Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 -- 2:29 am
NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - A New Orleans teenager whose family members were wounded by police in the chaos after Hurricane Katrina testified on Tuesday that officers punched and kicked him before arresting him at the scene.
One officer who struck Leonard Bartholomew IV, then 14, as he lay on the ground blamed "the heat of the moment" for his actions as he testified in the second week of a federal trial that could send five police officers to prison for life.
The officers are charged in connection with the killing of two civilians, 17-year-old James Brissette and 40-year-old Ronald Madison, on September 4, 2005. Four others were wounded, including Bartholomew's mother, who lost an arm.
New Orleans police officers Kenneth Bowen, Robert Faulcon, Robert Gisevius, Anthony Villavaso and Arthur Kaufman face 25 counts of depriving citizens of civil rights, using a weapon in committing a crime, or obstruction of justice.
A sixth is scheduled for trial in the fall. Five other officers have pleaded guilty to a role in the incident on the Danziger bridge.
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