Leonard Pitts, Jr.: A display of integrity in trying times

[question everything]

LEONARD PITTS JR. THE MIAMI HERALD

A display of integrity in trying times

September 26, 2005

The women were on the roof of the hotel, calling for help as floodwaters rose. Then a motorboat full of policemen came by. "Can you help us?" the women cried. The policemen replied, "Show us what you've got!" and motioned for them to lift their T-shirts. The women said no. The policemen left them there.

I figured that story for an urban legend when one of my students wrote about it in a class I teach. Too crazy to be true, I thought.

But the tale turns out to be an eyewitness account from one Ged Scott, a bus driver from suburban Liverpool, England, who, with his wife and son, was on vacation in New Orleans when that city was swamped by Hurricane Katrina. Scott's story has received considerable play in British newspapers; as near as I can tell, it has not been picked up stateside.

Small wonder. Katrina has given us enough homegrown tales of People Behaving Badly without importing new ones.

Meaning the people whose first thought in a time of cataclysm was to smash windows and grab cell phones. And the ones who thought it a good idea to shoot at rescue helicopters. And the ones who used disaster as a cover under which to rob and rape without fear of retribution. And the ones who met would-be escapees from this madness at gunpoint on a bridge and turned them back. As this is written, Katrina is going on four weeks behind us and Hurricane Rita a few hours away from striking the Gulf coast. We find ourselves caught in one whopper of a storm season; indeed, the National Hurricane Center is down to the last four storm names on its list for 2005. When's the last time we came this near to having more storms than names?

And yet, even among all the storms, and even among all the stories they have produced, are producing, will yet produce, this particular tale from Hurricane Katrina stands out.

Show us your breasts and we'll get you out of here?

(snip)

Pitts can be reached via e-mail at [e-mail].


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050926/news_mz1e26pitts.html

[RevCheesehead]

1. I had never heard this story.

Thanks for posting it. More people need to see it.

[question everything]

2. Thanks. Yes, would be interesting to find the original story

in the foreign press

[mcscajun]

4. Here's the original

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15938968&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=girls--fear--name_page.html

An early report, sketchy, and I don't know about any follow-up story.

The Mirror is a RAG. Just sayin'.

[question everything]

8. and in u.tv

All centerd around the same quote:

Holidaymakers returning to the UK spoke of the scale of the misery while one said leering police officers demanded young women flash their breasts in return for help.

"At one point, there were a load of girls on the roof of the hotel saying `Can you help us?` and the policemen said `Show us what you`ve got` and made signs for them to lift their T-shirts.

"When the girls refused, they said `Fine` and motored off down the road in their boat."

http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=64678&pt=n

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I need verification to buy this one 100%

Especially after the Times-Pic. article yesterday about the situation at the Dome and the Con. Center.

[question everything]

6. Seems that the Vero Beach Press Journal has a story

but one needs to register and bugmenot did not work...

http://websearch.tcpalm.com/tcp/web/searchResults?searchType=site&site=TCP&searchString=Ged+Scott

[question everything]

7. But missing from the BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4214746.stm

After looters had broken into New Orleans' Ramada Hotel, bus driver Ged Scott, 36, of Liverpool - stranded with his wife Sandra, 37, and their seven-year-old son, Ronan - had waded waist-deep through the filthy water to barricade the hotel's doors, he told BBC News.

"It was like wading through an open sewer.

"It reeked to high heaven and made you want to vomit.

"Outside I could see bodies floating in the water."

Mr Scott told BBC News he had ripped wires attached to speakers from the walls of the flooded hotel bar and tied tables and chairs together as makeshift barricades.

Hotel guests had already managed to chase one group of looters from the building, he added.

They had then taken turns patrolling the hotel's corridors with a torch, Mr Scott told BBC News.

[soup]

5. Original report:

Last Updated: Monday, 5 September 2005, 21:57 GMT 22:57 UK

Briton slams US rescue 'shambles'

A British tourist stranded for five days with his wife and seven-year-old son in a New Orleans hotel has called the US relief operation a "shambles".

Ged Scott, 36, of Liverpool, told BBC News that hotel staff and guests had received no help from the authorities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4217022.stm

[Toots]

9. A lot of Police are Republicans and this sounds just like one.

:shrug: