Alleged Racially Motivated Katrina Shooter Might Be Fit For Trial

NEW ORLEANS, LA — A white man shot at three black men in a racially motivated attack in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, authorities said. He and others allegedly talked about shooting black people and defending the Algiers Point neighborhood from "outsiders" after the storm, boasted that he "got" one after the shooting, and retrieved a bloody baseball cap belonging to one of the victims, authorities said.

A dozen years later, mental health records suggest a psychiatrist earlier this year determined Roland Bourgeois Jr. is competent to stand trial in the attack, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Friday. A lawyer for Bourgeois provided those records to prosecutors last week.

Bourgeois' trial has been pushed back more than a dozen times since his 2010 indictment over questions about his mental fitness. Prosecutors want more medical records to see whether he is mentally and physically fit for trial. (For more information on Bourgeois's case and other New Orleans stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

Bourgeois wounded at least one of the three black men he fired at with a shotgun after the 2005 hurricane, authorities said.

"When (he) was advised that the man he had shot was still alive, Bourgeois referred to the injured man using a racial epithet and threatened he would kill him," the indictment says.

In 2010, two of Bourgeois' doctors testified he could have less than a year to live. Dr. John Thompson, a court-appointed forensic psychiatrist, determined in 2011 that Bourgeois has psychiatric and medical problems that impair his competency and concluded he shouldn't stand trial until he has a liver transplant.

But the newly disclosed mental health records suggest that Thompson informed Bourgeois in July that he was competent to stand trial, according to prosecutors. Last Friday's court filing by prosecutors doesn't elaborate on the psychiatrist's findings.

A judge had scheduled a competency hearing for Bourgeois on Thursday but agreed to postpone it indefinitely, giving prosecutors more time to obtain other medical records.

A federal public defender who represents Bourgeois didn't immediately return a call seeking comment Tuesday.

Bourgeois lived in Columbia, Mississippi, at the time of his indictment.

The case against Bourgeois was one of several investigated by the Justice Department after Katrina. Most of the cases focused on actions by New Orleans police officers.

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN, Associated Press

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