Ninth Stage

New Orleans must be some kind of cesspool that Katrina did not cause but rather revealed. NO cops stealing from stores is an image we remember. That was impersonal burglary. We also remember NO cops and their proxies stealing the tools of protection from the survivors of Katriana. Badged robbers are not a new thing in NO as revealed by Gordon Hutchinson in his new book The Great New Orleans Gun Grab.
Xavier has a large quote from the book that I’m partially reproducing here:

In the course of doing research for our book (”The Great New Orleans Gun Grab”) Todd Masson (my co-author) and I [Gordon Hutchinson,], kept running across stories and evidence that New Orleans traffic cops were taking guns from motorists during routine traffic stops. The ploy used is to ask a motorist if he has a gun in the car, then ask to see it. Upon issuing the traffic citation, the cop asks the motorist if he has a receipt for the gun. Of course, no one has one, so the cop informs the motorist when he/she comes up with a receipt proving ownership, he/she can retrieve the gun at such-and-such a district.

As one of the responders to Tom’s thread pointed out, it happened to him in the late Nineties. When he went to the district to get his gun, no one could locate it in evidence, and of course, he never got it back. It apparently was a quite prevalent practice in the years leading up to Hurricane Katrina–so much so, it was one of the factors leading to the wholesale confiscation of guns from holdouts in New Orleans who refused to evacuate. In fact, we described this practice as one of the root causes of the confiscations in our book.

A good friend, a retired NOPD Homicide Lieutenant, told me it was a common practice when he was on the force. In my outrage, I spluttered “They can’t do that. That’s illegal!”

His answer was “Gordon–I didn’t say it was legal. I said they did it…”

We thought the practice had died out. NOPD and the city took such a hit of criticism after the lawsuits by the NRA and SAF, we thought perhaps they had stopped doing it. Then, as we slowly get further from the event, complaints start coming in again of the practice. I have spoken to four people who have had their handguns taken by individual officers during traffic stops in New Orleans since Katrina. I have spoken to several other people who have heard of it.

The most recent was just two weeks ago when one of the local gun stores called me and put the gentleman on the phone–he was there looking for a receipt for his gun, which had been taken by NOPD traffic cops. I know of one person who definitely got his gun back. Apparently, no criticism or punishment was meted out to the female officer that took the gun.

Is it legal? Of course not. It amounts to armed robbery by cop. Louisiana law allows loaded guns in vehicles concealed or unconcealed.

Is it time to pull the trigger on armed robbers?  It’s way past time.  Sadly, anyone that does in these situations will be crucified in the press, and most gun owners will tsk tsk.