Robert Wise: Blockbuster Director Dead At 91

By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
Thu Sep 15, 8:27 AM ET

LOS ANGELES - During his half-century career, Robert Wise — who died of heart failure Wednesday at 91 — was nominated for seven Academy Awards, had hits in a variety of genres and worked with Orson Welles on "Citizen Kane." But he gained his greatest acclaim — and four Oscars — with the big-budget productions of "West Side Story" and "The Sound of Music," two of the most popular musicals of all time.

In all, Wise directed 39 films, ranging from science fiction ("The Day the Earth Stood Still") to drama ("I Want to Live!") to war stories ("Run Silent Run Deep") to Westerns ("Tribute to a Bad Man").

He also was nominated for an Oscar for editing "Citizen Kane."

"I'd rather do my own thing, which has been to choose projects that take me into all different kinds of genres," he once told The Associated Press. "I don't have a favorite kind of film to make. I just look for the best material I can find."

Wise died after falling ill and being rushed to the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical Center, family friend and longtime entertainment agent Lawrence Mirisch told The Associated Press.

The director had appeared to be in good health Saturday when he celebrated his 91st birthday with friends, Mirisch said.

Wise's wife, Millicent, learned of her husband's death while in Spain for the inauguration ceremony of the San Sebastian Film Festival, which was featuring a retrospective of his work.

While many of his films were classics of their genre, his two revered musicals towered over all of them.

Wise won the best director Oscar for 1961's "West Side Story" (shared with Jerome Robbins) and for 1965's "The Sound of Music." He also received producer Oscars for each film for winning best picture.

"West Side Story" was the tale of "Romeo and Juliet" set in the New York City tenement slums. Co-directed by Wise and Jerome Robbins, with music by Leonard Bernstein, it won 10 Academy Awards.

"The Sound of Music," which told the story of the singing von Trapp family's escape from Nazi-ruled Austria, won five Oscars. It was for many years the top-grossing film of all time.

Wise gave much of the credit for the film's success to its stars, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer.

"A big part of a director's job is done if he gets the right actors in the right roles," he once said. "That doesn't mean you don't help actors, but once we thought about Julie and Chris, we didn't seriously consider anyone else."

He also credited Welles, for whom he edited "The Magnificent Ambersons" as well as "Citizen Kane," as a major influence, adding that the actor-director-writer was "as close to a genius as anyone I have ever met."

"Citizen Kane" was "a marvelous film to work on — well-planned and well-shot," Wise once said. It has topped many polls over the years as the best film ever made.

More recently, he served as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and the Directors Guild of America.

Born Sept. 10, 1914, in Winchester, Ind., Wise dropped out of college during the Depression after his brother, an accountant at RKO, helped get him a job at the studio.

He worked his way up to film editor or co-editor on such movies as "The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster."

He got his chance at directing almost by accident when he was assigned to finish the 1944 film "The Curse of the Cat People" after the original director fell too far behind schedule.

Pleased with his work, horror film producer Val Lewton assigned Wise to direct the Boris Karloff film "The Body Snatcher" the following year.

In addition to his four Oscars, Wise was awarded the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences' Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, a special Oscar for sustained achievement, in 1966. He also received the Directors Guild of America's highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award, in 1988.

His last film, 1989's "Rooftops," was another try at an urban musical like "West Side Story" but with modern-day pop music and rough language. It wasn't successful but many critics praised Wise's effort.

Speculators Rushing In as the Water Recedes

By David Streitfeld
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday 15 September 2005 Would-be home buyers are betting New
Orleans will be a boomtown. And many of the city's poorest residents could
end up being forced out.
Baton Rouge - Brandy Farris is house hunting in New Orleans.
The real estate agent has $10 million in the bank, wired by an
investor who has instructed her to scoop up houses - any houses. "Flooding
no problem," Farris' newspaper ads advise.
Her backer is a Miami businessman who specializes in buying
storm-ravaged property at a deep discount, something that has paid dividends
in hurricane-prone Florida. But he may have a harder time finding
bargains this time around.
In some ways, Hurricane Katrina seems to have taken a vibrant real
estate market and made it hotter. Large sections of the city are
underwater, but that's only increasing the demand for dry houses. And in
flooded areas, speculators are trying to buy properties on the cheap,
hoping that the redevelopment of New Orleans will start a boom.
This land rush has long-term implications in a city where many of
the poorest residents were flooded out. It raises the question of what
sort of housing - if any - will be available to those without a
six-figure salary. If New Orleans ends up a high-priced enclave, without a mix
of cultures, races and incomes, something vital may be lost.
"There's a public interest question here," said Ann Oliveri, a
senior vice president with the Urban Land Institute, a Washington think
tank. "You don't have to abdicate the city to whoever shows up."
For now, though, it's a seller's market, at least for habitable
homes.
Two months ago, Steve Young bought a two-bedroom condo in New
Orleans' Garden District as an investment for $145,000. Last month, he was
transferred by Shell Oil to Houston. Last week, he put the condo on the
market.
In a posting on Craigslist, an Internet classified advertising
site, Young asked $220,000. He got a dozen serious expressions of interest
- enough so he's no longer actively pursuing a buyer.
"I'm pretty positive the market's going to move up from here," he
said.

So, to their surprise, are many others.
"I thought this storm was the end of the city," said Arthur
Sterbcow, president of New Orleans-based Latter & Blum, one of the biggest
real estate brokerages on the Gulf Coast.
"If anyone had told me two weeks ago that I'd be getting the calls
and e-mails I'm getting, I would have thought he was ready for the
psychiatric ward."
Messages from those wanting to buy houses - whether intact or
flooded - and commercial properties are outrunning those who want to sell by
a factor of 20, said Sterbcow, who has set up temporary quarters in his
firm's Baton Rouge office.
"We're pressing everyone into service just to answer the phones,"
he said.
These eager would-be buyers may be drawing their inspiration from
Lower Manhattan, which proved a bonanza for those smart enough to buy
condos there immediately after the Sept. 11 attack.
Of course, in southern Louisiana, everything is hypothetical for
the moment. The storm destroyed many property records and displaced
buyers, sellers, agents and title firms, so no deals are actually being
done. Insurance companies haven't started to settle claims yet, much less
determine how, or whether, they will insure New Orleans in the future.
The city hasn't even been drained.
But people are thinking ahead, influenced by a single factor: the
belief that hundreds of billions of dollars in government aid is going
to create a boomtown. The people administering that aid will need
somewhere to live, as will those doing the rebuilding. So will employees of
companies lured back to the area, and the service people that attend to
them.
All this will lead to what Sterbcow delicately calls a
"reorientation" of the city.
"Everyone I talked to has said, 'Let's start with a clean sheet of
paper, fix it and get it right,' " he said. "Some of the homes here
were only held together by the termites."
What the owners of the city's estimated 150,000 flooded houses will
get out of "reorientation" is unclear, especially if the houses were in
bad shape and uninsured.
Some black New Orleans residents say dourly that they know what's
coming. Melvin Gilbert, a maintenance crew chief in his 60s, stood
outside an elegant hotel in the French Quarter this week and recalled how
the neighborhood had been gentrified.
He remembered half a century ago when the French Quarter had a
substantial number of black residents.
"Then the Caucasians started offering them $10,000 for their
homes," he said. "Well, they only bought the places for $2,000, so they took
it and ran."
The white residents restored the homes, which rose quickly in
value. Gilbert said he expected the same dynamic when the floodwaters
receded in the heavily black neighborhoods east of downtown.
The question of who should own New Orleans is already sparking
tension. The first posting seeking New Orleans property "in any condition
or location" was placed on Craigslist on Aug. 29, while the storm still
raged. With small variation, it was repeated numerous times over the
next week.
Some readers were infuriated. "Do you read/watch/understand any of
the news broadcasts coming from the city? Or do you just go to 'Cashing
in on Desperation, Despondency, and Depression: How to Make a Zillion
Dollars investing in Disaster Area Real Estate' seminars. Sheeeeeesh!"
wrote one.
The process of tracking down owners of deluged houses is greatly
slowed by the absence of records. It's not going to be easy to find these
people, said Farris, the Baton Rouge real estate agent.
What would she pay for a ruined house?
Farris demurred, saying it was too early to tell, but probably only
the value of the land, if that. Though the French Quarter may be back
to life within months, outlying districts such as North Bywater and the
Lower 9th Ward will take years, if they ever do. Investors might hope
this is the equivalent of buying land on the outskirts of a boomtown,
but it's not a guarantee.
For one thing, there are already proposals to convert certain
flooded areas - including some water-logged neighborhoods - into parks.
Under the Supreme Court's recent ruling broadening the definition of
eminent domain, speculators could be forced to sell their properties to the
government.
That would be a great outcome for many homeowners in the parishes
south and east of New Orleans that bore the brunt of the storm.
Six months ago, Todd La Valla, a Re/Max real estate agent, bought a
four-unit apartment building for $59,000 in the community of Buras, an
unincorporated hamlet in Plaquemines Parish 55 miles southeast of New
Orleans.
The tenants evacuated in the storm, or at least La Valla hopes they
did. He's sure the building is gone too, like just about everything
else in the area. La Valla had no insurance, which means his $10,000
investment is probably a complete loss.
Yet where there's disaster, there's opportunity.
"I've had calls from investors in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York
looking to buy property," La Valla said. "This is going to be hard for
the poor, the elderly, those that didn't have insurance. But it's going
to be great for some people."
At first, Lucia Blacksher thought she was in the bad news group. In
June, she and her boyfriend put their entire savings, about $35,000,
into their dream house - a century-old shotgun Victorian in the New
Orleans neighborhood of Mid-City. When the storm came, they fled to
Blacksher's parents' house in Birmingham, Ala.
The house, which cost $225,000, is partially flooded. Her
boyfriend, a Virginian who figures he's seen enough of hurricanes to last him
the rest of his life, wants to move. The insurance company won't return
calls.
Last week, Blacksher was worried she would lose her beloved house
either to foreclosure or a forced sale. One of those bottom-feeders
would get it.
She was more optimistic Wednesday. Somehow, she would get through
this.
"Because the house survived the storm, it will be even more
valuable," she said. "You could offer me $300,000 and I wouldn't take it. No
way."

Housing in New OrleansReal estate investors are looking for bargains in
the New Orleans metropolitan area after Hurricane Katrina, but in some
areas prices already are on the rise.Rent versus own in the city of New
OrleansRenter-occupied
Owner-occupied53.2%
46.8%Vacant versus occupied in the city of New OrleansOccupied
Vacant84.8%
15.2% Percentage of owner-occupied homes in each price range in the
city in 2004Under $50,000
$50,000-$99,999
$100,000-$149,999
$150,000-$199,999
$200,000-$299,999
$300,000-$499,999
$500,000 and over5.6%
27.0%
24.2%
18.4%
14.4%
6.5%
3.9%

Top 50 Dumbest Things Bush Ever Said

50. "I promise you I will listen to what has been said here, even though I wasn't here." —at the President's Economic Forum in Waco, Texas, Aug. 13, 2002

49. "We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease." —Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001

48. "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' —Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001

47. "We both use Colgate toothpaste." —after a reporter asked what he had in common with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Camp David, Md., Feb. 23, 2001

46. "Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a — you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004 (Watch video)

45. "I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003

44. "I'm the commander — see, I don't need to explain — I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." —as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War

43. "I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport." —Washington, D.C., Oct. 3, 2001

42. "The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself." —Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003

41. "I saw a poll that said the right track/wrong track in Iraq was better than here in America. It's pretty darn strong. I mean, the people see a better future." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 23, 2004

40. "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." —discussing the Iraq war with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, as quoted by Robertson

39. "I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft." —presidential debate, St. Louis, Mo., Oct. 8, 2004 (Watch video)

38. "Haven't we already given money to rich people? Why are we going to do it again?" —to economic advisers discussing a second round of tax cuts, as quoted by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, Washington, D.C., Nov. 26, 2002

37. "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." —Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002

36. "After standing on the stage, after the debates, I made it very plain, we will not have an all-volunteer army. And yet, this week — we will have an all-volunteer army!" —Daytona Beach, Fla., Oct. 16, 2004 (Watch video)

35. "Do you have blacks, too?" —to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001

34. "This foreign policy stuff is a little frustrating." —as quoted by the New York Daily News, April 23, 2002

33. "I got to know Ken Lay when he was head of the — what they call the Governor's Business Council in Texas. He was a supporter of Ann Richards in my run in 1994. And she had named him the head of the Governor's Business Council. And I decided to leave him in place, just for the sake of continuity. And that's when I first got to know Ken and worked with Ken." —attempting to distance himself from his biggest political patron, Enron Chairman Ken Lay, whom he nicknamed "Kenny Boy," Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2002

32. "It is white." —after being asked by a child in Britain what the White House was like, July 19, 2001

31. "I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." —at a White House menorah lighting ceremony, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 2001

30. "For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it." —Philadelphia, Penn., May 14, 2001

29. "I don't know why you're talking about Sweden. They're the neutral one. They don't have an army." —during a Dec. 2002 Oval Office meeting with Rep. Tom Lantos, as reported by the New York Times

28. "You forgot Poland." —to Sen. John Kerry during the first presidential debate, after Kerry failed to mention Poland's contributions to the Iraq war coalition, Miami, Fla., Sept. 30, 2004

27. "I'm the master of low expectations." —aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

26. "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." —aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

25. "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe — I believe what I believe is right." —Rome, Italy, July 22, 2001

24. "We need to counter the shockwave of the evildoer by having individual rate cuts accelerated and by thinking about tax rebates." —Washington, D.C. Oct. 4, 2001

23. "People say, how can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil? You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002

22. "I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it…I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet….I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't — you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." —President George W. Bush, after being asked to name the biggest mistake he had made, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2004

21. "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway." —explaining why high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy, Annandale, Va., Aug. 9, 2004

20. "My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." —radio address, Feb. 24, 2001

19. "You know, when I was one time campaigning in Chicago, a reporter said, 'Would you ever have a deficit?' I said, 'I can't imagine it, but there would be one if we had a war, or a national emergency, or a recession.' Never did I dream we'd get the trifecta." —Houston, Texas, June 14, 2002 (There is no evidence Bush ever made any such statement, despite recounting the trifecta line repeatedly in 2002. A search by the Washington Post revealed that the three caveats were brought up before the 2000 campaign — by Al Gore.)

18. "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." —Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003

17. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." —State of the Union Address, Jan. 28, 2003, making a claim that administration officials knew at the time to be false

16. "In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard." —repeating the phrases "hard work," "working hard," "hard choices," and other "hard"-based verbiage 22 times in his first debate with Sen. John Kerry

15. "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." —Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001


14. "I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." —Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002

13. "But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me." —summing up his first year in office, three months after the 9/11 attacks, Washington, D.C., Dec. 20, 2001

12. "I try to go for longer runs, but it's tough around here at the White House on the outdoor track. It's sad that I can't run longer. It's one of the saddest things about the presidency." —interview with "Runners World," Aug. 2002

11. "Can we win? I don't think you can win it." —after being asked whether the war on terror was winnable, "Today" show interview, Aug. 30, 2004

10. "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." —Washington, D.C. June 18, 2002

9. "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." —to a group of Amish he met with privately, July 9, 2004

8. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." —speaking underneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003

7. “We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." —Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003

6. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" —President George W. Bush, joking about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004

5. "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." —Washington, D.C., Dec. 19, 2000

4. "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 (Watch video)

3. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." —Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 (Watch video)

2. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." —Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 (Watch video)

1. "My answer is bring them on." —on Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003



Compiled by Daniel Kurtzman

More Comments On Katrina And Bush's Slow Reaction

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/randall-robinson/new-orleans_b_6643.html

Bush Gotta Go Potty

(timesonline.co.uk)
From James Bone in New York

It was one of those moments that politicians dread. Sitting in America’s chair in the United Nations Security Council, President Bush realised he simply had to go to the toilet.
He pencilled an urgent note to Condoleezza Rice, his Secretary of State, who was sitting just behind him: “I think I may need a bathroom break? Is this possible? W.”

Unfortunately, just before he could hand over the note, Rick Wilking, a sharp-eyed Reuters photographer, snapped it with a telephoto lens.

Mr Bush, who had delivered his speech on terrorism, waited politely until Tony Blair had finished his address. Then, just as President Kerekou of Benin was about to speak, Mr Bush got up and left the room with his UN Ambassador, John Bolton. To avoid an apparent American walk-out, Dr Rice promptly moved into the President’s seat at the council’s horseshoe-shaped table.

Mr Bush headed to the men’s room just outside the chamber. A UN official overheard urgent discussions by the President’s Secret Service bodyguards. “No windows, two stalls, one way in, one way out,” it was reported. As Mr Bush sought relief, his security men stood sentinel outside.

This lavatory is famous in UN circles because a high-ranking protocol official once allegedly tried to fondle a messenger boy there. The official left the UN under a cloud.

The private needs of presidents and prime ministers are usually the subject of much planning. “For protocol people, the most important thing is where the restrooms are,” said David Chikvaidze, a former Soviet advance man who ran protocol for the UN’s 50th anniversary summit in 1995. “It’s a very important issue when you go to your next stop. Your principal, he or she, is a human being and will say ‘Where can I wash my hands?’ ”

But Mr Bush may have forgotten to go because he was waylaid by John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, on his way into the chamber.

Medical experts said that the 59-year-old President was wise not to wait any longer. Mark Fordham, consultant urologist at the Royal Liverpool Hospital, said: “In older men it is unwise to delay passing urine when there is a strong need to, as there is a risk of developing acute urinary retention. They won’t be able to go, even when they get the opportunity.

“If you delay passing urine so that the bladder is overfull, the muscle can be overstretched and be unable to contract to allow urine to be passed. This is a very painful condition and requires immediate help.”

Mr Bush’s departure seemed to be a genuine call of nature. But delegates have been known to use the “bathroom break” as a diplomatic excuse.

Richard Butler, an Australian ambassador, was angry when African ambassadors dodged a key vote on French nuclear testing in the Pacific by going to the bathroom. “They all took French leave,” he complained.

Churchgoing Grandma Jailed Over Sausage

Updated: 10:07 PM EDT
Churchgoing Grandma Jailed Over Sausage
Accused of Looting, She Spent Over Two Weeks Locked Up
By KEVIN MCGILL, AP

KENNER, Louisiana (Sept. 15) - Merlene Maten undoubtedly stood out in
the
prison where she has been held since Hurricane Katrina. The
73-year-old church
deaconess, never before in trouble with the law, spent two weeks among
hardened criminals. Her bail was a stiff $50,000.
Her offense?
Police say the grandmother from New Orleans took $63.50 in goods from
a
looted deli the day after Katrina struck.
Family and eyewitnesses insisted Maten was an innocent woman who had
gone to
her car to get some sausage to eat only to be mistakenly arrested by
tired,
frustrated white officers who couldn't catch younger looters at a
nearby
store.
Despite intervention from the nation's largest senior lobby, volunteer
lawyers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and even a
private attorney,
the family fought a futile battle for 16 days to get her freed.
Maten's diabetes, her age, not even her lifelong record of community
service
could get the system moving. Even the store owner didn't want her
charged.
"She has slipped through the cracks and the wheels of justice have
stopped
turning," her attorney Daniel Beckett Becnel III said, frustrated.
Then, hours after her plight was featured in an Associated Press
story, a
local judge on Thursday ordered Maten freed on her own recognizance,
setting up
a sweet reunion with her daughter, grandchildren and 80-year-old
husband. It
was unclear whether she would be released Thursday evening or Friday.

"There were people looting, but she wasn't one of them."
-Elois Short

"I'm just gonna hug her and say 'Mom, I'm so sorry this had to
happen."'
Maten's tearful daughter, Elois Short, told AP shortly after getting
the news.
Maten must still face the looting charge at a court hearing in
October. But
the family, armed with several witnesses, intends to prove she was
wrongly
arrested outside the hotel in this New Orleans suburb where she had
fled
Katrina's floodwaters.
"There were people looting, but she wasn't one of them. Instead of
chasing
after people who were running, they (police) grabbed the old lady who
was
walking," said Short, who works in traffic enforcement for neighboring
New
Orleans police.
The path to freedom was complicated amidst the chaos of Katrina.
Maten has been moved from a parish jail to a state prison an hour
away. Her
daughter had evacuated to Texas. And the original judge who set
$50,000 bail
by phone - 100 times the maximum $500 fine under state law for minor
thefts -
hadn't returned a week's worth of calls.
Becnel, family members and witnesses said police snared Maten in the
parking
lot of a hotel where she had fled the floodwaters that swamped her New
Orleans home. She had paid for her room with a credit card and
dutifully followed
authorities' instructions to pack extra food, they said.
She was retrieving a piece of sausage from the cooler in her car and
planned
to grill it so she and her frail 80-year-old husband, Alfred, could
eat,
according to her defenders. The parking lot was almost a block from
the looted
store, they said.
"That woman was never, never in that store," said Naisha Williams, 23,
a New
Orleans bank security guard who said she witnessed the episode and is
distantly related to Maten. "If they want to take it to court, I'm
willing to get
on the stand and tell them the police is wrong. She is totally
innocent."
Police Capt. Steve Carraway said Wednesday that Maten was arrested in
the
checkout area of a small store next to police headquarters.
The arrest report is short and assigns the value of goods Maten is
alleged
to have taken at $63.50. The items are not identified.
"When officers arrived, the arrestee was observed leaving the scene
with
items from the store. The store window doors were observed smashed
out, where
entry to the store was made," police reported.
Williams, one of the witnesses, said Maten was physically unable to
get
inside the store - even if she had wanted to.
"She is not capable of even looting it the way the store was at the
time.
You had to jump over a counter, and she is a diabetic and weak-muscled
and
wouldn't be able to get herself over it. And she couldn't afford to
step on
broken glass," Williams said.
Williams said she tried to explain that to police but was brushed off.
"They didn't want to hear it. They put handcuffs on her. They just
said we
were emotional. It was basically, 'Just shut up,"' she said.
Maten's husband was left abandoned at the hotel, until family members
picked
him up. He is too upset to be interviewed, the family said.
Christine Bishop, the owner of the Check In Check Out deli, said that
she
was angry that looters had damaged her store, but that she would not
want
anyone charged with a crime if the person had simply tried to get food
to survive.
"Especially not a 70-year-old woman," Bishop said.
Short, Maten's daughter, did not witness the incident. She said her
mother
has led a law-abiding life. She is a deaconess at the Resurrection
Mission
Baptist Church and won an award for her decades of service at a
hospital, Short
said.
"Why would someone loot when they had a car with a refrigerator and
had paid
with a credit card at the hotel? The circumstances defy the theory of
looting," said Becnel, Maten's lawyer.
Robin Peak, a legal analyst from the AARP senior lobbying group who
assisted
Maten's family, declined to discuss the case.