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:angry:<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=629 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD colSpan=3><DIV class=mxb><DIV class=sh>Prisoners of Katrina </DIV></DIV></TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=416><DIV class=mvb><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=416 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=bottom width=56>
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</TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=350><DIV class=mvb><SPAN class=byl>By Olenka Frenkiel </SPAN>
<SPAN class=byd>BBC reporter, Prisoners of Katrina </SPAN></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
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In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while thousands fled New Orleans, the city's prisoners were trapped. Fresh eye-witness accounts reveal what really happened to those left behind, and how crucial forensic evidence was simply washed away.
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<DIV class=cap>Nearly 7,000 male and female prisoners were left behind</DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
In September 2005, long after most people had fled a devastated city, inmates of Orleans Parish Prison - many of them shackled - were still waiting to be rescued from the blazing heat and the stinking floods.
"They basically abandoned the prison," says Vincent Norman, a chef arrested for an unpaid fine who found himself locked in a cell for days.
Norman should have been there no more than a week. Instead, abandoned without food, drink or sanitation as the waters rose, he was in prison for 103 days.
"We were just left there to die," said Cardell Williams, a prisoner who spent two months in jail without ever being charged.
In the days before the hurricane, when other citizens of New Orleans were ordered to leave, city leaders were asked: "What about the prisoners in the jail?"
"The prisoners will stay where they belong," replied Marlin Gusman, the criminal sheriff in charge of the city jail.
But it was a gamble he would regret.
Break out
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><DIV>
<DIV class=cap>Orleans Parish Prison has ten jail blocks, its own courts and a morgue</DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Some of those in Orleans Parish Prison had been arrested for minor misdemeanours, like unpaid fines, or jay-walking. Some had never even been charged.
A third of the inmates were awaiting trial, innocent until proven guilty.
On the night of Sunday 29 August, as Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, they found themselves with violent convicts transferred from other low-lying jails.
The food and drinking water ran out.
Many were in windowless cells in soaring heat.
They began to riot.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=5></TD><TD class=sibtbg><DIV><DIV class=mva>
Andrew Joseph said he saw a body floating in the water with a rat sitting on its chest 
<BR clear=all></DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Terrified staff who had bro
<BR clear=all></TD><TD> </TD><TD vAlign=bottom width=350><DIV class=mvb><SPAN class=byl>By Olenka Frenkiel </SPAN><SPAN class=byd>BBC reporter, Prisoners of Katrina </SPAN></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</DIV>
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, while thousands fled New Orleans, the city's prisoners were trapped. Fresh eye-witness accounts reveal what really happened to those left behind, and how crucial forensic evidence was simply washed away.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><DIV>
<DIV class=cap>Nearly 7,000 male and female prisoners were left behind</DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>In September 2005, long after most people had fled a devastated city, inmates of Orleans Parish Prison - many of them shackled - were still waiting to be rescued from the blazing heat and the stinking floods.
"They basically abandoned the prison," says Vincent Norman, a chef arrested for an unpaid fine who found himself locked in a cell for days.
Norman should have been there no more than a week. Instead, abandoned without food, drink or sanitation as the waters rose, he was in prison for 103 days.
"We were just left there to die," said Cardell Williams, a prisoner who spent two months in jail without ever being charged.
In the days before the hurricane, when other citizens of New Orleans were ordered to leave, city leaders were asked: "What about the prisoners in the jail?"
"The prisoners will stay where they belong," replied Marlin Gusman, the criminal sheriff in charge of the city jail.
But it was a gamble he would regret.
Break out
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=203 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD><DIV>
<DIV class=cap>Orleans Parish Prison has ten jail blocks, its own courts and a morgue</DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Some of those in Orleans Parish Prison had been arrested for minor misdemeanours, like unpaid fines, or jay-walking. Some had never even been charged.
A third of the inmates were awaiting trial, innocent until proven guilty.
On the night of Sunday 29 August, as Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, they found themselves with violent convicts transferred from other low-lying jails.
The food and drinking water ran out.
Many were in windowless cells in soaring heat.
They began to riot.
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=208 align=right border=0><TBODY><TR><TD width=5>
</TD><TD class=sibtbg><DIV><DIV class=mva> Andrew Joseph said he saw a body floating in the water with a rat sitting on its chest <BR clear=all></DIV></DIV></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Terrified staff who had bro
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