No case against nurses in Katrina deaths

by Actual News Geezer | July 3, 2007 at 02:56 pm

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One story that seemed to stand as a monument to much of the official response to Hurricane Katrina was the story of how doctors and nurses had actually killed patents instead of trying to save them from the approaching flood waters.

In fact, two Louisiana nurses were eventually charged with murder.

Nurses Lori Budo and Cheri Landry, along with a third woman, Dr. Anna Pou, were arrested last summer and booked with being principal to second-degree murder — which carries a mandatory life prison sentence.

Today the New Orleans district attorney's office announced that the charges were being dropped, as reported by The Associated Press:

State Attorney General Charles Foti claimed they killed four people with a "lethal cocktail" at Memorial Medical Center during the chaotic conditions after the August 2005 storm. Lawyers for the three said they acted heroically, staying to treat patients rather than evacuating. No charges were ever filed.

Budo and Landry had been compelled to testify last month before a grand jury, under legal guidelines that precluded their testimony from being used against them. They waived their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.