Police Chief Says He Exaggerated Post-Katrina Crime - August 21, 2006 - The New York Sun

Police Chief Says He Exaggerated Post-Katrina Crime - August 21, 2006 - The New York Sun: "'In hindsight, I guess I heightened people's fears by me being the superintendent of police, reporting these things that were reported to me,' Mr. Compass said of the unverified accounts of crime and disorder in flooded New Orleans that he repeated to the press and on 'The Oprah Winfrey Show.'

'But there was really no way for me to check definitively. So instead I erred on the side of caution. I didn't want people to think we were trying to cover anything up. So I repeated these things without being substantiated, and it caused a lot of problems,' he said.

Officials and local commentators have long suggested that the false reports of rampant crime following the hurricane were a reason for the slowness of rescue efforts. With recovery teams and humanitarian aid groups frightened to enter the city, many storm survivors were left stranded on roofs without food and water, in makeshift rafts, and in filthy conditions at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center."

My advice is to regard anything you read in any media as fiction.