New Orleans Interstate shootings return in force
Now that other state and national media have reported on the repeat shootings on Interstate 10, readers write weekly asking for an update from my perspective. Generally, I’ve felt my job complete. Other news outlets have finally taken notice.
However, I will recount what has happened since my last report.
For readers unaware, I first reported in July last year that repeat shootings on interstate highways were not personal or gang-on-gang attacks. Instead, most shootings occur at random hours, day or night, against random victims unknown to the assailant or assailants. I followed up on that report again in October 2021, February, June, and July of this year.
Counting incidents from June 2020 through July 2022, I discovered (and reported) that interstate highways skirting New Orleans saw an average of two random-victim monthly shootings over those two years.
Three months ago, a Mississippi podcaster reviewed and recounted my numbers, prompting New Orleans television and radio stations to do likewise. This coverage caused the city council to speak out against the disabling of the New Orleans Police Department by the New Orleans mayoral administration.
Soon after, the city council and private organizations began discussing ways to bypass the mayor’s police defunding efforts, allocating money for new law enforcement recruits, and inviting the Louisiana State Police to help patrol the interstate highways in New Orleans.
That month, interstate shootings stopped in New Orleans, breaking the two-year two-shootings monthly average.
However, once the media’s attention turned to other shiny objects, the Interstate Sniper or snipers returned.
According to the Orleans Parish Coroner’s office, an anonymous gunman fatally shot 73-year-old William Manns at dusk, Friday evening, September 30th. The victim drove alone on I-10 East at the Norman C. Francis Parkway overpass. A New Orleans Police officer speaking to Fox 8 News identified Manns as the 25th victim shot on New Orleans interstate highways in 2022. According to NOPD, of the twenty-five commuters shot on New Orleans interstate highways this year, he was the sixth to die from the attack.
Tuesday evening, September 27th, another man died in a double shooting while driving his vehicle on Interstate 10 East near Louisa Street. He was the fifth fatality of 2022’s twenty-five freeway shootings.
Number five died in the eastbound lanes near exit 239A-B. Two people were riding in a vehicle when someone shot them, police said. The second victim lived, but an ambulance took him to a hospital in critical condition.
Number four occurred one week earlier on Interstate 10 West near the Chef Menteur on-ramp.
NOPD refused to release the names and ages of these fatalities.
Westbank resident Billy Jordan told WVUE, “To people not from here that I know, I say watch it on the interstate now,” he said. “You have to be very, very careful.”
Jordan, who drives the interstate to work in New Orleans East, told the television station he’d had some close calls. “One day, I was driving on the interstate, and they had a shooting right behind me,” he said. “Another time, I was driving and saw a shooting ahead of me.”
New Orleans police insist there is no indication these interstate shootings are random or that a single sniper is responsible. Instead, they suspect the shootings fall into three categories: road rage, shooters targeting someone they know, and random commuters caught in the crossfire. However, they admit these are guesses. Moreover, they have no evidence to support either theory.
Details from police about interstate shootings are generally limited and rarely include vehicle descriptions.
Former NOPD Superintendant Ronald Serpas has been vocal about the problem, appearing on local radio talk shows and television news programs. “Clearly, we’ve never had [interstate shootings] like we’ve seen these last two, three, four years,” he said. “The moving nature of the interstate makes the cases difficult [to investigate]. Evidence can be lost with people merely driving around the scene. So, it’s a pretty complex issue.”
In 2022, someone shot at least twenty-five people on New Orleans the interstate highways circling New Orleans. Twenty of those shootings occurred on I-10.
Even with a two-month break in the shootings this year, the monthly average of two interstate shootings per month exceeds the 2021 and 2020 averages.
Time to pray. We have two months left in the year.