NOLA Man Charged with Hate Crime in Katrina Aftermath

[Instant Sunrise]

DoJ Press Release

WASHINGTON - Roland J. Bourgeois Jr., 47, currently a resident of Columbia, Miss., was charged in a five-count indictment with conspiring to commit a hate crime, committing a hate crime with a deadly weapon and with intent to kill, making false statements and obstructing of justice in connection with a shooting that happened in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

Today's indictment was announced by Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Thomas E. Perez; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana Jim Letten; and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI New Orleans Field Office David Welker.

According to the indictment, on Sept. 1, 2005, Roland Bourgeois Jr. fired a shotgun at three African-American men because of their race and because they were attempting to use the public streets in the Algiers Point neighborhood of New Orleans. These African-American men were wounded as they sought to evacuate from New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

The indictment alleges that, after Hurricane Katrina, Bourgeois discussed shooting African-Americans and defending Algiers Point from outsiders, including African-Americans who did not live in the neighborhood. After Bourgeois fired a shotgun at the three men walking on a public street, he learned that one of his victims had been wounded and he announced that he was going to kill African-Americans. Bourgeois then allegedly warned an African-American resident of Algiers Point that, "anything coming up this street darker than a brown paper bag is getting shot." Immediately following the shooting, Bourgeois retrieved from the scene – and subsequently displayed – a bloody baseball cap that belonged to one of the victims.

The indictment further alleges that Bourgeois later provided a false statement to federal agents investigating the Sept. 1, 2005, shooting in Algiers Point. Bourgeois is also charged with corruptly persuading an eyewitness to lie to the FBI. Finally, Bourgeois is charged with using a firearm in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy and civil rights offenses.

Bourgeois faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison.

This case, which is ongoing, is being investigated by the New Orleans Field Office of the FBI, and is being prosecuted by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division Trial Attorney Forrest Christian and Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana W. Scott Laragy.

An indictment is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

This is the first white vigilante from the post-Katrina situation to be indicted.

In my opinion, vigilantism is an ugly thing that has no place in a civilized society. It leads to crap like this as citizens take it upon themselves to enforce norms and unwritten 'laws' that the government can not enforce.

[Sea Skimmer]

In my opinion, vigilantism is an ugly thing that has no place in a civilized society.

That's well and good, but civilized society is dependent on an effective government existing. The government evaporated and the police abandon the city in New Orleans in 2005. This guy was way into the wrong, but the fact is after a major disaster or mass rioting vigilantism can be the only defense a community has for days or even about two weeks in the case of Hurricane Andrew when the national guard response was so slow as to make Katrina look like a stroke of brilliance.

[Kanastrous]

I'm not sure this is even fairly called vigilantism because the shooter was not attempting to enforce any law or pursuing any legally-defensible end. How about just calling it assault-with-a-deadly weapon, or attempted murder, or the hate-crimes charges that were actually leveled?

[Mr. Coffee]

Whelp, hope he enjoys farming and butt sex, cause he'll get a lot of both at Angola.

[Instant Sunrise]

Whelp, hope he enjoys farming and butt sex, cause he'll get a lot of both at Angola.

As horrific as this man is for trying to jump-start his "race war" fantasies in the aftermath of Katrina, nobody deserves Angola.

[Coyote]

I'm not sure this is even fairly called vigilantism because the shooter was not attempting to enforce any law or pursuing any legally-defensible end. How about just calling it assault-with-a-deadly weapon, or attempted murder, or the hate-crimes charges that were actually leveled?

Maybe a bit of a stretch on my part (hell, may even be downright paranoid on my part) but perhaps they wish to subtly erode the notion that ordinary citizens can ever be considered properly responsible for self-policing.

By labeling blatantly illegal and immoral race-war-baiting as "vigilantism" (which also has troubled connoctations in its own way) then that can be used to automatically de-legitimize any future community policing in the wake of a disaster. If, in the public eye, "vigilantism" becomes synonamous with "minor atrocity", then post-disaster prosecution can roll that much easier with little chance of public outcry. Especially if the agencies supposedly responsible for policing abandoned said community.

[Simon_Jester]

Citizen self-policing has crossed the line between "protection of lives and property" and "excuses to fight a race war" over and over, especially in the South. Remember all those KKK lynch mobs?

So I'm a bit less inclined to rush to the defense of self-policing than I might be if it were just a theoretical question of whether citizens have a right to punish criminals on their own initiative when law and order break down.

[Kanastrous]

No reason not to evaluate each individual incident on its individual merits.

[Coyote]

Citizen self-policing has crossed the line between "protection of lives and property" and "excuses to fight a race war" over and over, especially in the South.

MOst definitely. However, just as "all salmon are fish, but not all fish are salmon", or in this case, "racial aggression can be vigilantism, however, not all vigilantism is racial aggression".

So I'm a bit less inclined to rush to the defense of self-policing than I might be if it were just a theoretical question of whether citizens have a right to punish criminals on their own initiative when law and order break down.

I would defend community self-policing under certain circumstances, provided it truly was "merely" self-policing in a period of government breakdown.

But there might also be a difference between a community defending itself through organized guards recruite dinternally, and meting out punishment. I think if a community is attacked, the community has the right to defend itself, even if it means that lethal forces is used (assuming the attack warrants such) and some of the attackers may die.

OTOH, "punishment" (to me) assumes that a wrongdoer has been captured, and a panel of citizens is deciding what to do with him or her. In that case, they have to be very careful, because what they may think is a "lawful or appropriate" punishment may be seen as unjust, extreme, cruel or unusual once government is restored. And "premeditated" as well.

But then again, we're really getting down in the weeds here. As far as this particular guy, Roland Bourgeois Jr, he was clearly in the wrong, while "vigilantism" as a theory is not necessarily discredited as a whole. The nature of the article would seem to imply that, because of incidents like this, any community self-policing is ethically comperable to things like racist lynch mobs.

[Kanastrous]

^ first thing that reminded me of was the bunch of idjit white South Africans who went driving into a black township, guns blazing, trying to trigger the big Race War.

Needless to say, they got slaughtered.

By people who I guess could be fairly and non-judgmentally described as 'black vigilantes...'

[Simon_Jester]

No reason not to evaluate each individual incident on its individual merits.

I agree.

In principle, we can imagine a state where criminal acts result in a "hue and cry" being raised, and the whole community converging on the offender. That would be great. For the sake of this ideal, it would be nice if we could be sympathetic to groups that try to police themselves.

But instead, far too often, we've gotten the exact opposite of the hue and cry: mob violence against scapegoats. At a certain point I lose any faith in the ideal of self-policing, beyond the small scale of direct self-defense or "point" other-defense at the specific location where a crime takes place.