Police Chief Admits Katrina Crime “exaggerated…”

NOLA Police Chief Eddie Compass finally talks straight about Katrina. Too little too late.

“In hindsight, I guess I heightened people’s fears by me being the superintendent of police, reporting these things that were reported to me,” Mr. Compass said of the unverified accounts of crime and disorder in flooded New Orleans that he repeated to the press and on “The Oprah Winfrey Show.”

“But there was really no way for me to check definitively. So instead I erred on the side of caution. I didn’t want people to think we were trying to cover anything up. So I repeated these things without being substantiated, and it caused a lot of problems,” he said.

Officials and local commentators have long suggested that the false reports of rampant crime following the hurricane were a reason for the slowness of rescue efforts. With recovery teams and humanitarian aid groups frightened to enter the city, many storm survivors were left stranded on roofs without food and water, in makeshift rafts, and in filthy conditions at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center.
[Emphasis added – admin]

Well, that’s good, I suppose. Now, a year later, let’s see him fix the damage caused by those exaggerations. The distortion and disinformation that accompanied that story have polluted perceptions and strangled the truth. Oh, and it was all Bush’s fault, too.

Also: Gateway Pundit looks at Katrina and Spike Lee’s agenda.
Cathy Seipp at PJM’s Politics Central looks at Spike Lee’s documentary on Katrina.
Instapundit links to a dose of Katrina Reality.
AnnaPuna looks at Katrina, almost a year later.

WELCOME: (again) Instapundit. While you’re here, please look around. Today we’re taking Ben Stein’s bad medicine. Then, to cheer ourselves up, we’re laughing at the people who laugh at President Bush for reading, and we’re talking about why I’m not currently retracting my support for Rudy Giuliani. We’re also watching an old Operaman clip that praises Giuliani and Derek Jeter (not that I’m trying to wound my Boston readers, or anything) and a fun video of Bryn and Rocky hamming it up and we are mourning the Death-by-Political Correctness of Tom and Jerry. I haven’t yet written my huge review of trashy romance novels that I had promised some days ago, but it’s proving to be a heavy task…check back later for that! :-)

Police Chief Admits Katrina crime “exaggerated…”