I'll say the same thing here that I did in the comments section of the Times-Picayune in response to this (aside from demanding serial number proof that this isn't a confiscated gun...)
A close friend of ours is a policeman in a small Texas town. Within the first few hours of Katrina, the Sergeant asked in a staff meeting if any of the officers would be willing to host either the officers or their families from New Orleans. Despite their obvious concern for those in need (as shown by the supplies they'd already sent and the rebuilding crews from this same town that remain in southern MS doing work even now), the unanimous response was 'Hell no' simply due to the lingering reputation of corruption that has permeated the NOLA police department (and obviously, much of the entire city government). They simply didn't trust them around their families.
Here in Memphis, where I served as a liaison between local churches and the Memphis Katrina task force, we had literally thousands of beds and meals - some in official Red Cross shelters - going unused because the folks from New Orleans weren't going to go to a white church. (They were telling me this personally - I'm not assuming anything.) The silver lining is that we in Memphis were given a whole new perspective on the racial problems we have here. They remain, but compared to NOLA, this is Disneyworld.
Off-topic, I know, but I figure I've got a sympathetic audience here...
