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Federal Prosecutors' Online Posts Lead to Reversal of Police Officers' Convictions in Hurricane Katrina Shootings

One of the most notorious incidents of lawlessness the wake of Hurricane Katrina was the alleged murder of two men on a New Orleans bridge by police officers who arrived with guns blazing and who then allegedly covered up the killings. Now the convictions have been thrown out, in part, because of online comments federal prosecutors made on news articles on the New Orleans Times-Picayune web site, that paper reported. The judge in the case said in a 129-page order, according to the paper, "The government's actions, and initial lack of candor and credibility thereafter, is like scar tissue that will long evidence infidelity to the principles of ethics, professionalism, and basic fairness and common sense necessary to every criminal prosecution, wherever it should occur in this country."