Shots on the Bridge

by Ronnie Greene

  FOR POLICE, FOR THE VICTIMS, for the city, the question was now in the hands of the parish district attorney’s office. Would the DA dig deep, as the families had? Or, would prosecutors side with the police account?

  In New Orleans, the DA’s office had drawn attention on the spectrum between fame and shame, depending upon the times. Jim Garrison, the Orleans Parish district attorney from 1962 to 1973, believed conspiracy-minded culprits had plotted the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and was portrayed by Kevin Costner in Oliver Stone’s movie JFK.

  In 1974 Harry Connick Sr., father of the New Orleans jazz musician, took over. The elder Connick, a crooner himself, was indicted on racketeering charges in 1989 for returning gambling records, seized in a police raid, to the accused gambler. Charged with aiding and abetting the gambling operation, the DA said he gave the forms back so the accused criminal could complete his tax returns. His case went to trial a year later, and as jurors stepped out to deliberate a verdict, Connick filed for reelection. The jury cleared him, and he was indeed reelected.

  Eddie Jordan, a former federal prosecutor who won notoriety for convicting former governor Edwin Edwards of corruption charges, was elected district attorney in 2002, becoming the first black to hold that position in New Orleans. Now the Danziger Bridge matter fell under the legal domain of the prosecutor who had finally nabbed the elusive Edwin Edwards.

  Edwards always had a way with words, and of getting the last one. He once chided a political opponent as being so slow it took him “an hour and a half to watch 60 Minutes.” Edwards professed little in common with another well-known Louisiana politician, David Duke, with one exception. “We’re both wizards under the sheets.” After serving eight years in prison for extorting $3 million from casino companies seeking state licenses, the former governor walked out of prison and, in Bayou fashion, recast himself anew. At age eighty-three, Edwards wed a blonde bride, aged thirty-two. Then in 2014, at age eighty-six, he ran for Congress. He lost in a runoff to a politician not even half his age. “It’s not the end of the world for me,” Edwards said after his first political defeat, still savoring the journey. “I love this state.” Once more Edwin Edwards got the last word, but Eddie Jordan was forever known as the prosecutor who slowed him down, at least for a spell.

  Raised in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Jordan entered office with a vow to take the city’s streets back from criminals and to ratchet up convictions in an office plagued by stressed caseloads and small conviction rates. Earlier, as a federal prosecutor, he had been the one to bring the case against the brutish officer known as Robocop.

  But Jordan’s postelection glow faded quickly. Once in the job, he ordered an office shakeup that entailed firing white staff members almost exclusively. That housecleaning earned Jordan his share of public ire. It also cost the taxpayers in court when a jury, just four months before Hurricane Katrina’s arrival, issued a $3.7 million wrongful termination verdict against the DA’s office.

  Now Jordan faced his biggest test, the shootings on the Danziger Bridge. The prosecutor who won fame in federal court in the Edwin Edwards trial and the case convicting Robocop now set his attention on what the families, and the police, were saying about the events of September 4, 2005.

  That summer of 2006, one year after nature’s force altered the landscape and history of New Orleans, one other truth was certain: the NOPD family was keeping a close eye on every step the district attorney would take.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY BRINGS CHARGES—AND THE POLICE BROTHERHOOD FIGHTS BACK

  AS DISTRICT ATTORNEY JORDAN explored the evidence, Lance Madison’s lawyers made sure to meet with the DA’s office, sharing their findings. Romell Madison and his sister Lorna Madison Humphrey sometimes took part, as did the family’s civil attorney, Mary Howell.

  In those meetings, the state prosecutor handling the case, Dustin M. Davis, and his investigators were coming to the same conclusions, based on their own research. This was a bad shoot, a chief investigator told the lawyers frankly during one meeting. Davis assured them he was conducting his own investigation and not depending on the police account—an account that appeared fishy, he believed.

  On December 28, 2006, the story of what happened on the Danziger Bridge underwent a torrential turn. In the Parish of Orleans, a grand jury convened by the office of Eddie Jordan returned charges of first degree murder, attempted first degree murder, and attempted second degree murder against the seven officers who spilled out of the commandeered Budget rental truck that morning. No longer cast as criminals, the Bartholomew family, Jose Holmes, JJ Brissette, and Lance and Ronald Madison were now described as victims of police violence.

  In rat-a-tat fashion, the charges rolled out that Thursday:

  • Kenneth Bowen, Robert Faulcon Jr., Anthony Villavaso II, and Robert Barrios, charged with attempted first degree murder of Susan Bartholomew, her husband Leonard, daughter Lesha, and nephew Jose Holmes Jr.

  • Ignatius Hills, charged with attempted second degree murder of Leonard Bartholomew IV.

  • Faulcon, Bowen, Villavaso, and Robert Gisevius Jr. charged with the first degree murder of James Brissette.

  • Bowen, Michael Hunter, and Gisevius charged with attempted first degree murder of Lance Madison and attempted first degree murder of Ronald Madison.

  • And Robert Faulcon, who sent his pregnant fiancée away and stayed behind to serve his city as Hurricane Katrina roared near, was charged alone with the first degree murder of Ronald Madison.

  Now, these police officers’ photographs were filed as mug shots, like criminals.

  “We cannot allow our police officers to shoot and kill our citizens without justification, like rabid dogs,” Orleans Parish district attorney Jordan said in announcing the charges. “The rules governing the use of lethal force are not suspended during a state of emergency. Everyone, including police officers, must abide by the law of the land.”

  Lance Madison, released on bond after twenty-five days behind bars, was now officially vindicated. On the same day they charged the police officers, the grand jurors impaneled by assistant district attorney Dustin Davis issued a “No True Bill” to charges that Lance Madison attempted first degree murder against the seven officers and David Ryder. No True Bill: no truth to the charges, the refrain Lance Madison tried to ring out while on his knees, handcuffed behind his back, as the officers finished off killing his brother Ronald and ignored his plea for a lie detector test.

  Those three words were vindication for a family that had pressed for the full story from the moment they received the call that Ronald was dead and Lance apprehended. With Lance’s release the family could celebrate the closing of the charges against him. Yet the Madison family now had to officially confront the horror that Ronald, the man they watched over like a child, had been gunned down by the New Orleans police officers, and the reality that the police lie could have held as gospel.

  The Madison team had kept nagging police for information, and kept sharing its findings with state prosecutors. “‘We need these documents. When are you going to close this report and submit it to the DA’s office?’” family lawyer Shannon Fay recounted. “We kept pushing and pushing—that’s when they did the crime scene.” They were pests, because they had to be to tear down the police façade. Fay believes this relentlessness, driven by the Madison family, was instrumental in the charges being brought.

  “The state grand jury refuted the New Orleans Police Department account of what happened on Sept. 4, 2005, which had been portrayed by officers as an appropriate response to reports of both sniper fire and people shooting at police officers near the bridge, on Chef Menteur Highway in eastern New Orleans,” the local newspaper reported after the charges became public.

  How far the local DA would go in punishing police misdeeds remained under question. District attorney Jordan announced the state would not seek the death penalty for the four officers facing first degree murder charges—Faulcon, Bowe
n, Villavaso, and Gisevius. Life in prison was a possibility if the charges became convictions, prosecutor Dustin Davis said.

  Faulcon, who had resigned from the force, was relieved to learn the state would not try to put him to death. “It would have defied all precedent had they sought the death penalty for a police officer who was in his line of duty,” one of Faulcon’s lawyers said.

  “We feel they deserve the death penalty,” Lorna Madison Humphrey, Ronald’s sister, said after hearing the news. “But we’ll settle at seeing them spend the rest of their lives in jail. They executed my brother. They shot him for no reason.”

  For the families, even seeming slam-dunk victories were not fully cause for celebration.

  Soon, the six officers still on the payroll would return to their jobs. They were not allowed to wear uniforms, make arrests, or carry weapons, and court-ordered ankle bracelets tracked their every move. But they could return to the force, draw their pay from the city, and continue as members of the union that supported them.

  That even one of the accused officers remained on the force unsettled the Madison family. Romell Madison wanted the city mayor, Ray Nagin, to ban them from the department altogether. “These men have been indicted with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder charges by a grand jury of the Orleans Parish Criminal District Court system,” Madison said, standing outside the criminal courthouse alongside his sister Lorna Madison Humphrey on the last day of January 2007. “For them to be allowed to resume their jobs is a slap in the face of justice.”

  Lorna Humphrey contrasted the treatment of the accused police killers to that of her brother Lance, who, dogged by depression since witnessing his brother’s death, had been unable to return to work at Federal Express at the New Orleans airport. “First he watched his brother gunned down, then he was arrested. He’s been out of work seventeen months now, but the police are back,” Lorna said. “Is that fair?”

  From police headquarters Warren Riley, the former deputy superintendent who rose to lead the force after Eddie Compass’s departure, issued words of caution and asked the public not to rush to judgment. “I would like to remind everyone, this is but one step in the judicial process that will determine the future of these officers,” Superintendent Riley told reporters. “This is not when it ends.”

  The police brotherhood would make sure of that.

  TWO DAYS AFTER THE charges against police were logged by the DA, Mike Glasser, the president of the Police Association of New Orleans, sent out word in an urgent bulletin. “There is no issue facing ANY Public Safety Officer, law enforcement or medical professional, more serious than an indictment for Murder for doing your job,” he wrote that Saturday, December 30. “NOW is the time to show our brother officers that we are there, we will not forget, we will not stop and WE ARE ONE NOPD.”

  To Glasser and his brothers and sisters at the police association and the Fraternal Order of Police, the charges were not just an affront to officers who served their city during catastrophe. They were a drummed-up fiction driven by a district attorney, Jordan, with a deliberate agenda to hurt police. “In the meantime, I want to assure everyone, that the Police Association of New Orleans is fully dedicated to the complete support of these officers and their families,” Glasser wrote. “PANO and FOP are completely unified in their support efforts, both legally and financially.”

  Signal 26, an online message board for city police, was soon filled with criticism of the district attorney and an unqualified support for the officers. “Jordan has committed a legal atrocity by indicting our brothers on murder. . . . Is it for this that our Seven must be sacrificed? Not on my watch. Or yours,” one wrote under the heading “They’ve Picked the Wrong Fight.” The writer added, “This travesty must not only be rectified, but it must be avenged.”

  “Is it me, or are they trying to send police the message that they aren’t supposed to do their jobs?” another writer asked. Yet another officer told Signal 26 he was stunned his brethren stood as accused criminals after staying behind to serve after “the worst natural disaster in U.S. history” and finding themselves “in the middle of a gun battle.”

  “These guys stepped up where most would have tucked tail and ran,” the writer concluded. “Today I lost outlook on life here in New Orleans. This could have been me.”

  That feeling echoed like a 108 call for the street officers watching their colleagues face murder and attempted murder charges. “It could have been me” was a refrain that would play out deep and wide for the force. Their fellow officers stayed behind during Katrina, and their thanks was to engage “a bunch of wild looting thugs” on the streets and now, after the gunfire on the bridge, to confront the prospect of life behind bars.

  The department would stand up for these men, and not just with words.

  For one thing, the police association’s Glasser told fellow officers, he would send out details about fund-raisers to aid the accused. At the same time, the Fraternal Order of Police was creating a system where officers could contribute to the Danziger 7 defense fund through payroll deductions.

  But for now, the association leader said, police should flex their muscle on Tuesday, January 2, 2007, as the officers walked to the city lockup for the initial booking of their charges.

  “I am requesting that EVERYONE, civilian, military, sheriff’s office, federal agents, state and local police, and especially NOPD, come to the area of South Broad and Tulane Avenue, before 10:00 a.m., the earlier, the better,” Glasser wrote. “We will begin lining the streets from Central Lockup at South White and Perdido Street, up South White, to Tulane Avenue, then on Tulane towards South Carrollton Avenue. The officers will follow this route in and I am requesting that EVERYONE wishing to show their support for these officers and for ALL of the Public Safety and First Responders, come and line the streets as these officers come to surrender themselves.”

  The association president added, “This request is not just for law enforcement, but for ALL CITIZENS who disapprove of their public safety officers being treated in this fashion. Just get in line as you arrive, wherever there is space. I hope by 10:00 a.m., there is no space all the way to Jefferson Parish.”

  His clarion call was heard, loudly and clearly.

  That morning, in the first days of the New Year, the accused officers, most dressed in coats and ties, gathered with a swarm of supporters at the PANO headquarters and, after a short ride to a parking lot, began walking in unison to the city lockup. As they headed to be booked on the charges, Faulcon, Bowen, Barrios, Gisevius, Hunter, Hills, and Villavaso were mobbed. One supporter hugged defendant Robert Barrios, putting one hand atop his head like a father comforting a son. Gisevius shook hands with one police brother as two others put their hands on his back, support beams against the charges. The sergeant walked ahead, stone faced, a focused intensity framing his face, wearing a suit and tie. Many clapped as the accused officers walked by. Bowen, also in suit and tie, reached out to clasp hands with police brethren white and black. Hunter, more casually attired in a zippered jacket, looked a little overwhelmed as hands reached out to him from all directions. Faulcon likewise had his brothers reaching out for him in front and tapping him on the back, a well of camaraderie so deep the retired officer broke out in a smile.

  The show of support from the force and its larger message were unmistakable. The charges against the Danziger 7 were charges against all of us, every officer donning the BDU uniforms. “They stayed, served & sacrificed,” said one placard hoisted that morning. “Don’t let it be water under the bridge.”

  Nearby, the throng hoisted signs that spoke of their backing for the accused.

  “Heroes,” they said.

  CHAPTER 14

  FROM NARCOTICS COP TO POLICE ATTORNEY

  An Insider’s View

  FOR SEVENTEEN YEARS, Eric Hessler worked the streets of New Orleans as an NOPD officer handling narcotics investigations, homicides, and SWAT missions. In the neighborhoods he patrolled, the resident
s sometimes called him “Shorty,” a reference to his diminutive stature. Hessler, a white man, patrolled the urban core with ready eyes and taut instincts, and he knew how it felt to pull his weapon.

  Hessler retired as a sergeant in 2001. During his years patrolling New Orleans, he eyed the fragile levees with a knowing wariness. One day, he knew, those levees would fail. And then hell would truly arrive in his city. “It was bound to happen,” Hessler said. “When I was in the job, we had numerous close calls. And occasionally, we really believed it was going to be the one that breached the levee.”

  Now it had happened, and the world was bearing witness. Hessler had fled New Orleans before Katrina’s arrival, heading to Mississippi, and returned ten days later. Teaming up with a former police partner, he volunteered to join the narcotics unit, headed by Tim Bayard, and went to work. “We would go through looking for bodies, going through houses,” he said. He and the ex-partner did this work for four or five days straight. As the days rolled slowly into nights, the power still shot in New Orleans, the stress and misery mounted. “It seemed like Armageddon,” he said. “I couldn’t stay any longer. It was devastating from an emotional standpoint.”

  In those days navigating the city, with Katrina’s fingerprint on every corner of New Orleans, Hessler was stunned by the lack of support for the men and women of the NOPD, the troops he once called partner. “I saw the dysfunction,” he said. “I saw there was absolutely no chain of command. There was a complete command structure failure. The officers, you can only imagine the stress they went under at that time.” Ten days after Katrina, “no one knew what was going on. No one knew who was in charge.”

  Many officers were survivors themselves before heading out to report for duty, and Hessler blamed the police department and city brass for their condition. Instead of placing officers at a central command post with the hurricane churning toward New Orleans, they sent many officers home on Katrina’s eve “to avoid paying overtime costs,” he said. “You would think when the mother of all hurricanes was coming to New Orleans, all the officers would be on duty. They are at their house, told to come back at six.”