New Orleans’s district attorney wants a judge to hold the suspected French Quarter Festival gunman in jail without bond.
District Attorney Jason Williams asked an Orleans Parish judge to set a hearing to “determine the dangerousness” of Christopher Parker. Parker is accused of shooting five people in Sunday night at the corner of Iberville and Decatur Streets. All five victims suffered non-life-threatening wounds.
According to a statement from the D. A.’s Office, Williams told a judge that “Parker’s conduct — firing into a crowded public space, injuring five people who were in no way involved with him — posed a clear and immediate threat to public safety.”
“The gun recovered at the time of his apprehension was equipped with an extended magazine and was still hot to the touch, indicating it had been recently fired,” a spokesperson for the District Attorney’s Office said in that statement.
“This office takes any act of gun violence seriously — especially when it endangers entire crowds of families and festivalgoers,” District Attorney Williams said in the statement. “We will use every available legal tool to prevent further harm and protect our residents and visitors.”
