Former New Orleans officers sentenced in Katrina shootings

Reporting from Atlanta—

This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. 

Punctuating what New Orleans' mayor called a "dark chapter" in his city's history, five former local police officers were sentenced Wednesday for their role in the Danziger Bridge shooting incident, which left two innocent people dead and four others seriously wounded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

U.S. District Court Judge Kurt Engelhardt handed down long sentences for four of the officers, ranging from 38 to 65 years in prison. The fifth, former Sgt. Arthur Kaufman -- who was not involved in the shootings, but was involved in an attempted cover-up -- received six years.

The Danziger case was the most notorious of several instances of violent police misconduct in the days after Hurricane Katrina, when great swaths of the city were flooded, looters roamed the streets, and many public services, including the Police Department, were in dramatic disarray.          More Read