Wednesday 11 December 2013  Officers guilty over Katrina deaths
Demonstrators react as they receive word that five officers were
convicted over the deadly shootings in New Orlean after
Hurricane Katrina (AP)  A US jury has convicted five current or
former police officers in deadly shootings on a New Orleans
bridge after Hurricane Katrina, a high-profile victory for the
Justice Department in its push to clean up the city's troubled
police department.  The case was a high-stakes test of the
effort to rid the police department of corruption and brutality.
A total of 20 current or former New Orleans police officers were
charged last year in a series of federal probes. Most of the
cases centre on actions during the aftermath of the August 29,
2005, storm, which plunged the flooded city into a state of
lawlessness and desperation.    Shaun Clarke, a defence attorney
and former federal prosecutor who moved from New Orleans to
Houston after Katrina, said the verdicts are "critically
important" to the Justice Depart