NEW ORLEANS – The Latest on five former New Orleans police officers who have pleaded guilty in the deadly Danziger Bridge shootings after Hurricane Katrina (all times local):
12:50 p.m.
Five former police officers have pleaded guilty to reduced charges in the deadly shootings on the Danziger Bridge in the days following Hurricane Katrina.
In exchange for the pleas, the ex-officers will see drastically less prison time.
The officers were convicted in 2011 but U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt set aside the jury's verdict two years later because of federal prosecutors' misconduct — including anonymous online comments about the case.
Four of the former officers have been locked up for nearly six years while the fifth has been out on bond.
The plea deal calls for them to get credit for time served and they could be released from prison anywhere from the next one to six years.
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1:05 p.m.
Five former New Orleans police officers say in court that they will plead guilty to reduced charges in the deadly shootings on the Danziger Bridge in the days that followed Hurricane Katrina.
The judge had set aside their earlier convictions amid a misconduct scandal over online comments by federal prosecutors. The officers said in court Wednesday that they will plead guilty under an agreement that calls for sentences that could see most of them released from prison in the next one to six years.
The court proceeding is still under way.
The guilty pleas come after the shooting deaths of two unarmed people and the wounding of four others on the New Orleans bridge less than a week after levee failures swamped the city.
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