cfleury <cfleury@...> wrote:Law Officers, Overwhelmed, Are Quitting the
ForceBy JOSEPH B. TREASTER

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 3 - Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city,
at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their
jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said Saturday.

Some officers officially told their superiors they were leaving, police
officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up.
Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the
storm.

The absences come during a period of extraordinary stress for the New
Orleans Police Department. For nearly a week, many of its 1,500 members
have had to work around the clock, trying to cope with flooding, an
overwhelming crush of refugees, looters and occasional snipers.

P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police, said most of his
officers were staying at their posts. But in an unusual note of sympathy
for a top police official, he said it was understandable that many were
frustrated. He said morale was "not very good" after nearly a week of
deprivation and danger.

"If I put you out on the street and made you get into gun battles all
day with no place to urinate and no place to defecate, I don't think you
would be too happy either," Mr. Compass said in an interview. "Our
vehicles can't get any gas. The water in the street is contaminated. My
officers are walking around in wet shoes."(Funny, my husband walked
through waist high rice paddies in soggy rotting boots in two tours of
Vietnam and never thought of it as an excuse to bug out. Isn't it called
desertion??Cindy, apparently Mr. Compass thinks union regulations should
apply and the officers should have got donut and bathroom breaks.
Contrast this with what the military does in Iraq, and Afghanistan. My
SIL went for DAYS with no bath, and there sure was hell no porta-potty
following him around. I'm KNOW Armand and my husband went days with no
baths, and slept on the gound with people shooting at them all the time.
Real men, in sharp contrast to the New Orleans police officers who have
deserted their posts. And Mr. Compass apparently failed Math 101, his
police force, allegedly one of the most corrupt police forces in the
world, is down to 500, this from a force of 1,500. So no, "most" of his
force is NOT staying at their posts, two thirds are gone, who knows
where. There have been published reports of two New Orleans police
officers stealing a police car and leeing to northern LA.But sure,
people want to cling to this myth that its the federal govt. fault. )

Fire Department officials said they did not know of any firefighters who
had quit. But they, too, were more sympathetic than critical of
emergency workers breaking down under the pressure.

W. J. Riley, the assistant superintendent of police, said there were
about 1,200 officers on duty on Saturday. He said the department was not
sure how many officers had decided to abandon their posts and how many
simply could not get to work.



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