New Orleans ? One of the seven policemen charged in a deadly gunfight on a bridge during the chaos that followed Hurricane Katrina had previously been charged with murder in the 2001 death of a suspect, but the charges were dismissed.

Fraternal Order of Police attorney Donovan Livaccari said Friday that Sgt. Kenneth Bowen had “acted within his rights to protect himself” in that case. Records show that the city agreed to pay the suspect’s mother $12,500 to settle a lawsuit.

Bowen, five colleagues and another officer who has since left the force were indicted Thursday in the Sept. 4, 2005, shooting deaths of two men and wounding of four other people on the bridge.

A judge Friday ordered the seven to surrender by Tuesday.

The shootings on the Danziger Bridge, just days after Katrina flooded New Orleans, became a symbol of the city’s loss of control, and the facts of what happened remain murky. Police say the officers were responding to a report of other officers down, and that they thought one of the victims, Ronald Madison, had been reaching for a gun.

Madison, a mentally retarded man, was shot seven times – five times in the back, according to the coroner.

As with many events in the days after Katrina struck, reports of what happened at the bridge six days after the storm varied widely.