NOLA Children's hospital under siege

[Ryan McGinnis]

From NOLA.com:

Children's Hospital under siege

Tuesday, 11:45 p.m.

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children's Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

 

[Nysee]

Unbeliable....what could they want inside the hospital

Unfortunatly knowing NO like I do I was figuring things like this would start happening. It is dangerous in some parts in the best of times though the good people in NO still far outweigh the bad. My local news is now reporting it.

 

[Anonymous]

Unbeliable....what could they want inside the hospital

drugs...and lots of other goodies...

 

[Nysee]

drugs...and lots of other goodies...

Yeah I heard on my local news that it was drug addicts and that the police nor national gaurd were able to respond. That was a few hours ago and I hope by now it has changed.

 

[Carla Bisby]

THIS IS UNBELIEVABLE!!! People are turning into animals!!! It must be a terribly frightening situation for the staff and children there.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Morphine, ketamine, etc -- the hospital is a gold mine for addicts. You can bet that a lot of crack & heroin addicts are needing their next fix, and all the local dealers are gone.

Tim

 

[Dave Kaplow]

I know this goes against the grain of the general feeling here about this situation, but I think they should just give those people enough methadone (or whatever) to keep them from getting sick. Tim has it exactly right, these are probably heroin addicts who are facing serious panic with their usual dealers gone. The best thing for everybody concerned is to give them something, at a minimum the same amount they would get if they were in treatment. Otherwise you are going to see desperate acts by desperate people, and a bunch of violent junkies are simply not worth taking a moral stand against, given the conditions. Give these guys what they want and they'll go away, it's that simple. The very real threat to those sick and injured children should come first.

Edit: let me add that what I'm suggesting would be a temporary measure, done strictly to protect the children at the hospital. The police or national guard can always hunt down and arrest the bastards later, when there is manpower for that kind of thing. I have very little sympathy for anyone attacking a children's hospital, and I'm not suggesting these people should get off scott free for their actions.

 

[Rob_Davis]

Nice theory, but I can't imagine it working.

First, it is only speculation that drugs are what the people wanted. I'm willing to bed that if there were that many of them, they were after more, like simply a dry, airconditioned place to crash and drink some water.

And then, I have little faith that if you opened the door to give them anything, they wouldn't simply swarm you and come in anyhow. Then YOU are responsible for a grave threat to the safety of every person in that building.

Plus, when you feed a stray dog, they never go away.

And what are crack and heroin addicts going to do with vials of drugs they have never even heard of? They're not used to their pharmaceuticals actuallly having labels on them.

And who cares if they're "sick?" A temporary fix is only postponing the inevitable.

And then what do you do when the kids need the drugs you gave away?

Nah... I can't think of a single positive thing that would come from that.

 

[Anonymous]

Hopefully that pharmacy has a very strong, very bulletproof protective barrier.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

I used to date a girl that worked in an ER -- she said the hospitals store the DEA-controlled drugs in safes. Hope the junkies have some tools handy.

Tim

 

[Ryan McGinnis]

I'm guessing they do... guns. There's an old analogy about cryptography that applies -- no algorithm is greater than the password used in conjuntion with it, and most passwords can be discovered with a few hours and a rubber hose if you have access to someone who knows it. If anyone in that ward knows how to get into the safe and armed DTing gangmembers storm the building, I'm sure they'll open the safe.

Wonder how they fared -- this broke last night, haven't heard anything about it. I think that the news agencies simply can't cover this story until it's over. It's too big, and, well, what they need are our forign war correspondents to come home and cover New Orleans.

 

[Rob_Davis]

They were showing the owners of a pharmacy in Biloxi struggling to load the safe from their destroyed business into the back of their pickup truck. It was the only thing left standing. They said it was obvious that somebody had spent a long time trying to break into it already.