Federal agents have raided the office of the New Orleans Police Department homicide division, seizing the files and computer hard drives of two officers assigned to investigate police conduct in a deadly post-Hurricane Katrina shooting, reports the city’s Times-Picayune. The raid focused on files in the offices of two supervisors, Sgt. Gerard Dugue and Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, who were the lead investigators in the shooting of civilians by police on the Danziger Bridge days after Hurricane Katrina.
Gunfire from police, who were responding to reports of shots fired at officers, left two men dead and four people wounded. The Department of Justice convened a federal grand jury that is currently looking into the case. Dugue and Kaufman weren’t actively involved in either shooting, but played follow-up investigative roles. An FBI official said the seizure was linked to an ongoing civil rights investigation related to the Danziger Bridge shootings.