Six current or former New Orleans police officers were charged in a sweeping federal grand jury indictment that accuses four of them of shooting unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge several days after Hurricane Katrina and all six of plotting to cover up what they knew was an unjustified attack, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reports.
The charges are the culmination of a two-year probe by the federal government, the third investigation into the controversial events on the bridge on Sept. 4, 2005. Said defense attorney Eric Hessler: “The government has ignored the circumstances and conditions under which these officers were operating. For them to say that these officers intentionally went out and shot and killed unarmed civilians, knowing that they were unarmed and posed no threat, is certainly the wrong conclusion.”