3 New Orleans police officers plead not guilty to hitting man

NEW ORLEANS -- Three New Orleans police officers pleaded not guilty yesterday to beating up a 64-year-old man and roughing up a journalist in another blow to a department already under fire for its performance in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Two officers, identified as Lance Schilling and Robert Evangelist, were charged with battery in connection with the arrest of Robert Davis on Saturday outside a bar in the French Quarter.

Officer S.M. Smith was accused of roughing up a producer for Associated Press Television News.

A video shot by APTN showed an officer punching Davis in the head several times as he apparently resisted and a group of officers subsequently dragging Davis to the ground.

The tape showed Davis being punched again and bleeding on the sidewalk. An officer identified as Smith then approached the APTN producer and ordered an end to the filming, jabbing him in the stomach when he presented media credentials.

Davis was arrested for public intoxication, resisting arrest, and other charges after the encounter. Schilling, Evangelist, and Smith were arrested Sunday and suspended without pay. They were released yesterday on bail.

Davis's lawyer, Joseph Bruno, told the Associated Press that his client was not drunk and put up no resistance as he was being struck.

''I don't think that when a person is getting beat up there's a whole lot of thought. It's survival. You don't have a whole lot of time to think when you're being pummeled," Bruno told AP.

Bruno told AP his client suffered fractures to his cheek and eye socket, and scrapes and bruises, but was expected to recover.

He added that his client was a recovering narcotics abuser who had not had a drink or taken drugs in ''years and years. He was not taking anything."

''I think it was awful," Mayor Ray Nagin said after a meeting with civic and political leaders. ''I was surprised that it happened frankly. I don't know what the gentleman [Davis] did but whatever he did, he did not . . . deserve what I saw on tape. . . . That kind of behavior is not going to be tolerated."

Some New Orleans police officers have been accused of joining in the looting sparked by Katrina and at least two officers killed themselves in the aftermath of the hurricane.

The city's police chief resigned last month.

Louisiana officials announced last week that they were investigating reports that officers had turned to thievery as the hurricane approached, including looting nearly 200 cars from a dealership.

While not excusing the actions of the three officers, city officials noted police had been working for more than six weeks in exceedingly difficult conditions.

''It is a department under a great deal of stress," Terry Ebbert, chief of New Orleans emergency operations, said after the meeting with political and civic leaders. ''I know you see some of those feelings coming out in how they act out."