Judge reduces sentence of cop who burned Henry Glover’s remains
8th February 2016 · 0 Comments
More than a decade after a NOPD officer shot an unarmed Henry Glover as he stood in the parking lot of a Westbank strip mall just days after Hurricane Katrina and another cop later burned Glover’s remains in a car on a Mississippi River levee, the Glover family is still looking for justice.
Former NOPD Officer David Warren, the cop who shot Glover, was initially convicted and later acquitted in an appeal. The family tried for years to get then Orleans Parish Coroner Frank Minyard to change the classification of Glover’s death from “undetermined” to “homicide,” which he failed to do before retiring several years ago. Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell declined to weigh in on the case after Minyard said he needed additional information to make a decision. Since then, Orleans Parish Coroner Dr. Jeffrey Rouse has classified Glover’s death as a homicide but Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has not made a decision about whether to indict David Warren.
Former NOPD Officer Gregory McRae, the only cop behind bars for his role in the case, was sentenced to 17 years behind bars for torching the remains of Glover in a car. But last week, U.S. Judge Lance Africk reduced his sentence by more than five years.
McRae was one of four officers charged with covering up the death of Henry Glover.
Officer Warren and several other NOPD officers had their convictions from 2010 thrown out by a federal judge after it was made public that several key federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office had posted comments about several active DOJ cases on Nola.com.
Judge Africk said Thursday that he didn’t believe that McRae’s mental state prompted him to burn the car or McRae’s claim that he didn’t know the car he burned contained the victim of a police killing, the sentence reduction was the result of an obstruction of justice charge being thrown out by the appeals court, Nola.com reported.
Warren, who admitted to shooting Glover but said he did so in self-defense, was acquitted in federal appeals court in 2013.
After Glover was shot in the mall parking lot on Sept. 2, 2005, a good Samaritan gave him a ride to an elementary school in Algiers that cops were using as a makeshift station after Katrina. William Tanner, the good Samaritan, said he, Glover and others who showed up at the station were beaten and roughed up by cops who separated them from Glover. Tanner testified during the trial that that was the last time he saw Henry Glover alive.
Glover’s remains were placed in Tanner’s car, which was abandoned on the Mississippi River levee and burned by McRae. Someone later returned to the grisly crime scene and removed Glover’s skull from the charred vehicle. The skull has still not been returned to the family for proper burial.
Defense attorney Mike Fawer argued in court Thursday that McRae burned the car because he was suffering from post-traumatic stress and that he did not know that the homicide victim in the car was killed by a police officer.
Rebecca Glover addressed that assertion after the hearing, telling reporters, “(McRae) knew that my nephew was shot” by police. “Everybody knew.”
“Henry is still dead and nobody has been convicted for murdering him,” Rebecca Glover, the victim’s aunt, said after Thursday’s hearing in federal court.
She also told reporters that the family plans to speak with D.A. Cannizzaro soon to talk about the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office pursuing state homicide charges against former NOPD Officer David Warren.
The Glover family, community activists and supporters stood outside the federal courthouse and held a large sign that asked “Where is justice for Henry Glover?”
“Ten years after Hurricane Katrina there is still no justice in this city and state,” the Rev. Raymond Brown, a community activist and president of National Action Now, told The Louisiana Weekly. “This a sad day for justice and a sad day for Black people in New Orleans seeking equal protection under the law.
“This decision is also a great injustice for the family of Henry Glover,”: Brown added. “We will continue to stand with the family and demand justice for Henry Glover and all victims of excessive force and unconstitutional policing.”
Brown said he was not surprised by Judge Lance Africk’s decision to reduce McRae’s sentence, saying that many community activists believe Africk is “pro-police.”
“It looked like (Africk) had already made up his mind before hearing both sides’ arguments,” Brown explained. “While we are not at all pleased with the judge’s decision, we hope that he doesn’t further reduce the sentence when lawyers for McRae come back a year or so from now seeking another sentence reduction.”
“It’s clear that neither the police department, D.A.’s Office, U.S. Attorney’s Office or the courts are functioning properly or in accordance with the United States Constitution,” Ramessu Merria-men Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly. “Since the mishandling of the NOPD consent decree, it’s been obvious that we can’t depend on the U.S. Department of Justice to protect our constitutional rights or guarantee us equal protection under the law.
“As W.C. Johnson, a longtime freedom fighter on the front lines in New Orleans, has been saying for years, we need a Constitutional Convention to make the changes that are necessary to protect our rights,” Aha added. “We also need to make our case to the United Nations and make the global community acutely aware of the human rights violations routinely taking place in New Orleans and other parts of the country. We need everyone on deck with this campaign, from the elders who have been organizing for 50- or 60-plus years to the young warriors who are just getting started in the ongoing struggle for liberation, justice, equity and self-determination.”
Nola.com reported that when asked how she felt about the reduced sentence for the cop who burned her son’s remains, Edna Glover said, “It isn’t going to bring back my son.”
Additional reporting by Louisiana Weekly editor Edmund W. Lewis.
This article originally published in the February 8, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
