Latest was that five people were killed after they opened fire on armed police (nice job by those cops).

There have also been reports that the people shot were in fact army construction workers, and that this was a case of "friendly fire". I think it'd be best to hold off on saying "nice job" until the facts have been sorted out. (A few weeks ago people were congratulating the London police for shooting what turned out to be an unarmed and totally innocent man, who was already in police restraint. It's best to wait for the facts before rejoicing.)

The evidence about a widespread eruption of violence towards rescue workers doesn't seem to measure up to the extent that has been alleged. There seems to be an awful lot of rumour based stuff coming out.

There's an interesting piece in toiday's Guardian about the guy who has been put in charge of relief effort on the ground, Lieutenant General Russel L Honore. He sounds OK:

A native of Louisiana, he is nicknamed "the Ragin' Cajun" for his habit of speaking his mind. For fun, he is said to enjoy throwing tomahawks.

He wasted no time in barking out the orders on his first walk through central New Orleans, commanding every national guardsman or police officer he came across to point their gun barrels towards the ground. "This is not Iraq," he told them. It was one sign that behind the iron demeanour is a leader in tune with the sensitivities of the mission.

That last bit is encouraging - I was looking at shots of troops earlier on, before Honore would have taken over, and I was struck by how menacing they looked, pointing their guys at everything that moved or even at dead bodies, as if they were scared they were booby-trapped terrorists.

If the level of violence has in fact been exaggerated by rumours (amplified perhaps by the kind of mindset generated by the sort of disaster movies I mentioned earlier in the thread) that could have had a very damaging impact on rescue work.