NEW ORLEANS - Two versions of what led up to a deadly police shooting on the Danziger Bridge are now emerging - one contained in the original police report another in the sworn statements of two former New Orleans Police officers.
Click for original police report
Police killed two civilians in the shooting just days after Hurricane Katrina and four others were seriously injured.
Former police Lt. Michael Lohman and former detective Jeffrey Lehrmann have already pleaded guilty in the case, calling the facts in the police report an elaborate cover-up to hide a bad police shooting.
"You take the police report that was prepared shortly after Katrina and you compare it to the factual statement that is basically what Lehrmann testified to in federal court just last week and they're night and day," said former U.S. Attorney Harry Rosenberg.
Rosenberg compared the two stories.
He said prosecutors will have a field day exploiting the discrepancies.
"Evidence was planted, the planted gun, certain shell casings were either planted or removed, that witnesses did not exist, that the individuals who were on the bridge, that is the civilians never shot at the officers according to Lehrmann and Lohman," said Rosenberg.
According to the former officers, two witnesses Lakiesha Smith and James Youngman who said police were fired upon in the report, don't exist and their statements were fabricated by investigators.
Statements by the officers involved in the shooting are also very similar in the report.
They said that several armed men open fire on police and officers returned fire to to "neutralize the threat."
Lehrmann makes the claim the officers met secretly with investigators to get their stories straight.
"He's actually established through his guilty plea that it was a bad shooting and it was not justifiable and these officers knew it," said Rosenberg.
Friday, an attorney for one of the investigators who received a federal target letter, Sgt. Arthur Kaufman, strongly disputed Lehrmann and Lohman's claims of a widespread cover-up.
"Police arrive there an undisputed and according to the government's witness shots are fired," said Kaufman's attorney Steve London. "They have every right to believe those shots are being fired at them. They return fire. So, there is no need to cover anything up."
Rosenberg says prosecutors may already be working on a plea arrangement with one of the officers involved in the shooting.
"They want somebody who was on the bridge, involved in the shooting," said Rosenberg. "That would be golden in terms of what the government is looking for in terms of prosecutorial evidence. "
Another glaring difference between the reports is that in the police version as many as 4 alleged perpetrators had guns.
The only weapon listed as recovered was the one that Lehrmann says was planted by one of the investigators.
