Katrina's Ultimate Secret: The Coup d’état Attempt at the Superdome

August 31, 2005.

One of the most suppressed moments of the entire Hurricane Katrina saga occurs in New Orleans. In fact, the only person to write about this episode has been the much maligned (correctly) mayor of the city at the time, Ray Nagin.

Apparently, no one read his 2011 book Katrina's Secrets: Storms After the Storm.

Admits a coup nearly happened on 8-31-05 at the Superdome

Paul Kersey did.

Besides refusing to admit any culpability in how his administration handled the collapse of law and order in New Orleans, the most interesting admission in Katrina's Secrets is an incident that happens at the Superdome.

You know, the same venue where 25,000-35,000 black people (and an unfortunate few European tourists) gathered to seek refuge as the storm hit, with conditions not exactly different than those found at their government-backed, public-housing dwellings.

So, back to August 31, 2005. Here's what Nagin writes about one of the more suppressed moments of the entire saga:

Back at the Superdome, things had descended to being on the verge of blowing into a full-scale riot. Our director health and his top assistant, who were administering medical help to the sick, were tipped off by several patients that a plot had been developed to overpower the National Guardsmen and take their weapons. From there they planned to take hostages, gain full control of the Superdome, and then storm the Hyatt Hotel (the New Orleans city government set up a temporary base of operations there). They wanted control of their own destinies. These conspirators also mistakenly thought that that were in fact more buses already in the city that were first evacuating other areas, in the affluent parts of town.

FEMA’s broken promises had now become ours as well as the people’s disappointment and anger was also pointed toward us. With only 300 National Guard troops at the Superdome and a handful of police officers, a coup d’état could be successful as the sheer number of people in the Superdome gave them an overwhelming advantage. It our limited security force was defeated, then a simple push through the barricades on the crosswalk form the Superdome through a set of doors would give them access to the third floor of the Hyatt hotel. From there, our command center was only one flight of stairs up, on the fourth floor.

The patients also revealed to Dr. Stephens that the gang had placed special markings on their caps so they could quickly and easily distinguish who was on their team when the chaos started. With this insider information of how organized this group was, we immediately alerted our entire security group on the plan.

It was now the middle of the day on Wednesday, and the sun was absolutely brutal. It felt like it was at least 110 degrees with 100 percent humidity. The Superdome crowd was excessively restless. Drinking water was very scarce, and most people used old newspaper, cardboard, or food wrappers as fans or shades for their heads.

All of a sudden, without warning, a gunshot went off in a lower parking lot area of the Superdome. We had been altered that a diversion of some sort would start everything and as everyone was distracted then the overpowering of the National Guardsmen would occur. Chief [Eddie] Compass immediately ran into the command center and yell, “Mr. Mayor, there has been an incident at the Superdome, and we have to leave right now!” Since the elevators were not working, we all ran up 23 flights of stairs to the 27^th floor where our rooms were. Everyone moved instinctively as we had no time to think about anything but getting out of danger.

As I sat on the sofa catching my breath and rubbing my swollen knee, Chief Compass gave me the latest on the rebel plan. A National Guard member had been shot in the leg, and there was still a struggle to get the situation under control. We would later learn that the attempted takeover failed as our National Guardsmen and NOPD officers were able to protect each other from being overpowered. The tips we had gotten probably allowed us to save lives and maintain control. (p. 157-158)

 Have you ever encountered this story before?

No.

Of course not. It doesn't fit the narrative of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, where the victims were those 25,000 - 35,000 black people stranded at the Superdome.

What is state power? The legal monopoly on violence

In reality, the state (led by elected officials like Mayor Nagin and his incompetent, affirmative action chief of police Eddie Compass) lost its legal monopoly on violence.

Anarchy won, with looting, violence and disorder becoming the order of the day in New Orleans (not much has changed). 

It's important to remember what happened next [Police Begin Seizing Guns of Civilians, New York Times, 9-9-13]:

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8 - Local police officers began confiscating weapons from civilians in preparation for a forced evacuation of the last holdouts still living here, as President Bush steeled the nation for the grisly scenes of recovering the dead that will unfold in coming days.

A shoe without a foot. A doll without a child. The waters that had engulfed this stretch of St. Claude Avenue in New Orleans were finally gone on Wednesday, and the painful secrets they had covered up were coming to light.

Police officers and federal law enforcement agents scoured the city carrying assault rifles seeking residents who have holed up to avoid forcible eviction, as well as those who are still considering evacuating voluntarily to escape the city's putrid waters.

"Individuals are at risk of dying," said P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of the New Orleans police. "There's nothing more important than the preservation of human life."

Although it appeared Wednesday night that forced evacuations were beginning, on Thursday the authorities were still looking for those willing to leave voluntarily. The police said that the search was about 80 percent done, and that afterward they would begin enforcing Mayor C. Ray Nagin's order to remove residents by force.

Mr. Compass, the police superintendent, said that after a week of near anarchy in the city, no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns, or other firearms of any kind. "Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons," he said.

That order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards whom businesses and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property. The guards, who are civilians working for private security firms like Blackwater, are openly carrying M-16s and other assault rifles.

Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards but that the police had no plans to make them give up their weapons.

New Orleans has turned into an armed camp, patrolled by thousands of local, state, and federal law enforcement officers, as well as National Guard troops and active-duty soldiers. While armed looters roamed unchecked last week, the city is now calm.

These stories should help put an exclamation point upon the story from September 2, 2005 in the Army Times stating Troops begin combat operations in New Orleans.

Combat operations should be brought back to New Orleans, where the black community (thankfully, its demographic vice on the city has ended) continues to show it cares little for the rule of law -- the rule of the white man's law -- in the Crescent City. [Many murders rooted in revenge, drugs, New Orleans Times-Picayune, June 2, 2007]:

So far, prosecutors have successfully prosecuted just one of the 162 homicides committed last year, convicting a man of killing his lover. A second trial, also a more easily prosecuted domestic killing, ended in an acquittal. 

Those domestic cases represent the exception rather than the norm, in which most murders stem from drug trafficking and other criminal endeavors in poor, predominantly African-American communities, along with what one expert called "respect beefs" over wounded pride of the kind once settled with fists.

More than 80 percent of the 162 murder victims last year were black men. More than half of all victims were black men younger than 30, and 29 percent were teenagers. In comparison, 10 white men were killed last year, along with four Hispanic men and three Asian men.

Women, nine black victims and three white victims, comprised just 7 percent of last year's murder victims.

All but five of the 58 suspects police arrested were black men, typically young black men. Overall, police have "cleared" 43 percent of last year's murders, a rate in keeping with the department's historic record. Police consider a case solved when they make an arrest, issue a warrant for a suspect still at large or close a case "by exception," meaning the suspect died, often killed in apparent retaliation for another murder.

Moral of the stories, from Nagin's admission of a coup at the Superdome to the breakdown of the fear of law the black community has in Post-Katrina New Orleans?

State power is all that matters.

The legal monopoly on violence is all that matters.

Yes, state power today (Black-Run America) is concentrated in the hands of those who would disarm white America and redistribute our wealth to perpetuate dysgenic welfare programs.

It won't always be that way.

The legal monopoly on violence is all that matters.