Federal prosecutors won the first convictions in their sprawling probe of police misconduct after Hurricane Katrina when a jury yesterday found three New Orleans police officers guilty of killing Henry Glover, burning his body and fashioning an elaborate cover-up that kept the truth hidden for four years, reports the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The jury acquitted two officers and cleared two defendants of charges that they beat two men who tried to help Glover after he was shot by former officer David Warren.
The Glover case is one of nine civil rights investigations into the New Orleans Police Department started by the FBI and Justice Department, most of which involve police conduct in the chaotic post-Katrina period. Ten New Orleans police officers face pending charges in three separate cases, including the well-publicized Danziger Bridge shooting two days after Glover was shot. Five former New Orleans police officers have pleaded guilty in a cover-up of that incident, in which two men were killed and four people injured.