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Despite Protests, New Orleans To Raze Public Housing

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By CAIN BURDEAU, The Associated Press

Published: December 21, 2007

NEW ORLEANS - Despite protests that at times erupted in violence, the city council voted unanimously Thursday in favor of demolishing about 4,500 public housing units as the city rebuilds from Hurricane Katrina.

The vote to permit the federal government to tear down four public housing developments - a critical moment in a protracted fight between the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and residents, activists and preservationists - followed hours of debate and clashes in the street outside.

Police used chemical spray and stun guns as dozens of protesters tried to force their way into the packed city council chamber. One woman was sprayed and dragged from the gates. Emergency workers took her away on a stretcher.

Another woman said she was stunned by officers. She still had what appeared to be a Taser wire hanging from her shirt.

"I was just standing, trying to get into my city council meeting," said the woman, Kim Ellis, who was taken away in an ambulance.

"Is this what democracy looks like?" Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who opposes demolition, said as he held a strand of Taser wire he said had been shot into another of the protesters.

Quigley said he thought the crackdown violated public meetings laws.

The decades-old public housing structures are to be replaced with mixed-income housing. Opponents fear that the plan will result in the loss of badly needing housing for low-income black residents.

Protesters said they pushed against the iron gates that kept them out of the building because the housing authority had disproportionately allowed supporters of the demolition to pack the chambers.

After roughly 30 minutes of on-again-off-again struggle to get into the meeting, protesters fell back, continuously chanting with bullhorns.

At the peak of the confusion, about 70 protesters were facing about a dozen mounted police and 40 more law enforcement officers on foot.

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