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Mission: New Orleans Posted on Tue, Sep. 20, 2005 Mission: New Orleans Twin Cities police officers patrol the dangerous streets of a hurricane-stricken city. BY ALEX FRIEDRICH Pioneer Press NEW ORLEANS Page 1 of 3 A full moon shines on a"wolf pack" of three police cars easing through the dust and silence of a ghost town. Officers from St. Paul and Minneapolis, on loan to a devastated police department, cast beams from their hometown cruisers through a dusty haze of sediment left behind by the deadly floodwaters. The cops scan the wreckage of Hurricane Katrina: a biack, sediment-streaked limousine lying upside down on the median of a street. The collapsed second floor of a house strewn with clothes. The smashed storefront window of a Ipoted store. With almost all of the city's residents evacuated, the oniy sign of iife seems to be the occasional stray, starving dog and the moist stench of rot. It's Saturday night, and St. Paul police Crndr. 7oe Neuberger and his coiieagues are on their first patrol as support for the New Orleans Police Department. They arrived oniy the day before, and in a town without ��gi�t or many of its street signs, it's easy tu yet lost. They must acquaint themselves with the area before residents start coming back, possibly as eariy as this week. For when that happens, local police say, the iooting and killing couid begin again. "It'S lik�the eye of the hurricane," Neuberger said. "The New Orieans police took the first end of it. We're in the quiet part, and then the second wave will come when people return." Neuberger's patrol unit is part of a contingent of neariy 90 iaw-enforcement personnei from poiice departments in St. Paui, Minneapolis, Bioomington, Maplewood and Roseviiie, as well as the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office. They've come for two weeks to aid their Crescent City peers, many of whom lost everything in the flond. The Twin Cities presence takes some of the pressure off New Orleans police by beefing up security and allowing some local officers to finally rest and tend to their famifie5, Other Twin Cities personnel help teams recover bodies — or guard against hoodlum snipers who may fire on those teams. lust about every Twin Cites patrol Saturday night is led by a New Orieans squad car, whose officers know the territory, its characters and its dangers, The iocals have deemed such caravans "wolf packs." Two of their SWAT team members are in the car that ied Neuberger's pack. Behind it is a Minneapolis squad car, with Neuberger and St. Paui po�ice Sgt. 3ahn Wright bringing up the rear. JOB TO DO Their mission: Deter crime and look for looters. Their guideiines: Stay together and have a rallying point if lost. Don't enter the housing projects alone. Take criminals to the Amtrak or Greyhound stations for iock-up. One New Orleans officer said cops working the disaster zone face "some of the most treacherous criminals in the United States." From 7 p.m. to 1;3� �.m., the three-car team twists through the streets. Officers note the high-water marks on houses and cars, and the spray-painted codes indicating the number of dead bodies found in houses. At one point the caravan stops, and a man runs to a patrol car. Like a grizzled fellow soldier in a war zone, the man laces his greeting with a friendiy obscenity. It's a New Orleans patrolman, and soon he's giving Minneapolis police Lt. Otto Wagenpfeil a big hug. It turns out the 43-year- �Ed Wagenpfeil livet� in New Orleans untif he was 19 years old. He's a key asset to the Twin Cities crew, Neuberger says, because his knowledge of the area and local friendships that can open doors in the New Orleans police community. }��i.�,�rr t�ru�w�. ��.�i �G]lit w�� Ilti��ntil�r'�ri� �� 4tir�-fr� tis;� L�{7L)�J �? �.h[m ��[CI11F}LFJ1t"�i}f11C fl I�'IfIti.I IJ I �� a�n ��t��v,j .-. 9r„�S]F��{4�