Who's Watching The Watchers?

Turns out the black guy savagely beat by New Orleans finest was a retired elementary teacher hunting the dilapidated French Quarter for a pack of those rainbow cocktail cigarettes that gay socialites smoke in Armistead Maupin novels before they out Rock Hudson. More to the point, his lawyer says his client wasn't drunk at all.

The heartening and steadfast statement by the head of the New Orleans police union:``They feel they were justified in their actions and they were using the amount of force necessary to overcome the situation,'' - makes the situation seem more synthetic and therefore less troubling - because even though there were 3 white guys beating a black guy and one of them leaned an AP producer over a car and slugged him in the stomach for fun: Katrina, man.

Now they have to prevent crimes unlike "pre-Katrina" 'good old days, when New Orleans finest were rumored to be the ones committing the majority of the crimes. At least these law enforcers were able to steal 200 Cadillacs from a dealer just before Katrina set down. That's called arriving at the crime scene in high fuckin' falootin' fuckin' style.

According to insidiously placed moles within the department the next New Orleans police union statement is going to be even more revelatory, as they fess up that this was nothing more than a publicity stunt, tying in with an episode of the celluloid-brutality-celebratory The Shield. Rock!

Lawyer: Taped Beating Subject Wasn't Drunk (Guardian Unlimited)