IV 
109TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 530 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives condemning the actions 
of the Gretna Police Department, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Depart-
ment and all officers under their command who closed to foot traffic 
the Greater New Orleans Bridge in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina 
and prevented hundreds of citizens from evacuating the City of New 
Orleans, and recognizing that at all times and especially during a time 
of national crisis, that all citizens should be treated in a lawful manner 
and with dignity and respect. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 2, 2005 
Ms. WATERS submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the 
Committee on the Judiciary 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives con-
demning the actions of the Gretna Police Department, 
the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department and all offi-
cers under their command who closed to foot traffic 
the Greater New Orleans Bridge in the aftermath of 
Hurricane Katrina and prevented hundreds of citizens 
from evacuating the City of New Orleans, and recog-
nizing that at all times and especially during a time 
of national crisis, that all citizens should be treated 
in a lawful manner and with dignity and respect.
•HRES 530 IH 
Whereas on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina, a category 
5 hurricane, hit Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama; 
Whereas a category 5 hurricane, as defined by the National 
Hurricane Center’s Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, has 
winds of 156 mph or greater, can cause complete roof 
failure on many buildings, and/or can cause complete 
building failures with small utility buildings blown over or 
away, and/or cause flooding to structures near the shore-
line and/or may require massive evacuation of residential 
areas; 
Whereas on August 26, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco 
declared a state of emergency; 
Whereas on August 27, residents of Louisiana’s low-lying 
areas were told that they must evacuate and Mayor Ray 
Nagin of New Orleans advised people to leave the city; 
Whereas on the same day, President Bush declared a state 
of emergency in Louisiana; 
Whereas on August 28, as winds reached 175 mph, New Or-
leans Mayor Ray Nagin ordered mandatory evacuations; 
Whereas on August 29, 2 major flood-control levees were 
breached and a section of the roof of the Louisiana Su-
perdome, where people had taken refuge, opened; 
Whereas many were feared dead in flooded neighborhoods 
which were under as much as 20 feet of water; 
Whereas on August 30, Mayor Nagin estimated that 80 per-
cent of the City was underwater and much of New Orle-
ans was left with no power, no drinking water, and dwin-
dling food supplies;
•HRES 530 IH 
Whereas conditions at the Superdome and the Convention 
Center deteriorated as people were without food, water, 
clothing, or medical care; 
Whereas New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin urged people strand-
ed in New Orleans to evacuate the city; 
Whereas the Crescent City Connection, more commonly 
known as the Greater New Orleans Bridge, is the major 
artery out of New Orleans, is approximately 10 miles 
from the Louisiana Superdome and was accessible to the 
residents who were traveling on foot; 
Whereas the bridge and Gretna, Louisiana, the city on the 
other side of the bridge, were dry; 
Whereas a group of approximately 200 citizens were told that 
they could not enter into the city’s 2 main shelters, the 
Louisiana Superdome and the Convention Center, due to 
lack of space and unsanitary conditions; 
Whereas this group camped outside the police command cen-
ter at Harrah’s on Canal Street where they would be 
highly visible until buses or some other means of evacu-
ating the city arrived; 
Whereas the Police Commander at the command center told 
the group that they should walk to the Pontchartrain Ex-
pressway and cross the Greater New Orleans Bridge 
where the police had buses to take them out of the city; 
Whereas the group told the Commander that they had been 
given misinformation in the past concerning buses and 
therefore wanted assurance that buses would be there 
and were then told by the Commander that ‘‘I swear to 
you that the buses are there’’; 
Whereas the group began traveling toward the Pontchartrain 
Expressway towards the bridge;
•HRES 530 IH 
Whereas these citizens approached the bridge and were met 
by armed police officers from the Gretna Police Depart-
ment and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department who 
formed a line across the bridge to prevent passage; 
Whereas the police officers began firing their weapons caus-
ing many of the citizens to flee back into New Orleans 
while a small number of citizens remained and questioned 
the police officers about their refusal to allow passage 
across the bridge; 
Whereas the citizens were told that they could not cross the 
bridge and enter into the City of Gretna because the 
‘‘West Bank was not going to become New Orleans and 
that there would be no Superdomes in their city;’’ 
Whereas the armed officers shut down the bridge and closed 
to foot traffic the three access points to the bridge, there-
by denying the citizens the ability to cross the bridge; 
Whereas the bridge was only closed to those evacuees who did 
not have vehicles and were traveling on foot while re-
maining open to those traveling in automobiles; 
Whereas 23.7 percent of families and 27.9 percent of individ-
uals living in New Orleans live below the poverty level 
and many residents do not own vehicles; 
Whereas the Chief of the Gretna Police Department, Arthur 
Lawson, Jr., confirmed with the United Press Inter-
national that he ‘‘shut down the bridge’’ and further stat-
ed that ‘‘If we had opened the bridge, our city would 
have looked like New Orleans does now: looted, burned 
and pillaged’’; 
Whereas Chief Lawson stated that his ‘‘officers acted in the 
manner they were instructed to’’ and defended his deci-
sion to close the bridge to evacuees;
•HRES 530 IH 
Whereas after being denied access to the bridge, some of the 
citizens built an encampment on the center divide of the 
bridge between the O’Keefe and Tchoupitoulas exits; 
Whereas as dusk set in, a Gretna police officer showed up, 
jumped out of his patrol vehicle, aimed a gun at the faces 
of the evacuees, yelled obscenities and screamed at them 
to get off the freeway; 
Whereas a helicopter arrived and deliberately used the wind 
from its blades to destroy the structures the citizens had 
built for shelter and as the citizens retreated a Gretna of-
ficer confiscated for their own use the food and water 
that had been collected by the evacuees; 
Whereas the group that attempted to cross the bridge was 
predominantly African-American and consisted of the 
young, elderly, people on crutches, people using walkers, 
and babies in strollers; 
Whereas after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, 
New York police officers selflessly rendered aid to citizens 
and upheld their duty to protect and serve all citizens 
that needed assistance during that national crisis, not 
just those who may have lived in their jurisdiction; 
Whereas these actions are in sharp contrast to the actions of 
the Gretna police officers who neither protected nor 
served those citizens seeking assistance during the na-
tional crisis stemming from Hurricane Katrina; 
Whereas the use of guns, the pointing of live ammunition at 
women and children and the firing of those guns over the 
heads of unarmed, harmless citizens trying to evacuate 
an uninhabitable city was in the United States where 
freedom and the fundamental rights of all citizens is 
highly valued;
•HRES 530 IH 
Whereas every United States citizen is entitled to equal treat-
ment under the laws and should be treated with respect 
and dignity; 
Whereas the constitutional rights of the citizens were violated 
by the actions of the Gretna Police Department and the 
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department; and 
Whereas these actions occurred during a time of national cri-
sis when the assistance of every governmental entity was 
needed to preserve the health, life, and well-being of the 
evacuees: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) condemns in the strongest terms the actions 
of the Gretna Police Department and the Jefferson 
Parish Sheriff’s Department; 
(2) declares that the civil rights and civil lib-
erties of all individuals should be protected, espe-
cially during a time of national crisis; 
(3) calls upon local, State, and Federal authori-
ties to work to prevent bias and racial insensitivity 
and to adopt laws and procedures that will protect 
the civil liberties of its citizens, especially during a 
terrorist attack, national disaster, or other time of 
national crisis; 
(4) urges the United States— 
(A) to condemn the actions of the Gretna 
Police Department; and
•HRES 530 IH 
(B) to initiate an investigation through the 
Department of Justice into possible misconduct 
by the Gretna Police Department and its offi-
cials. 
Æ