New Orleans mayor announces $13.3m settlement for police killings during Hurricane Katrina

The Justice Department had charged 20 officers in an investigation that ensued from the aftermath of the storm

Mayor Landrieu with families of victims in the police attacks (Office of Mayor Mitch Landrieu/Twitter)

The mayor of New Orleans announced the settlement in civil rights lawsuits over multiple cases of deadly police shootings in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced a $13.3m settlement in the cases following Department of Justice investigations into police violence as residents attempted to seek refuge during the catastrophic floods from the hurricane.

"We are going to change as a people and we are going to change as a city because we choose to," Mr Landrieu said. "In some small way, the lives that have been maimed and the lives that have been taken were not lives that were or will be lived in vain."

The settlement is expected to resolve the lawsuits filed by 17 plaintiffs that range from wrongful death and personal injury claims. Some of the claims cover the deaths of three people killing in two different police shootings. Justice Department officials charged some 20 police officers following a series of civil rights investigations following the storm. Eleven of those officers charged pleaded guilty.

One case involved the beating death of Rayond Robair, 48, who was killed before the late August storm, according to the Times-Picayune.

Five officers were convicted in 2011 for their involvement in what is known as the Danziger Bridge shootings on 4 September 2005 – the most notorious of the three cases included in the lawsuits.

The shootings claimed the lives of two black men – James Brisette, 19, and Ronald Madison, 40, who was mentally disabled – and wounded four others, as they sought refuge in the days after the city’s levees failed and floods devastated the black community.

Earlier this year, a federal judge reduced the sentences of the five convicted officers after evidence of “prosecutorial misconduct” emerged. They ranged from 10 to 65 years.

All five officers pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice after falsifying evidence, claiming to have been responding to a shots fired report from fellow officers.

Nine officers commandeered a Budget rental van and pulled up to a group of black families attempting to cross the bridge and opened fire.

Police immediately arrested Lance Madison, the brother of Ronald, and falsely accused him of attempted murder.

“This has been a terrible ordeal for our family, or friends, and this community,” said Mr Madison. “While these officers will have to do time, it will never be enough to make up for what they did."