Cop Cowardice Condoned?

[Hawkeye6]

JASON CARROLL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In the days of lawlessness, looting and
flooding, something happened few people in New Orleans imagines was possible. Hundreds of police
officers, like Lieutenant Henry Waller, abandoned their fellow officers and thousands of evacuees when
they were needed most.

LT. HENRY WALLER, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I defend it by saying that I left
them in a bad situation, but I have would have been leaving my wife in a worse situation.

CARROLL: Waller has been a New Orleans cop for eight-and-a-half years. He's stationed at the First
District downtown. And he's one of only a few high-ranking officers, the department says, who went
AWOL, absent without leave.

H. WALLER: The one time that I know that I did the right thing and made the right decision, it's going to
vilify me, that's difficult to deal with.

CARROLL: Waller explained how it happened, saying, Tuesday, August 30, the day after Katrina hit New
Orleans, the situation was grave.

H. WALLER: We listened to the radio. And we're hearing the things, the water is still rising. The water is
still rising. The water is still rising. The looting is this. The looting is that.

CARROLL: Waller says police superiors had no plan of action, and he was reprimanded for saying that to
his unit.

H. WALLER: I got with another lieutenant in the First District, who essentially told me, look, you're a
supervisor. You can't scare these guys. If they know you're scared, they're going to be scared. And I said,
flat out, I said, you know what? I am scared. Everybody here is scared. And the bottom line is, I'm not
going to tell these guys everything is going to be OK when it's not going to be OK.

CARROLL: That Tuesday, as 80 percent of New Orleans lay under water, Waller says he told another
officer he would get supplies. Waller drove an hour away to Baton Rouge, where stores were open. It was
also where his wife was staying with his family. She was upset, fearing something had happened to her
father in hurricane-damaged Mississippi. Still, after getting the supplies, Waller says he went back to New
Orleans, where he heeded a state trooper's warning at the city's checkpoint.

H. WALLER: And I started thinking. I said, well, you know, we have been hearing this story about the
levees breaching all day. What if they're right and I get stuck in this car? I'm no good dead. And so, we will
go back tonight. You know, and I will head back in the morning, once we have a better grasp of what is
going on.

CARROLL: But Waller did not go back Wednesday morning. He stayed with his family and canceled
plans to return to New Orleans Thursday, when his wife got news her father may have drowned. He's
listed as missing.

CYNTHEIA WALLER, WIFE OF NEW ORLEANS POLICE OFFICER: I need my husband. And if
they want to blame somebody for him leaving, tell them to blame me, because it was me who was literally
begging him to stay. Call me a coward. Call me selfish.

H. WALLER: In a time of ultimate crisis, who needs me more, the police department or my wife? And it
was a no-brainer for me.

CARROLL (on camera): What if all of the officers did something like that? Once you've taken an oath of
protection, who is there to protect the people?

H. WALLER: That's a tough question to answer, only because I know that not all the officers are going to
do that.

CARROLL (voice-over): But enough did. Nearly a quarter of the entire force went AWOL. Lieutenant
Troy Savage says officers like him, who stayed, resent fellow cops like Waller, who didn't.

LT. TROY SAVAGE, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Everybody had a wife. Everybody
has got families. Everybody needed to see them. But we didn't. We all didn't flee. We all didn't run in a
time of crisis. And he did that.

CARROLL: Waller stands by his decision, but says it costs him sleep.

H. WALLER: The nightmares were horrible. Every time I fell asleep for a couple of minutes, I was having a
recurring nightmare that one of my guys was -- needed help somewhere, was drowning or being beaten up.
CARROLL: Finally, nearly a week after being AWOL, Waller radioed the First District, saying he wanted
to come back and was told, don't bother; 200 AWOL officers like Waller have asked to or already have
returned to work. Animosity is so strong, some can't go back to their stations, so they meet at this local
high school, where they're assigned various jobs in the city. Officers call this place the leper colony.

EDDIE COMPASS, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE DEPARTMENT: I knew who
the warriors were and who wasn't.

CARROLL: Police department Superintendent Eddie Compass says all AWOL cops will have hearings to
determine whether they can keep their jobs.

COMPASS: We are going to evaluate our whole police department and after-action program. The heroics
will be rewarded and the cowardice will be punished.

CARROLL: Compass suspects many officers will be fired. But Savage think there's a worse punishment.

SAVAGE: If I had done that, how do you face your children and try to make them do the right thing ever
again? Where is your moral authority over your children or your spouse or anybody? You have -- you've
lost it.

H. WALLER: People are going to have their opinions. I can only hope that, over time, people will
understand.

CARROLL: Maybe, over time, some people will find understanding. But forgiveness might be more
difficult.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZAHN: He's going to have a lot to face if they ever really accept him back. Jason Carroll reporting for us
tonight.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...19/pzn.01.html

If you take an oath, you honor it. If there's any chance you think you'll be unable to honor it, don't take it in the first place.

[Nulle]

I think that is the one I saw and it made me sick. If I get this right his family was SAFE and he still did not return to work. Now I can understand that they have familys also and try and get them out of harms way and that is just human nature but once that is done and then not to return is unreal to me and that man would never work for me again. I have had that on a small scale with myself and a tornado that hit close to my house and yup I did check on my family and when I found them safe I was digging through the trash helping others that were not.

[Hawkeye6]

Nulle:

We're on the same page here.

What really got to me was this guy was leadership, a Lietenant. This wasn't some rookie with his first time under fire. For God's sake, this guy was responsible for setting the tone ofr all the foks under his charge!

H.

[Niteowl]

Imagine if you can what would happen if all our young men and women in the armed forces copped an attitude like this??

[fabsroman]

This is something that is bad with people in general. His wife was selfish and begged him to stay with them. She failed to think about all those that needed him elsewhere.

For the disaster in New Orleans, I blame society as a whole. The people stranded down there could have been a little better prepared. The government could have been a little better prepared. The hoodlums could have lent a helping hand instead of trying to shoot engineers.

Essentially, there are two types of people in the world, the hood hearted and the greedy. The good hearted are always trying to help others, the greedy are always wondering how they can take advantage of a situation for their personal gain. Obviously, people fall within the spectrum to varying degrees, but I don't think there is anybody who is in the middle of the road.

I see enough of the greed from the type of work I do.

[Dan Morris]

Me thinks that you will still find that the majority of LEO's believe in the oath that they took and still place themselves between the good and the bad....till that threat is nutralized!
Dan

[fabsroman]

I agree completely. It is those few bad LEO's, attorneys, doctors, politicians, etc. that give the entire category a bad name. There will always be instances of bad people, regardless of the profession.