All of this mayhem was next to the clinic created by Bork, a well known poverty activist and the co-founder of Mayday-DC, a homeless advocacy group. There were a couple of cop cars with their lights flashing “arrest!”, a Homeland Security van and some 6 unmarked cars with a sticker or two among them reading POLICE supporting some 12 dark blue uniformed ICE POLICE cops (New Orleans local cops) and an immigration officer. They refused to ID themselves or tell us what was going on. Later I learned that they also arrested a third person, a 30 year old young woman working in an auto parts shop, and that these sweeps happen every night, completely out of control. “I am glad there is finally media to document what is going on here,” says the officer in army fatigue, a National guard foot soldier. “The stories we hear are unreal, corruption is rampant,“ he adds.

We had asked him to escort us as press like they escort the journalists in Iraq so we could get closer as the cops were forbidding us at gun point from getting close enough to capture much on tape, and except for 2 of them, refused to identify themselves or tell us how many people they were arresting and why. “Such irregularities happen every night”, say some of the Cop Watch groups who were patrolling the neighberhood. Others add, “They are hitting people too. They say its drugs, they talk of curfew, but what is really going on is that Algiers, being the highest point of New Orleans is prime real estate, and it is up for grabs. They have already started bulldozing the 9th Ward. Their plan is to build casinoes there. It is an upstream battle. We need people to come back to help rebuild and to resist this gunpoint-imposed gentrification. When Mayor Nagin calls for people to come back, people need to know that they will have support. The water spared many places, but we need help. We need to counter the propaganda that it is unsafe to be in New Orleans, that it is contaminated.” “We need people who can to come and bear witness to what is going on.”

I hope I have started doing just that in this first New Orleans journal...bearing witness to what goes on. I was called on by Concei (going back and forth from DC with supplies,) and people here, Cobie (a WBIX reporter and a 6 years sundancer), Suncere (co-founder of Cafe Mawanaj), the co-founder of Radio Algiers at ahimsa-radio1.indymedia.org/algiers.mp3, Bork (co-founder of Mayday-DC who rushed to help as soon as she heard the hurricane news,) and Momma D (who works tiressly in the 7th Ward feeding the people who could not leave...)