By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS – A federal jury today convicted five current or former police officers in the deadly shootings on a New Orleans bridge after Hurricane Katrina.
All five officers were convicted of charges stemming from the cover-up of the shootings. The four who had been charged with civil rights violations in the shootings were convicted on all counts.
However, the jury didn’t find that Brisette or Faulcon’s shootings amounted to murder.
Prosecutors contended during the five-week federal trial that officers shot unarmed people without justification and without warning, killing two and wounding four others on Sept. 4, 2005, then embarked on a cover-up involving made-up witnesses, falsified reports and a planted gun.