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Missing Persons Report in Glover Case Failed to Receive Attention

Henry Glover's mother filed a detailed missing persons report about her son two and a half months after he disappeared, but an article in today's New Orleans Times Picayune says police didn't look into the matter for three years. Glover was shot walking into a shopping center in the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina. His burnt remains were later discovered in the backseat of a car.

ProPublica, in collaboration with The Nation, the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, the Times-Picayune and PBS Frontline, has worked to discover what happened to Glover after the shooting. His friend and his brother flagged down a stranger, William Tanner, who drove the men to a nearby police compound in his Chevy Malibu. Instead of helping Glover, however, police beat and handcuffed his companions. Then, an officer confiscated the Chevy Malibu, with Glover still in the backseat, and drove away. Days later, the car was found burned, with Glover’s charred remains inside.

The missing persons report was filed by Glover's mother in November 2005, a few weeks before another report came in about a police officer firing his gun at a man on the same date and in the same shopping center as Glover was shot. Even then, the Times-Picayune reports, police failed to investigate or connect the two reports.

Glover's is one of eight cases being examined by federal investigators related to police conduct in the aftermath of the hurricane. One case, in which police allegedly killed two civilians wounded four others on the Danziger Bridge, has resulted in charges against five former officers. Four have pleaded guilty.

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