To our readers
by The Times-Picayune
Thursday February 14, 2008, 10:00 PM
A photo in some Metro sections Wednesday showed a laughing Mayor Ray Nagin pointing an M-4 rifle at Police Superintendent Warren Riley at a news conference to announce new crime-fighting equipment purchased by the New Orleans Police Department.
A review of a video taken at the event shows that the camera captured a split second as the gun was being lowered that made it appear to be deliberately pointed at the chief. However, the mayor clearly did not deliberately point the gun at Riley.
The photo prompted two letters and a razz on the editorial page criticizing the mayor, which appeared in some Thursday editions.
After a review of the video Wednesday night, the editorial and the letters were removed from Thursday's later editions. Had editors seen the video earlier, the letters and the razz would not have been published.
The newspaper regrets the error and apologizes to the mayor.
This is all well and good. I think the context of that photo capture should have been explained... or, failing that, a different photo should have been chosen. But by printing this retraction, the paper's editors demonstrate that they are not only ready to jump and squeal at the first hint of criticism from the Mayor, but they also have largely missed the point in the first place.
The point of outrage over the disputed scene is not that the Mayor may have pointed an empty rifle at the police chief for however many fractions of a second, but the very reason the two men were assembled for the photo-op in the first place. The story that accompanied the photo in Wednesday's paper reads.
N.O. police show off new crime-fighting equipment
Armored cars, mobile command post displayed
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
By Walt Philbin
New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley on Tuesday used the floor of the Superdome to display more than $1 million in new armament and other equipment, largely for use by the SWAT squad in emergency and riot situations, including a fully equipped mobile command post, two armored cars and modern assault rifles.
Nearly all of the equipment was financed from a $6.6 million state allocation to New Orleans police that was earmarked for crime-fighting items or strategies, Riley said.
The money will also pay for 600 bullet-proof vests.
While the bullet-proof vests will certainly be useful equipment for a police force with a penchant for placing officers in unnecessary danger, one wonders how much use armored cars and modern assault rifles will be in combating the city's day-to-day violent crime. (I still have no idea what a "mobile command post" does other than lead Mardi Gras parades.) These are clearly crowd control tools... and big scary powerful ones at that. They are the kind of thing the police might bring to the Claiborne bridge, or to... the next anti-crime protest march... but not the kind of thing that will be much use in making the ordinary citizen much safer.
Why have Riley and Nagin allocated these crime-fighting funds to buy all this stuff? Here's a suggestion from the Mayor as quoted in the article,
Nagin used the occasion to welcome the NBA All-Star game to New Orleans, scheduled for Sunday night at the New Orleans Arena. He said the annual clash between West and East All-Stars has "had a little bit of a rough time in other cities, but we are looking forward to it and don't expect any problems."
In other words, the M-4 wielding Nagin stood in front of a display of "Harry Lee Tanks" and riot gear and chose that moment to welcome visitors to the city. Talk about keeping the brand out there.
Chief Riley also chimed in,
Riley pointed out that after this weekend members of the NOPD will have worked 12- or 16-hour shifts for 23 days -- nearly half of the first 48 days of the year -- to provide security for public events on a national stage, including college football's BCS championship game and Mardi Gras.
"We had a little break after Mardi Gras, but will go into that mode again Friday," Riley said. He said there will be so many police this weekend in the Central Business District and French Quarter "it will look like Christmas down there."
Nothing says Christmas to me quite like the image of a heavily armed policeman on every corner. In a sense, the T-P's publication of a photo that depicts two overgrown children gleefully playing with their new Christmas toys is not an inappropriate editorial analysis of this story.
But the T-P, in its coverage of the event, and apology for the photo decides to ignore anything relevant and focus on the question of whether or not the Mayor, in the midst of his jocular brandishing of one of these toys, did or did not point it at the Chief of Police. Again... who cares?
But it gets weirder. Not only is the paper falling all over itself to apologize for the notion that it may have exhibited anything close to a witty insight in defiance of the Mayor, but has also begun scrubbing its site of letters and commentary it has already published on the matter.
It may be cowardly to publish an immediate apology upon the urgings of a mildly bullying letter from the Mayor's PR flack. But trying to retroactively cover up material you've already put in print is behavior every bit as childish as.... playfully pointing an M-4 rifle at a policeman.
Update: Please see this WCBF post for more on the NOPD's garbled priorities.
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