Did organized gangs head to NOLA?

[Ezlivin]

My mother listens to O'Reilly (yeah, I know...) and she said that he reported that "gangs from Memphis" and other cities headed down to NOLA when they heard about the storm. Supposedly these organized gangs headed down to loot jewelry stores and banks.

Is there any validity to this claim?

[Kire]

1. sounds like box office gold to me

Benicio Del Toro plays the tough guy, and Joe Mantegna plays the older guy trying to get out of the game

[Team44Car]

2. And Johnny Depp is torn between the two!

sounds like a blockbuster!

[Ezlivin]

3. My Mom doesn't understand pysch-ops

Everything that O'Reilly says is golden. She doesn't follow up on any of the stories to see if they are verifiably true.

The story has an effect on the way she thinks and then she moves along, never questioning why the false story was planted, never questioning motives but always trusting in the right-wing spin.

[mcscajun]

4. Sounds like bullshit to me.

O'Reilly and other Right-Wingnuts make these statements and just about never back them up with sources.

Challenge your mother to give you a source for the claim. We shouldn't always have to play the debunking game by their rules.

[Ezlivin]

6. Challenge my mother?

Hah! She would never spend time actually verifying any of this.

That's why I asked here, because I damned sure couldn't find any verification.

Really, I just need to confirm my belief that everything the man says is a lie or so far from the truth as to be indistinguishable from a lie.

[mcscajun]

7. and *that* is the difference between the listeners of RW pundits

and those of us here.

We actually do the research even when we hear stuff we agree about. They just let themselves be spoon-fed, and then regurgitate it everywhere.

[jobycom]

5. SOme truth to it, but O'Reilly probably exagerates

When I was in Gulfport the police chief of one of the coast cities talked about capturing looters who had come in from Jacksonville, Florida just to loot. These were two guys, so I don't know if it was a gang. I imagine professional criminals would have been drawn to a large flooded city without proper law enforcement.

Odd that O'Reilly would bring this up, since it points even more strongly to why we should have had National Guard troops with M-16s on every street corner in New Orleans before the winds died down. That's standard procedure after a hurricane, but we didn't have the NG troops to put there, and we didn't have the leadership of the federal emergency people to even think of it.

[leftofthedial]

8. Absolutely yes!

Halliburton

the bushturd and his gang

FEMA

Blackwell

ALL of them headed to NOLA and are looting even as we speak.

[RagingInMiami]

9. Of course organized gangs came to NOLA to loot

The biggest one is called Halliburton.

[Bob3]

10. Yes - Halliburton and Blackwell Security.

others are on their way.

[Laughing Mirror]

11. The Bush mob and FEMA have also showed up

divvying up the spoils.