Ex-NOPD Cops Appeal Glover Case Convictions

Watch Law and Disorder, FRONTLINE’s investigation into questionable police shootings by the New Orleans Police Department in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

Two former New Orleans police officers have appealed their convictions in the fatal shooting of Henry Glover in the wake of Katrina, and the cover-up of his murder, according to the Associated Press.

Neither deny the crimes. They argue instead that the trial wasn’t fair.

Former Officer David Warren, was convicted of shooting and killing Glover, who was unarmed, at a shopping center in 2005. Former Officer Gregory McRae was convicted of burning Glover’s body. The man’s charred remains were returned to his family eight months later. The coroner had left the cause of death blank.

The Justice Department later stepped in to investigate. Three officers, including Warren and McRae were convicted in the ensuing federal trial. Two others were acquitted.

Warren said that he should have been tried separately from the other officers charged in the case, the AP said, since he was accused of the killing, but not the cover-up. His lawyers argued that the testimony about burning Glover’s body biased the jury against Warren.

The Justice Department lawyer, Holly Thomas, argued that the jury was able to separate the charges.

McRae, for his part, acknowledged that he had burned Glover’s body, but that he didn’t know the man had been killed by a cop. His lawyer told the judge that he just didn’t want the body to rot. Thomas disagreed: “There were no other bodies burned after the storm,” she said, according to the AP.

It’s not clear when the court will rule on their appeals.

A separate three-judge panel heard the Justice Department’s appeal of a recent order for a new trial for the third former officer involved in Glover’s death, Travis McCabe, who was convicted of writing a false report on Glover’s death. But another version of the report, similar to the version that McCabe allegedly altered, surfaced after the trial, leading a judge to rule that McCabe deserved a new trial based on the new evidence.

The Glover shooting is one of six questionable cases of post-Katrina police shootings FRONTLINE has been investigating with ProPublica and the Times-Picayune for more than two years.