NOPD is reviewing arrests of 12 at Krewe of Eris parade Sunday night
This isn’t going to be a popular opinion but, there aren’t any good guys in this. There are bad guys, more bad guys and bystanders. Some folks may be innocent, but they aren’t righteous.
Krewe of Eris
I am not quite sure where the outrage is. If the point of your Krewe is to create or celebrate chaos you must suspect there to be some response correct? So where is the outrage? Anarchists’ goal is chaos. There is no need to be all up-in-arms when you clash with the establishment. It’s the point isn’t it? So, I can’t support your outrage. There isn’t any logic to it. It seems disingenuous because covertly, it was what you wanted all along. If some bystanders get their asses kicked along the way, blame anarchy.
Whether or not every person in the crew intended it to be this way or not, the general lack of order and, yes, discord, created will always result in it. It is no feat of imagination to consider the outcome Sunday night was already written once the concept of the Krewe was conceived. When people start to really get seduced by anarchy, the tendency is to take it as far as it will go.
I understand your Krewe pined for a time when Mardi Gras was a “day of unrest when the social order was turned upside-down” but perhaps, after Katrina, it might be a time for people to be more organized so, as a group we can fix levees, educate children, so on and so forth. Levees and schools. Levees and schools. Levees and schools.
If you want to mock the social order, take your parade to Audubon Place and draw penises on their cars, because just like in any riot, the people who you are impacting the most are the ones right there in your own social strata. But hey, who can try to sort out anarchy right? What’s the point?
If you think the unruly actions were only by a few parade attendees who stood out from the pack and ruined it for the rest of you who worked hard on your floats and costumes, understand that “open to all” means Nazis, cannibalistic headhunters, the KKK, tea baggers, NAMBLA, whomever, can roll with your parade. Anarchy is truly exquisite. You organized a group based on chaos where the mere mention of rules and structure was probably taboo, so by marching with that ethos, again, it wasn’t some far reaching realm of thought to consider some would be assholes.
Krewe of Eris shouldn’t be pissed off about anything, you should be celebrating the chaos you created.
The rest of us should be the ones who are pissed. I am.
NOPD Fifth District
Were we talking about anarchy? This is the real anarchy. This is indeed the crew of discord. As in Katrina, NOPD seems to lose its mind in a crisis.
From the article by “anonymous” on Indymedia…
“Y’all fucked up,” ranted a fat officer, pacing up and down the back hall where we arrestees knelt. It was hour two of what would be over four hours kneeling cuffed side-by-side on the Fifth District’s linoleum before transfer to Sheriff’s custody. “Y’all done fucked up now. I hope I see the motherfucker who hit me. I’m gonna find him. I’m gonna see that motherfucker on the street, and I’m gonna whip the shit out of him. You DO know that. When I see that motherfucker I’m gonna fuck him up bad, and I hope he’s one of y’all’s motherfucking cousins. I should’a shot that motherucker! You heard me?”
Should have shot the motherfucker? Are kidding me? Are the people of New Orleans supposed to expect that, after Danziger, Henry Glover and everything that happened in Katrina the NOPD is still threatening to kill the people it’s supposed to be protecting? This is where we get to the real outrage. This is the stuff that really brings order to the chaos. Sorry Krewe of Eris, no anarchy today, New Orleans citizens can all agree we won’t stand for anymore goddamn violence perpetrated on us by pissed off cops.
What failures have to keep occurring for the Department to understand that threatening to shoot people (and sometimes doing so) is criminal whether it’s a cop doing it or not. How many times do the Feds have to step in?
Also, denying law-abiding citizens their first amendment rights by slapping cameras out of their hands indicts the police in my book. The camera is there to show the police were following procedure and remaining within the law in their arrests. It should provide the evidence needed to fortify their case. Slapping the camera out of someone’s makes it seems like there is something to hide.
While the city spends money on speed and red light cameras for neighborhoods, where are the cameras for squad cars?
If medical care was denied to an arrestee as is stated in the Indymedia article, that is serious.
If officers were threatening to “trump up” charges on an arrestee, that is serious.
These are the tings NOPD has a reputation for and yet still, these are the things that are being done according to an eye witness account.
NOPD your job is not to threaten, beat, or shoot people. Your job is to help keep order. The people have so little faith in you to do so and you keep reminding us why. You think that if you have us by the balls our hearts and minds will follow but that is not how respect is doled out when we are the ones paying your salaries.
I won’t try to understand the pressures placed on an NOPD officer. They must be extraordinary. But the expectation is that if an officer is having difficulty with those pressures and that is endangering people’s lives they need to have the courage to ask for help or remove them self from service. Every officer has the power to control their own situation. The social problems in New Orleans are not driving them to violence, they are doing it them self by allowing those issues to effect their performance and staying on the force regardless.
The colloquial word is that it’s all the result of a few bad apples who are being sorted out. True or not, if some can handle the pressures and others can’t it goes to show that some are cut out for police work and others aren’t. I am sure a weak officer finds his way out of the force soon enough. Pissed off cops should too.
The people of New Orleans will not be beaten. We will not be shot. We will not be framed.
The NOPD Fifth District, like the Krewe of Eris tried to do, creates the real chaos and anarchy.
You tell ’em, Brother Varg! I’m agnostic about the Krewe of Eris, but no matter who started it or what any citizen did, the NOPD responded poorly. The acted unprofessionally and they pushed a slightly chaotic situation into total chaos which resulted in actual and real harm to everyone–the people they were trying to arrest, the people who were innocent bystanders, and their own officers. At the very least, I think every officer on the scene that night needs to get additional training and the supervisor needs a letter of reprimand. And that’s just based on the facts we know right now. At the conclusion of an investigation, there may very well be more severe actions against offending officers.
Police are supposed to protect us, not provoke us. Chief Serpas says he wants to clean up the NOPD and he has a zero tolerance policy regarding bad cops. Okay, Chief, time to put up or shut up.
Peace,
Tim
with fifth district, who responds with violence, rather than stop the violence, news of this entire debaucle, not only pissed me off, but made me worry for st anne, and others. however, the history with this krewe and NOPD, gives NOPD an opportunity to retaliate. and they did. Seeing the video’s? talking to folks who witnessed this? really scary. Its so much easier for them to go after revelers, than to respond to real threats upon my neighborhood. I am not for anyone jumpin on cars, and I’m real tired of watching my neighbors remodel, and improve, to have someone spray paint their graffiti upon it. I’m tired of those who think they have the right to deface, defile, and deform the very culture that makes this city, a wonderful place to live. NOPD, and the rants? wow, danziger ain’t over yet, and next years parade better have a damn permit, before someone innocent, gets gunned down, all in the name of revelry. Tired of seeing the police take it to another level, and tired of irresponsible actions from people who really need to learn a little respect, not only for themselves, but for those who came out with joy in their hearts, and ended up cuffed, tazered, beaten and arrested… both sides of the story, a good read… but lets keep it real, lets not put our friends, and ourselves in danger. fifth district did retaliate, and will be ready next year. so be ready too. get a permit.
Dear Varg,
This isn’t a comment, I just couldn’t find another way to contact you.
How’z yer’hammer hangin’?
Having followed your Art pretty much since you showed up on the scene, I recently acquired my first piece, from Peter’s gallery Arius, a stapled dark heart on ancient tongue & groove plank that I have named “Wise Blood” as reciprocal tribute to one of my favorite books by Flannery O’Conner. If you haven’t read that one, I suspect you will enjoy it as I think the author would enjoy your own works. Seeing you in the Square during those first dozen bizarre trips home after the Kafkatrina Federal Flood of 8/29/05, was both an indescribable encouragement and a wretched bone in my heart from the heinous, ugly things I later said to you regarding Rising Tide and Sandy Rosenthal, and here with The Chicory.
Goddess willing, I hope to speak to you some day about that, preferably over a beer and a joint if yer’so inclined. But suffice to say I will always regret having spoken to you thusly. I hope with time you can forgive me for being such an ass-hat, but I don’t expect any such grace and expect for a while to have trouble forgiving myself.
I really love my stapled heart. That’s not something ya’hear every day, eh? 😉 But it is true. I purchased a lot of Art from Peter’s gallery, in Dec and on another trip January, when I came down to buy my new old house on Peity Street. I bought it outright at a foreclosure auction in the French Quarters.
That is where you work will hang, gracing the space of my 130 year old duplex with over a dozen other Fine Artists for whom I care deeply.
My father died July of ’09 and this is how I’m investing some of the birthright he left me, thus one of the most serious things I’ve ever done in my life. I say “invested” only for the insurance value, but, truer to point , your Fine Art will be handed down through my family along with Piety House where I hope to grow old and die.
I’d always wanted a piece of your Art since the first moment I laid eyes on it. Yet, I’ve NEVER been able to afford Fine Art. Varg, I write songs, music and of late a comedy on the Death of Socrates. When Katrina came, I remained in my studio, where I’d lived 8 years @ $200/mo, above the Iron Rail Bookstore @ 511 Marigny. To say the least I’ve always been broker than an Irish pay toilet. Soooo, when we sold the family farm the second or third thing I wanted to do was go and get me some Fine Art 🙂 and you are one of the first Artists that came to mind. (The 1st thing I did of course was get a 1973 Martin 12 string guitar and a couple $1000 worth of another guitar and equipment ahem 😉 I now own 5 guitars. (See, Varg, I put the guitar down after The Flood…after composing, playing and performing for nearly 30 years)(jus’sayin…)( http://www.myspace.com/brucebiles )
The piece I got of yours literally pulled my hand to it. That’s how it worked. Likely it will happen again that way, but certainly this will by no means be my only Varg Vargas.
I wish you well and hopefully remain
your fan,
Bruce Biles
There are reasons why they are called PIGS !!
As if the police are just looking for some “krewe” to fuck with. Why didn’t the police fuck with the other non permitted “krewes”. I Didn’t hear about the Krewe of St. Anne(or numerous other large groups partaking in spontaneous acts of revelry) being tasered or roughed up. Why? cause there was no douche behavior. Mild stupidity, debauchery, creativity and a general sense of good will does not draw the ire of residents and ultimately the police. Eris kicked the hornets nest knowing damn well the consequences and then they whine like a bunch of privileged suburban kids. If Eris was sooo willing to mete out anarchy in the city, why didn’t they take that shit a little north like, maybe, N. Rocheblave? Well we all know the answer to that question. That’s where the residents don’t call the cops……Eris would have been calling the cops to come save their sorry azzes.
Since a couple comments mentioned Sainte Anne, I just wanted to add that by city ordinance, foot parades don’t need a permit on Mardi Gras. That’s on the day itself, Fat Tuesday — not the whole carnival season.