NEW ORLEANS — Five former police officers are scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday for deadly shootings at a bridge after Hurricane Katrina, a coda for a case that became a high-profile symbol of police brutality and residents’ suffering after the 2005 storm.
The Justice Department’s probe of the shootings became the centerpiece of its push to clean up the troubled police department. Revelations that officers shot unarmed people and tried to justify the shootings with a brazen cover-up stunned a city with a long history of police corruption.
Kenneth Bowen, Robert Gisevius, Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon were convicted of firearms charges and face decades in prison under federal sentencing guidelines.
Arthur Kaufman, a retired sergeant who was convicted only of participating in the cover-up, faces significantly less prison time.