Lost Post

Brian was a paramedic when I met him, and apparently paramedics don't always look kindly on the work that the New Orleans police do. I recently found a flash drive in a small case for something that Brian's wife sent me. I am a little nosy, so I stuck it in the computer and found this gem that I had never seen before. Here's Brian at his absolute pissiest in March of 2008
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Well NOPD showed true colors again last week, and at one of my favorite old haunts, the Beachcorner Bar and Grill on Canal Boulevard.

The Beachcorner is located at the north end of Canal Boulvard, the second-to-last living thing on Canal before you get to the graves at the cemetery. I have spent many an hour and a dollar there. For one, they have some of the best bar food in the city, and that's a pretty bold claim.

My friend Greg and I went there this weekend, Saturday night (really Sunday morning) for a bite to eat after watching Bonerama at Mid City Rock and Bowl. We needed some sustenance, and the Corner was still open. So we ate some of those great hamburgers and cheese fries. Pepped us up for the last run to the house in the evening.

The only bad part of the bar is it is a cop hangout, especially for NOPD. The crew-cut white boys come in armed and dangerous, rowdy from a day of writing tickets and scaring the local citizenry, and want to eat and play pool or video poker. Once they are finished they go home to their house in Metarie, because they are mostly afraid to live in New Orleans. Too many blacks, they will tell you. Scared when the patrol car is no longer their ride, or the radio won't bring help immediately when threatened with a bum looking for a dollar at dusk near an intersection.

So the boys were in their usual form a couple of weekends ago, and some Regional Transit Authority (RTA) men were also enjoying a burger and some pool. These guys are the bus drivers, streetcar operators and such for the city. And most of the labor force for RTA is composed of African-Americans.

So apparently the RTA gentlement were about to leave, and some NOPD officer took umbrage at a passing look, or a word, or a brush against the shoulder. Rather than let it go, the officer pushed the issue, and somehow one RTA employee found himself being arrested while face-down outside on the curb as he was attempting to leave.

Officers quickly congregated to flesh out the story for the press and administration, making sure they were the heroes and had stopped a possibly robbery or shooting, which was hardly the case.

As NOLA attempts to recover, some of the sewer rats from before the storm are resurfacing, making their presence felt in all aspects of daily life. Apparently the NOPD rats found some driftwood early, and now they are back in form.