Three people have died and seven more have been injured in a shooting reported in the 3400 block of South Claiborne Avenue on Saturday night (July 28), according to the New Orleans Police Department, and two people are suspected to be on the loose in relation to the shooting.
In a press conference hours after the shooting, New Orleans Police Chief Michael Harrison said initial reports from the scene indicate two people wearing hooded sweatshirts stepped in front of "a large crowd" at a daiquiri shop late Saturday and opened fire. One of the people appeared to have a rifle, Harrison said, and the other used a handgun.
The pair, Harrison said, "appeared to fire indiscriminately" at the crowd, though they stood over one individual and fired more than once at that person before they fled the scene on foot toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Police first reported two people had died and six had been injured in the shooting. That notice from NOPD came at 8:59 p.m. Saturday.
Two bodies could be seen on the ground Saturday night in front of Chicken & Watermelon, a restaurant in the 3400 block of South Claiborne.
Nearby, in the 2800 block of Louisiana Avenue, officers could be seen standing on the front porch of a home with a squad car parked outside. Crime scene tape was wrapped around the front of the home, and a person could be heard grieving loudly nearby.
As officers began investigating the rainy, noisy scene near the restaurant on South Claiborne Avenue on Saturday, a fight broke out amongst onlookers, which police quickly quelled.
A silver Toyota sedan was parked outside the restaurant, and its driver's side door was open with the car's hazard lights on. A man's body was seen lying in front of the door to the restaurant, and another body was on the ground behind a screen police typically use for shielding crime scenes. The area was littered with more than 20 evidence cones as party buses rolled by the scene late into the evening.
Sounds of shouts and crying were heard throughout the chaotic scene late Saturday and into Sunday, some of which was caused by confusion as families and friends looked for loved ones. One woman asked bystanders for information because she was unable to locate her boyfriend, who had been at the nearby restaurant Saturday minutes before the shooting.
Two people -- including a woman screaming "That's my son. Someone please talk to me. Tell me what happened to my son." -- tried to run across the police line, and one woman was escorted away from the scene as she pleaded for one of the victims to "get up."
Later, at 9:45 p.m., two men attempted to console two women as they sobbed and shouted.
"Oh, Lord Jesus, this can't be real," one of the women said.
"That's my baby," shouted the other, before repeating, "I'm going to kill them. I'm going to kill them. They took my child, I'm going to kill them."
Jonathan Fourcade, EMS spokesman, said three of the seven injured people were taken by ambulance to University Medical Center's trauma center. The other four arrived at the hospital by private means.
"It's not normally like this right here. They don't usually wild out like this anymore over here," a man at the scene said earlier. "I was at home, I didn't see nothing but this is a neighborhood spot, with regulars and whatever. Not a place you'd expect this."
Lawrence Russo was buying a scratch-off ticket at an Exxon station near the restaurant when he heard what he described as a few batches of intermittent gunshots, which he at first thought were firecrackers because of the spacing. In total, he said, he heard between 13 and 16 shots fired.
The shots sounded close, but Russo didn't realize how close until he saw the scene developing outside the gas station.
"They never stop killing each other," Russo said, shaking his head as he spoke.
A Milan Street resident said she heard more than 10 shots fired when she was arriving home from running an errand Saturday night.
"It's sad and I hate to say it, but I didn't even think about it when I heard" the shots, the woman said. "My neighbor was like, 'you hear them shots?' and then I realized, yeah I did. You just get so used to it, you don't even realize it's happening."
In a statement released late Saturday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said she would "dedicate every resource necessary to ending this horror and seeing justice done."
"There is no place in New Orleans for this kind of violence," Cantrell said. "I speak for everyone in our City when I say we are disgusted, we are infuriated, and we have had more than enough. Three more lives -- gone. It has to end. This happened near my neighborhood, on the edge of Broadmoor. It's unacceptable anywhere."
Crimestoppers is offering a $5,000 reward for information concerning the mass shooting. Those offering information will remain anonymous and do not have to testify in court to receive the reward, according to Crimestoppers.