim Letten said she didn’t know if Bourgeois has an attorney. The case against Bourgeois is one of several post-Katrina investigations opened by the Justice Department’s civil rights division. On Tuesday, six current and former New Orleans police officers were indicted on federal civil rights charges stemming from deadly shootings on a bridge.

Police shot and killed two people and wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge on Sept. 4, 2005. Five former officers already have pleaded guilty to participating in a cover-up to make it appear the shootings were justified. Thursday’s indictment only refers to Bourgeois’ alleged victims by their initials, but a January 2009 article by ProPublica and The Nation magazine identifies them as Donnell Herrington, then 32; his cousin, Marcel Alexander, then 17; and a friend, Chris Collins, then 18. Herrington, who was shot in the throat but survived, told The Nation that he didn’t know the three heavily armed white men who shot at him. "I just hit the ground. I didn’t even know what happened," he recalled. Letten said federal authorities learned about the shootings from press reports. Bourgeois is the only person charged in the case. A date for his initial court appearance wasn’t immediately set and he is not in custody. There was no listing for Bourgeois in Columbia. Four of the police officers charged Tuesday in the Danziger Bridge shootings are scheduled to return to court Friday, and prosecutors are expected to ask a magistrate to keep them held in custody. Letten said Bourgeois wasn’t arrested in part because he is apparently "in very poor health" and wasn’t considered "a danger or a risk of flight."
 

Six New Orleans police officers have been charged in connection with the fatal shooting of civilians on a bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Four officers are alleged to have opened fire on unarmed people on the city’s Danziger Bridge. Two died and four were hurt in the 2005 incident.
 

Two supervisors are accused of joining the four officers in attempting a cover-up in subsequent investigations. The six accused have so far not responded to the charges. According to the US justice department indictment, police officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Robert Faulcon and Anthony Villavaso opened fire on a family on the east side of the bridge on 4 September 2005, killing a 17-year-old boy and injuring three other people. Minutes later, officers were involved in a second shooting on the west side of the bridge, resulting in the death of Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man with learning difficulties, the indictment says. If convicted over the deaths of civilians, the four face maximum sentences of life in prison or the death penalty.

 They also face charges related to a conspiracy to cover up what happened on the bridge and a conspiracy to file charges against two of those injured in the incident, claiming that they had fired at police. Sgts Arthur Kaufman and Gerard Dugue are accused alongside the four officers with trying to cover up what happened. US Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement: "As our investigation of the Danziger bridge incident shows, the Justice Department will vigorously pursue anyone who allegedly violated the law." "Put simply, we will not tolerate wrongdoing by those who have sworn to protect the public."
Five former New Orleans police officers have already pleaded guilty to helping cover up the shootings on the bridge. The incident came in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, as the authorities vowed to restore security in the city following a breakdown of law and order.