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09/06/2005:
"Five dead 'were army workers""
From yesterday's New York Times:"In a city riven by violence for a week, there was yet another shootout yesterday. Contractors for the Army Corps of Engineers came under fire as they crossed a bridge to work on a levee, and police escorts shot back, killing three assailants outright and a fourth in a later gunfight, the police said, adding that a fifth suspect had been wounded and captured. There was no explanation for it, only the numbing facts."and today's 'numbing facts,' since, clearly, yesterday's were wrong, and featured 'armed thugs' instead of trigger-happy NOLA cops::
At least five people shot dead by police as they walked across a New Orleans bridge yesterday were contractors working for the US Defence department, according to a report by The Associated Press.
A spokesman for the Army Corps of Engineers said the victims were contractors on their way to repair a canal, the new agency said, quoting a defence Department spokesman.
The contractors crossing the bridge to launch barges into Lake Pontchartrain, in an operation to fix the 17th Street Canal, according to the spokesman.
The shootings took place on the Danziger Bridge, across a canal connecting Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River.
Early on Sunday, Deputy Police Chief W.J. Riley of New Orleans said police shot at eight people, killing five or six.
No other details were immediately available.
theaustraliannews.com
