Unsolved serial shootings still plague I-10

In July, I reported on several potentially related shootings on two New Orleans interstate highways. Three months later, the shootings continue.

The shootings Police Superintendent Shaun D. Ferguson initially labeled as unrelated gang-on-gang and road-rage activity now includes a honeymoon couple and an off-duty police officer among the victims. Since July of 2020, there has been an average of two anonymous interstate shootings per month on two interstate highways near New Orleans. Most occurred on Interstate 10.

Last week on a Sunday morning, September 24, someone shot a man on Interstate 10 East at Franklin Avenue. The New Orleans Police Department said the victim was driving I-10 when a car pulled next to him on his passenger side and began shooting, wounding the man twice. Fortunately, he lived after driving himself to a nearby hospital.

On August 31, a Tuesday night, as an off-duty NOPD officer drove I-10, an interstate sniper shot him in the head. According to Superintendent Ferguson, the wound grazed the officer’s skull, leaving him responsive and in stable condition.

Ferguson said in a news conference he did not know why the officer was shot.

“He was in an unmarked unit, not your typical police car,” Ferguson said. “We cannot say he was targeted because he is a police officer.”

The Police Superintendent said the unnamed off-duty officer was driving on I-10 westbound near the St. Bernard Avenue exit around 8:30 p.m. when the shots blew through his windshield. The officer did not return fire, according to Ferguson.

Like the other monthly cases, police have no suspects.

The month prior, on a Thursday night, July 1, at 7:48, a 911 call alerted the New Orleans Police Department to another interstate highway shooting. Someone shot a man driving in a westbound lane on Interstate-610 near Paris Avenue. Emergency Medical Services transported the victim to a hospital in critical condition.

Three hours later, another random shot struck a man traveling eastbound on I-610 near the St. Bernard Avenue exit. This marked the third interstate shooting that day. At 1:30 that morning, an unidentified assailant shot a woman on Interstate-10 on the Pontchartrain Expressway, somewhere between the Crescent City Connection and the Orleans-Jefferson Parish Line.

Officials released no additional details on the shootings, no description of the sniper or sniper vehicle, and no likely motives, nor have they confirmed connections between the shootings.

On July 2, the New Orleans Police Department released a written statement saying, “The NOPD investigates incidents such as these on their respective circumstances. Investigators are currently of the belief that these are isolated incidents and, in many cases, crimes of opportunity regarding individuals known to each other.”

At a news conference last April, Police Superintendent Shaun D. Ferguson told reporters his investigators found no pattern to the shootings. “I cannot give you any rhyme or reason behind any of this,” he said, “but we know for sure, a few of them have involved road rage.”

On June 6, just after midnight on a Sunday morning, gunfire wounded nine people as they stood near the I-10 service road. Paramedics transported all victims to the hospital, including one woman in critical condition after the unidentified gunman shot her in the face. One week later, on a Monday evening, another unidentified shooter on the I-10 High Rise Bridge wounded a 20-year-old driver, shooting him in the leg as he drove I-10 west, near Louisa Street and Pines Village.

On a Thursday evening, May 6, a motorist shot a driver in another car during rush-hour traffic on I-10 south as he traveled eastbound between Oak Harbor Boulevard and Old Spanish Trail. On May 24, a Monday morning, someone shot a man near the 12000 block of the North I-10 Service Road, and on May 28, a woman driver turned off I-10 onto Louisa Street. She felt blood and realized someone had shot her. The victim drove herself to a hospital.

In April, a shooter or shooters shot seven people on interstate highways inside New Orleans. At midnight, Friday, April 9, someone shot a 21-year-old I-10 motorist near Morrison Road. One day earlier, someone shot two people on I-610 near the Broad Street exit. On April 26, a Monday night, someone shot an infant boy and teenage girl on I-10 in Gentilly. On April 29, someone shot a 31-year-old woman and a 37-year-old man as they drove over the same I-10 High Rise Bridge.

One month earlier, near three o’clock on a Monday morning, March 29, someone shot a man driving westbound on I-10 near the Metairie Road exit. The victim said another car pulled next to his, and the driver, whom he did not recognize, shot into his door, wounding his wrist and ankle.

In February, a shooter or shooters shot another four freeway travelers. On February 12, NOPD investigated a shooting in New Orleans East where the I-10 Service Road meets Bullard Avenue. Around eight on a Wednesday night, February 24, someone shot a man driving westbound on I-610 near Franklin Avenue. On a Sunday night around 6, February 28, someone in a passing vehicle shot a 22-year-old man driving on I-10 near the Orleans Avenue exit.

In 2020, New Orleans area police responded to more than a dozen interstate highway shootings between July and December, most within the city limits of New Orleans. NOPD arrested no one in any of the cases and cannot confirm whether the same shooter or shooters orchestrated all attacks.

On July 24, 2020, someone shot a driver where I-10 meets I-610. On July 31, the same thing happened at I-10 and Jeff Davis. The next night, a sniper shot a man in the arm at 12:42 in the morning near the intersection of I-10W and I-610W. On Thursday, July 30, a triple shooting in the westbound lanes of I-10 at the Jefferson Davis Parkway overpass left one man dead and two others wounded.

On August 1, these events repeated at I-10 and Bullard. On August 5, the shooter or shooters hit someone at I-10 and Franklin, and on August 8, it happened at I-10 and Bullard.

Near two o’clock on a Thursday morning, October 14, 2020, someone shot two males, ages 17 and 21, driving on I-10 near the exits for Esplanade and North Claiborne Avenue. On October 22, someone shot a man at I-10 and Tulane Avenue and a 37-year-old woman on I-10 near South Carrollton Avenue. The next day someone shot another motorist at I-10 and US-90.

The shootings paused in November, starting again on December 3 at I-10 and Crowder. On December 15, someone shot a motorist at I-10 and Orleans. Monday night, December 28, an unknown shooter wounded a man near I-10 East and Bullard Avenue.

Ironically, the United States’ most infamous highway snipers killed only seven people, far less than the number of attacks recounted here. If NOPD can connect even half of these shootings, the wound count of this new I-10 Sniper surpasses that of the D.C. Beltway Snipers.

In 2002, firing rifles from a blue 1990 Chevrolet Caprice sedan, assassins John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed ten people, including John Gaeta, an Albany resident who graduated from Amite High School in 1969. Muhammad and Malvo shot Gaeta in the Hammond Square Mall parking lot. Today, Malvo resides in Red Onion State Prison, and Muhammad died by lethal injection in 2009.

Today, among the twice-monthly I-10 shootings, all but one remains unidentified.

On Sunday, August 1, 2021, as newlyweds took to I-10, still clad in gown and tuxedo, the groom allegedly shot the honeymoon car’s chauffeur, accusing the driver of sleeping with his new bride. Police apprehended the man quickly after both men exited the car. The chauffeur ran as the groom, 30-year-old Devin Jose Jones, followed firing a handgun and accidentally wounding another driver, a woman driving her two children home after church.