As of Sunday evening, police have not named any suspects, but said there were two shooters: one armed with a rifle and the other with a handgun. Both were wearing hooded sweatshirts and fled the scene on foot toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, NOPD said.
The shooters chased their target into a crowd gathered outside Jazz Daiquiris and Chicken & Watermelon and starting firing, according to Skipper Nichols, who owns the chicken restaurant and watched surveillance video from the scene.
The suspects fired "indiscriminately" into the crowd, striking a total of 10 people, according to NOPD.
Give them things they like? not getting through to them from withing the church? This is the type of leadership that begets violence. This idea that the lawless need to be pacified with stuff they like and not opposed by a vigilant citizenry, that we can coddle them away from their lawlessness...has it ever worked? What precludes lawless people from threatening violence to get more free stuff in the future?Pastor Tyrone Smith left Sampson Park tired but joyous, buzzing from the success of the Stop the Violence rally he helped organize in the Desire area Saturday evening (July 28). Smith went back to his house, turned on the TV and immediately learned 10 people had been shot on South Claiborne Avenue, three suffering fatal wounds.
"I didn't even have a chance to celebrate. It was devastating, my heart sunk," Smith said Sunday. "We worked so hard on this event. We're trying to do something about this issue that plagues our entire city, and to have such a vicious act of violence follow on the heels of it is heartbreaking."
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"We have to interest them, give them things they like. We need to show them love and compassion and support," Smith said. "We hope they will join the church and find God, but we won't get through to them from within the walls of our church."
Smith said the main mission of the monthly event is to promote community unity and show young people there are better opportunities in life. Smith said his focus is on young people who have not yet "pulled the trigger" by participating in the violence that often surrounds them.
Governments and churches are relatively powerless to influence these people, but these groups would rather have park parties than teach fathers and mothers how to stay together and govern their young.