“If you can sleep with it, do it”; New Orleans cops given orders to shoot looters

Photo by Alex Brandon/The Times-Picayune

Photo by Alex Brandon/The Times-Picayune


New evidence and reports showing that New Orleans police were given orders to shoot looters in order to take back the city after Hurricane Katrina, a fundamental change in use-of-force policies. This gives some context to the reports of innocents gunned down during that chaotic time. The story is the result of an investigation by my ProPublica colleagues, Sabrina Shankman and A.C. Thompson, along with reporters at Frontline and the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

I'm a programmer journalist, currently teaching computational journalism at Stanford University. I'm trying to do my new blogging at blog.danwin.com.