By Natasha Robin | WVUE | February 28, 2023
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Gun violence has sent over 100 people to the hospital in New Orleans through the first two months of the year, according to data from the Metropolitan Crime Commission, not counting victims who died from their injuries.
In the latest incident, two juveniles were shot in the 3300 block of Garden Oaks Drive in Algiers.
“A lot of people think that shootings are done under the cover of darkness,” says Rafael Goyeneche of the MCC.
People who live in the area were too afraid to talk on camera, but told Fox 8 everyone started running and screaming when gunfire erupted over the span of an entire city block.
A pre-teen girl was grazed by a bullet and transported to a hospital along with a juvenile male in unknown condition.
“So, it can be in broad daylight. It could be people getting off of a school bus. The police may not know yet if those were the intended targets,” says Goyeneche.
The two juveniles make 108 non-fatal shooting victims in 75 incidents so far this year, according to the MCC.
Goyeneche says looking at the number of victims versus the incidents, it’s clear that many shootings involve more than one victim. He points to the brazen mass shooting on St. Charles Avenue during the Bacchus parade, and non-fatal shootings along the interstate.
“You have somebody that may be targeting a particular individual and they shoot from one car to another, and they miss the car they are intending to hit,” says Goyeneche.
He says many of the shootings are retaliatory.
A recent interstate shooting in New Orleans East took the life of Uber driver, Andrew Stiller, when it’s believed the shooter or shooters were targeting his passenger.
“Somebody on the outside of the car just started spraying it with bullets. They tried to kill the passenger is what I’m guessing,” says the victim’s wife, Melissa Stiller.
“My husband, just because he was doing his job to provide for his family, he was murdered,” she said.
Both Stiller and his passenger, Johnell Hampton, were killed and a woman in another vehicle was struck in the head by a bullet. According to the MCC, it’s the seventh interstate shooting so far this year.
“The common denominator is the violence is escalating. The firepower is escalating, and the number of shootings exceed the individual incidents by a wide margin,” says Goyeneche.
While carjackings and armed robberies are down this year compared to last, Goyeneche says the number of homicide and shooting victims is up.
“Every one of those unsolved shootings and homicides that are retaliatory justice are essentially beginning more of a snowball type of effect,” says Goyeneche.