Who's your neighbor? Do many of us really know much more than "Hi, how are ya?" about the people next door?
Well, Steve Prator, the sheriff of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, has made it his mission to get to know some of his new neighbors. He's trying to do background checks on hundreds of Hurricane Katrina evacuees living in his jurisdiction -- the area around Shreveport, Louisiana, about a five hour drive from New Orleans.
But Sheriff Prator is infuriated that FEMA refuses to release the names, social security numbers and dates of birth on the evacuees who are getting FEMA funds to stay in Shreveport-area hotels and shelters. We talked to him about this issue for the show.
The sheriff is convinced that a lot of the evacuees are criminals. To back up his claim, he points to 33 evacuee names he got from an informant. The sheriff ran background checks on those evacuees, all of whom are in the Shreveport area, and found they all had criminal records and a combined total of 340 prior arrests.FEMA maintains that federal privacy law prevents the agency from releasing any personal information about evacuees to law enforcement.
But Sheriff Prator points out that people in federally funded public housing developments have to go through background checks, and he doesn't see why it should be any different for evacuees living in FEMA-paid hotel rooms and shelters.
