The investigations into three weekend shootings in downtown New Orleans continues today.
In all, six people were wounded in those shootings, two of which happened along Canal Street and the other on Bourbon Street. New Orleans Police say the people committing those shootings are NOT from the Crescent City.
"We can tell you that we know that some of the gunfire exchange that occurred happened with people who are not from here," NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said. "These are not out locals who are coming in and settling their beefs."
One of those shootings, a quadruple shooting on Canal Street near Bourbon, left three people from out of town with wounds.
"One was from Abbeville, Louisiana; one was from New Iberia, Louisiana; and one was from Canton, Mississippi," Eight District Captain LeJon Roberts said, adding that the fourth victim is from New Orleans. "We don't believe either of the perpetrators were hit or injured."
Roberts says that mass shooting and the other two shootings happened as a result of fights. The first of those shootings left a 15-year-old with a chest wound. Roberts said that teen ran all the way from Bourbon Street to the Marriott Hotel on Canal Street to seek aid. The second shooting happened on Canal Street near Rampart, leaving an 18-year-old from Gonzalez in the hospital.
According to Roberts, those two shootings are related.
"One of the individuals that arrived with the 15-year-old at the Marriott hotel who was shot in the 200 block of Bourbon Street, he was seen on video," Roberts said. "We believe that he was part of the fight that occurred in the 1000 block of Canal Street."
Roberts says the suspects in all three cases have no fear of the law.
"These individuals are very brazen," Roberts said. "They committed these acts of violence in an area that was saturated with police."
Roberts added that police working the French Quarter over the weekend made several gun-related arrests and confiscated a number of guns being carried illegally by felons.
Kirkpatrick, meanwhile, maintains that New Orleans is a safer city now than it was at this time last year. She points to a 45-percent reduction in murders in the month of November from last year as proof of this. Kirkpatrick also says New Orleans is still well below last year's murder rate, with 117 murders so far this year compared to 187 this time last year. That's a 37-percent decrease year-to-date.
NOPD
