St. Augustine High School President Father John Raphael, who championed the public outcry against Archbishop Gregory Aymond’s decision to end corporal punishment at the school, has been reassigned to a ministry in Baltimore, according to a statement released by the Josephites—the long time operators of the school.

“The Josephites thank Father Raphael for his service to St. Augustine High School and his years of service to New Orleans,” the statement said. “St. Augustine High School is an institution with a history of excellence in Catholic education, and we look forward to St. Augustine’s continued success in the coming school year.”

Effectively immediately, Father Charles Andrus has been appointed as interim President of St. Augustine High School, according to the statement.

“Though Father Raphael and I disagree over the issue of paddling at St. Augustine, we agree on many things, especially the importance and success of St. Augustine High School and the pro-life issues of our Church,” Aymond wrote in a statement. “I publicly thank him for his many years of service to the school and the New Orleans Catholic community. At this time I ask the community to join me in prayer for Father Raphael and St. Augustine High School in this time of transition.”

In recent months, St. Augustine High School has been no stranger to controversy after Aymond publically decried the 60 year practice of paddling students at the school. At his order, corporal punishment was banned before the start of the 2010-2011 school year. Officials at St. Augustine High School, however, publically argued an increase in bad behavior should be considered justification for bringing the tradition back.

"Among African-American males, this form of discipline has been successful,” said St. Aug Principal Don Boucree in March. “It’s not successful for everyone. Unfortunately, we try not to bring race into this, but there are some cultural differences.”

In early March, the heated debate led to a rally at the all-boys private school, which enrolls roughly 650 students.

"We want discipline back because we know what we’re going to need it in real life,” said Student Body President Jacob Washington during the rally. “This is a part of our school.”

The Josephites, also known as the Society of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heard, has run St. Augustine High School since 1951.

“The Josephites are an interracial, intercultural community of priests and brothers who work to advance the teachings of the Church in the African American community,” according to the group’s statement.

New Orleans - The family of a toddler who died Tuesday after being abandoned in a scorching hot car for hours by his Godmother is struggling to deal with the tragedy.

Police booked Genee’ Brumfield with negligent homicide in the death of three year old Winston Hayes, Jr. And Wednesday a judge set bond at
$ 10,000 for Brumfield. Prosecutors told FOX 8 News they pushed for a much higher bail.

"The kind of pain that her negligence has inflicted on my family, I mean my GOD," sighed the toddler’s grandmother Robin Hayes.

Hayes has weathered a lot, and now she is being tested again with the death of little Winston.

"Just a typical child, very meek and mild and quiet and just kind of go with the flow," she said of her deceased grandson with family and friends surrounding her.

The three year old died a tortuous death. Police said he was found unresponsive inside a locked car with the windows up where he had been left alone eight hours earlier by his Godmother. Police said Genee’ Brumfield told investigators she had been asked by the boy’s mother to drop him off at daycare that morning.

"I think this was pretty infrequent, you can almost say sort of a fluke because I had been bringing him to school, you know because his mom’s car was broke," said Robin Hayes.

But instead of going to the daycare center Brumfield went to her mother’s home on South Scott Street. Her sister discovered Winston in the car in the afternoon.

While Robin Hayes was strong enough to talk about the tragedy during an interview with FOX 8, the little boy’s father, Winston Sr., and his mother Giselle White were not. Winston, Sr., has lived with tragedy even before now.

"Winston is actually my adopted son, Winston is the son of my older sister who was murdered at least 18, 19 years ago and I adopted him and his brother and I raised them as my own along with my son, you know and he just lost his dad tragically in an accident," said Hayes.

And now the sudden death of his young son.

"He made it through the tragic death of his mother, and then his father and with this, you know this is going to be something that’s going to take a lot to deal with, I mean it’s just pure negligence," said Hayes.

And though Robin Hayes said what happened is tragic for all concerned, she does believe the charges Brumfield has been booked with by police are appropriate given the circumstances.

"It sends a clear message to young people, you know because in my opinion there were a lot of outside factors that distracted her," stated Hayes.

Hayes said she serves as a board member of the anti-crime organization, "Silence is Violence." She said young parents, guardians and baby sitters must be aware of what they are doing at all times when it comes to the care of children.

And though she does not believe Brumfield’s act of leaving the toddler locked in a hot car were intentional, she said the consequences must be borne by both families.

"She’s going to be in prison and her family is going to be in pain, and her children are not going to have their mother, but I don’t have my grandson, my son doesn’t have his son, Giselle does not have her son," Hayes said.

Funeral arrangements for Winston have not been finalized.

Members of the NOPD’s Homicide Division are investigating the shooting death of a 26-year-old man. The offense occured Sunday night, just before 8:00 in the 2100 block of Rousseau St. The identity of the victim will be released after family members have been identified.

Police say that officers arrived on the scene to find the man sitting in the driver’s seat of a vehicle suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. EMT’s pronounced the man dead on the scene.

Shortly after the incident police arrested two suspects who are believed to be involved. The suspects are in questioning. Charges are pending.

ALEXANDRIA, La. (AP) — A former church youth minister has been indicted on 13 charges of sex crimes with juveniles, including two charges of aggravated rape of victims younger than 13 years old.

On Thursday, a Rapides Parish grand jury found there was enough evidence to charge the 28-year-old Angelo Golatt, who was arrested March 29.

The indictment says one of the victims was 9 or 10 years old at the time of an alleged offense in 2003, and was reportedly attacked again at age 13 in 2006.

The Town Talk reports the district attorney’s office has not released the gender of the alleged victims.

Golatt was youth minister at the now-closed Donahue Family Baptist Church in Pineville during much of the four- to five-year span.

©2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The search for a Colombian university official has intensified, with more than 100 people combing 1,900 acres of forest and swamp in a national park near New Orleans, where he was last seen leaving a taxi to photograph birds.

National Park Service spokeswoman Leslie Velarde says there’s still no sign of Francisco Piedrahita, head of Universidad Icesi of Cali.

Velarde says 16 park rangers, 50 area sheriff’s deputies, three canine search teams and 40 National Guard soldiers were searching on foot Tuesday. On Monday, about 50 people were searching.

Velarde says she doesn’t know how much of the area has been thoroughly covered on foot. The search began Saturday, when a taxi driver Piedrahita had hired for the day flagged down a park ranger.

 

©2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

New Orleans – People in Saint Charles Parish say this is the time of year they begin getting very anxious. Hurricane season begins in June and many residents and officials believe levee protection is inadequate and parish leaders are pressing congress for help.

"Yes, we’re very unprotected. Every time the wind blows from the south at a consistent you know few days in a row we tend to have water rising in the swamps around us, which we are surrounded with," said St. Charles Parish Resident Jean Sliwinski.

Some members of the state’s congressional delegation took an aerial tour of a huge gap in levee protection off Highway 90 on the west bank Friday.

Saint Charles Parish leaders say the gap between levees in Jefferson and Lafourche Parishes will leave portions of Saint Charles swamped with flood waters if the perfect storm hits.

"The big hole in the middle where there is no levee, so once that water hits those levees all that water from Jefferson Parish and Lafourche is coming right down the pike to Saint Charles Parish," said Parish President V.J. St. Pierre.

The parish wants $150 million in federal funds to build an 11-mile hurricane protection levee complete with three pumping stations to tie in with the Davis Diversion levee towards Lafourche Parish.

"Willowdale back here, Willow Ridge estates, that would be protected under the red area," St. Pierre said as he pointed to a map showing which neighborhoods would benefit from the levee protection."

"Getting in the air and just seeing how things lay out makes it crystal clear," Senator David Vitter, R-Louisiana, said after the aerial tour.

Still, Vitter said asking congress for money is one thing, actually getting it is another.

"It’s certainly not going to happen all at once for sure, it’s a very tough environment," Vitter continued.

Parish government has $16 million to build a sliver of the levee.

"Until we get some federal money, we can put hesco baskets on top of that to give us that plus seven and that would take care of us for a category 1 and 2."

On the opposite side of the diversion levee towards Jefferson Parish, the corps is working on a project to defend against a 100 year storm event. The parish, however, says that work will only protect Ama, a community in Saint Charles Parish.

"What you see here is the western tie-in project," said Rene’ Poche with the Corps of Engineers. Part of that project will be a gigantic flood wall along Highway 90.

"We’re gonna have a bridge that will eventually go over highway 90 here where we’re standing, the floodwall is going to go underneath that bridge, tie in to some more levees," Poche further stated.

But resident Jean Sliwinski remains worried about her end of the parish.

"My husband are getting up there in age we’re looking for retirement and if something doesn’t happen we’ll probably retire and move on to higher ground."

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – House Speaker Jim Tucker is giving up on a proposal to merge the historically-black Southern University at New Orleans with the largely-white University of New Orleans, a racially-charged idea that had generated staunch opposition from black lawmakers.

Tucker says he doesn’t have the votes and doesn’t expect to be able to get them this legislative session. He says he won’t push forward with a House floor vote on the proposed consolidation.

The decision Wednesday hands a significant defeat to Gov. Bobby Jindal, who sought the merger. Jindal’s office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Tucker says he notified the governor’s office of his decision, and the administration agreed.

Tucker called it a "sad day" for education, while the Legislature’s black caucus praised the decision to scrap the merger.

Governor Jindal’s Office released a statement saying, "We continue to believe the status quo for students in New Orleans is unacceptable and we’re not going to give up on our fight to improve educational opportunities. We make no apologies for pushing big, ambitious and bold ideas to improve our state. We’re going to continue to take on the tough issues."

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu also sent a statement where he said, " “Improving the state of higher education in New Orleans is critical to our city’s success. I was opposed to the merger of SUNO and UNO at this time because the proposed plan did not seem to be well thought out and lacked community support.  It’s no secret that our current system has long neglected New Orleans’ public colleges and universities. Students at SUNO, UNO, and Delgado all deserve better. We must make significant investments in all three institutions that would increase access for all students, improve workforce training, and increase research and development efforts."

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

MORGANZA, La. (AP) – A steel, 10-ton floodgate was slowly raised Saturday for the first time in nearly four decades, unleashing a torrent of water from the Mississippi River, away from heavily populated areas downstream.

The water spit out slowly at first, then began gushing like a waterfall as it headed to swamp as much as 3,000 square miles of Cajun countryside known for small farms and fish camps. Some places could wind up under as much as 25 feet of water.

Opening the Morganza spillway diverts water away from Baton Rouge and New Orleans, and the numerous oil refineries and chemical plants along the lower reaches of the Mississippi.

"We’re using every flood control tool we have in the system," Army Corps of Engineers Maj. Gen. Michael Walsh said Saturday from the dry side of the spillway, before the bay was opened. The podium Walsh was standing at was expected to be under several feet of water Sunday.

The Morganza spillway is part of a system of locks and levees built following the great flood of 1927. When it opened, it was the first time three flood-control systems have been unlocked at the same time along the Mississippi River.

Earlier this month, the corps intentionally blew holes into a levee in Missouri to employ a similar cities-first strategy, and it also opened the Bonnet Carre spillway northwest of New Orleans to send water into the massive Lake Ponchatrain.

Snowmelt and heavy rain have been blamed for inflating the Mississippi, and the rising river levels have shattered records all set 70 years ago.

About 25,000 people and 11,000 structures could be in harm’s way.

In Krotz Springs, La., one of the towns in the Atchafalaya River basin bracing for floodwaters, Monita Reed, 56, recalled the last time the Morganza was opened in 1973.

"We could sit in our yard and hear the water," she said as workers constructed a makeshift levee of sandbags and soil-filled mesh boxes in hopes of protecting the 240 homes in her subdivision.

Some people living in the threatened stretch of countryside – an area known for a drawling French dialect – have already started heading out. Reed’s family packed her furniture, clothing and pictures in a rental truck and a relative’s trailer.

"I’m just going to move and store my stuff. I’m going to stay here until they tell us to leave," Reed said. "Hopefully, we won’t see much water and then I can move back in. "

It took about 15 minutes for the one 28-foot gate to be raised. Several hours will pass before any of the water hits sparsely populated communities. The corps planned to open one or two more gates Sunday in a painstaking process that gives residents and animals a chance to get out of the way.
The water will flow 20 miles south into the Atchafalaya Basin. From there it will roll on to Morgan City, an oil-and-seafood hub and a community of 12,000, and eventually into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Krotz Springs area was in a sliver of land about 70 miles long and 20 miles wide, north of Morgan City, and could get water in about 12 hours. The finger-shaped strip of land was expected to eventually be inundated with 10- to 20-feet of water, according to Army Corps of Engineers estimates.
The water wasn’t expected to reach Morgan City until around Tuesday.

Engineers feared that weeks of pressure on the levees could cause them to fail, swamping New Orleans under as much as 20 feet of water in a disaster that would have been much worse than Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Even though water was being releasing from the river, the levees were still being put to the test for a couple of weeks.

"These levees will be under a lot of pressure for a long period of time," said Corps Col. Ed Fleming.

The corps blew up a levee in Missouri – inundating an estimated 200 square miles of farmland and damaging or destroying about 100 homes – to take the pressure off the levees protecting the town of Cairo, Ill., population 2,800.

This intentional flood is more controlled, however, and residents are warned by the corps each year in written letters, reminding them of the possibility of opening the spillway, which is 4,000 feet long and has 125 bays.

At the site of the spillway, a vertical crane was positioned to hoist the gate panel and the let water out. On one side of the spillway, water was splashing over the gates. The other side was dry.

Typically, the spillway is dry on both sides. But when the river rises to historic levels, like the marks seen over the past couple of weeks, it is flooded, and holds the Mississippi in place.

The spillway, built in 1954, is part of a flood plan largely put into motion in the 1930s in the aftermath of the devastating 1927 flood that killed hundreds.

This is the second spillway to be opened in Louisiana. About a week ago, the corps used cranes to remove some of the Bonnet Carre’s wooden barriers, sending water into the massive Lake Ponchatrain and eventually the Gulf of Mexico.

By Sunday, all 350 bays at the 7,000-foot structure were to be open. The spillways could be opened for weeks, or perhaps less, if the river flow starts to subside.

In Vicksburg, Miss., where five neighborhoods were underwater, a steady stream of onlookers posed for pictures on a river bluff overlooking a bridge that connects Louisiana and Mississippi. Some people posed for pictures next to a Civil War cannon while others carried Confederate battle flags being given away by a war re-enactor.

Vicksburg was the site of a pivotal Civil War battle and is home to thousands of soldier graves.

James Mims, 50, drove about an hour from Calhoun, La., with his wife, son and three grandchildren to snap a photo.

"It’s history in the making and we’re seeing it happen," Mims said.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

About $500,000 of public money, written in checks to Plaquemines Parish Sheriff Jiff Hingle has the head of the Metropolitan Crime Commission, Rafael Goyeneche, weighing in on a series of FOX 8 investigative reports.

“This doesn’t pass the smell test,” Goyeneche said. “At some point in time, he has to step out of the shadows and answer these questions.”

The nearly half a million dollars of reimbursements to Hingle was for work done by Robert Berning Productions to produce annual reports, hurricane maps and commercials for the sheriff’s office. During the same time period, Hingle’s campaign spent another $350,000 with Berning.

“His campaign expended less money than his office expended. I think the public is offered more explanation than this terse response dated May 11 by the sheriff,” Goyeneche said.

And the statement given to FOX 8 by Hingle raises even more questions.

“After becoming sheriff nearly 20 years ago, I made a personal decision not to use a government credit card. My basis for this decision was having seen misuse of government credit cards both intentional and accidental,” Hingle said.

But a look at a statement for a Plaquemines Parish credit card in Irvin "Jiff" Hingle’s name. It appears the sheriff does have a government credit card in his name.

“There are credit cards available to the sheriff’s office to make purchases, yet he has used his personal credit cards. It raises issues and questions,” Goyeneche said.

And there is more.

On a credit card statement in March 2006, the sheriff office’s credit card has charges to Robert Berning Productions.

That same month in 2006, FOX 8 found a check written directly to Berning from the sheriff’s office. So, apparently the sheriff’s office used to directly pay Berning for his work. But in the summer of 2006, Hingle started charging Berning’s invoices on his personal credit card, one belonging either to him or his wife.

And when the reimbursements to Hingle started, most checks were cut to him shortly after Berning charged his personal credit card.

Berning charged a June 23, 2008 invoice to Hingle’s wife’s credit card two days later. The reimbursement check from the parish to Hingle was made on June 24, one day after Hingle received the invoice and one day before burning actually charged his personal credit card.

“I have also found charges to his personal credit card where he is reimbursed the same day he made the charge. Why not issue a check directly to Berning’s production company,” asks Goyeneche.

In fact, the sheriff’s office did start issuing checks directly to Berning’s company again earlier this year. That raises even more questions for a sheriff who has been in office for about 20 years, but who has been quiet for the past few days, unable or unwilling to answer the questions FOX 8 has raised.