Katrina: Left to die in prison cells?

More shock and awe in the wake of Katrina ...

First the shock. In the days of Hurricane Katrina and the immediate aftermath, inmates in the Orleans Parish Prison compound were left locked in cells, with no food, water, or sanitation, for days.

Some were locked in ground level cells as water rose to chest level, or higher, while fellow inmates worked desperately against time to pry open locked cells and free them from drowning. Prison officials and guards had long since deserted.

This is according to a report issued by Human Rights Watch, based on interviews with dozens of inmates, some of whom were later evacuated to a bridge (where they waited for days, also without food or water) and then to elsewhere in the region.

Hundreds of inmates are still not accounted for, and many of the witnesses believe that inmates died during those days locked in cells. Human Rights Watch is calling for a Justice Department investigation. This jail is a holding facility for inmates accused of minor crimes, many of whom have not yet seen a judge or been convicted of anything.

If these accounts turn out to be true, and people died as a result, is there any reason authorities should not be charged with murder?

Why haven't you heard about this in the corporate press? If eyewitness stories by dozens of inmates isn't enough to suggest there is a story worth investigating, what does it take? Alternet picked up the Democracy Now! report on this report, and Progressive Review, had a story as did some British publications. But why the silence from the US "mainstream" media?

[UPDATE: A friend just alerted me that today's New York Times does indeed have an editorial calling for an investigation.]

In other post-Katrina news, Alternet has issued a timeline of what happened to lead up to Katrina.

And here's a story of awe -- the good kind. Bruce Dixon, associate editor of the Black Commentator reports that when ex-felons, church folks, and other southern activists realized that FEMA and the Red Cross were ignoring hard-hit, poor and predominantly African-American communities in the Gulf Coast region, they took matters into their own hands. They dug deep in their own pockets, borrowed vans, pleaded for donations, and began supplying hungry and displaced people with food, shelter, and in some cases, evacuation.

In another sign of grassroots action, Michael Kozart tells the story of the Common Ground clinic, founded by former Black Panther member and Green Party city council candidate Malik Rahim, who acted in response to the desperate need of those left behind in the neighborhood of Algiers. You can find Kozart's account of working for a week in the clinic on Alternet.