On Wednesday, a federal judge sentenced five former New Orleans police officers to prison, ranging from 6 to 65 years for the shootings of unarmed civilians, where one was killed, in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, according to prosecutors. Six days after the disaster that caused the city of New Orleans to go under water, on September 4, 2005, the former officers shot unarmed civilians on the Danziger Bridge. The ex-officers were convicted in August on a combined 25 counts of civil rights violations.
U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt gave the toughest sentence to former officer Robert Faulcon, who was given a 65-year term for his involvement in shooting two of the victims. Ex-sergeants Kenneth Bowen and Robert Gisevius received 40 years for their roles in the incident, while former officer Robert Villavaso was sentenced to 38 years. The lightest term went to Arthur Kaufman, a former detective sergeant who was sentenced to six years for attempting to cover the officers’ actions, the U.S. attorney’s office in New Orleans said. The men were accused of opening fire on an unarmed family, killing James Brissette, 17, and injuring four others. A few minutes later, Faulcon fatally shot Ronald Madison, a 40-year-old man described by the Department of Justice as having severe mental disabilities and who was trying to flee the scene. Prosecutors reported that Kaufman wrote the department’s formal report on the incident, which concluded the shootings were defensible and suggested the prosecution of two of the survivors “on the basis of false evidence.”
