Mayor: $13.3M settlements end hard part of New Orleans’ past
New Orleans’ mayor said a dark chapter in the city’s history has closed with settlements totalling $13.3 million for relatives of four men killed by police around the time of Hurricane Katrina.
“We are here to proclaim from the highest mountaintop that the City of New Orleans … can transform itself from a city of violence into a city of peace,” Mayor Mitch Landrieu said at a Monday news conference after a private prayer service with victims’ relatives and local officials.
He called the prayer service a way for the city to say publicly “how intensely sorry I am” that “these individuals were looking for people to protect and serve, and they got the exact opposite.”
Landrieu said the settlements with 17 plaintiffs end all civil lawsuits involving the killings. The City Council was “very strong in support” of the settlements, which will be paid out over two years, and approved bond sales to cover them, he said.