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CALL MADE

It was reported in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that police had once fired 700 blank rounds in a New Orleans suburb ... following which not a single call was made to authorities. Turns out this was inaccurate:

Instead, about 900 rounds of live ammunition were fired by officers over a two-day period in December 2003 during a demonstration of a gunshot detection system for the New Orleans Police Department, said George Orrinson, of Planning Systems Inc., an engineering and technology company demonstrating the system. Orrinson said the company was told by police that one public call came in about the gunfire.

New Orleans wasn’t so numb to violence after all.

Posted by Tim B. on 12/02/2005 at 11:42 AM
  1. They were shooting holes in the levee! On Bush’s orders!

    Posted by paco on 2005 12 02 at 01:56 PM • permalink

  2. Numb to violence, or convinced not to get involved… as it could be very hazardous to their health? Ten bucks says that one call was anonymous.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 12 02 at 02:59 PM • permalink

  3. Just as New Orleans had 700 virtual police officers paid for by Federal money they also had 900 virtual gunshots.  Now you know why there was only one call, from a virtual citizen, no doubt.

    Posted by Michael Lonie on 2005 12 02 at 06:06 PM • permalink

  4. They made it sound like the police were shooting up the streets.  I’d bet only one call was made because they were shooting at a firing range (yes, they do exist in suburbs, there’s one just a few miles from where I live:  sounds like WWIII over there just about every day).

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 12 02 at 07:41 PM • permalink

  5. I’d bet only one call was made because they were shooting at a firing range

    You’re almost definitly right, although I wouldn’t be shocked if the Guardian doesn’t know the meaning of live ammunition.

    Posted by jic on 2005 12 03 at 12:24 AM • permalink

  6. RebeccaH,

    Sorry about the noise. My bad. Of course, Maxim came up with a fix for that back in the late 1800’s, but the Feds don’t want us to use them…

    Posted by Cybrludite on 2005 12 03 at 08:12 AM • permalink

  7. #6. Cybrludite.  No prob.  Just stop hitting the neighbor’s houses.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 12 03 at 03:19 PM • permalink

  8. Well ... 900 rounds of ammunition over two days. Assuming that’s two working days of eight hours, that’s about one “bang” every sixty seconds.

    How many innocent things might that have been mistaken for? TV, Nail guns, backfire, Scanners exploding people’s heads, particularly tough pimples…

    Nah, this is sort of a non-story. I wouldn’t expect people to freak out or report something like that unless you had a large number of shots going off at once, like in a gun battle.

    Posted by John Nowak on 2005 12 03 at 08:33 PM • permalink

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