By Kaitlin Rust | WVUE | May 25, 2022
NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Louisiana leads the entire nation in mass shootings per capita according to the Gun Violence Archive.
79 people have been injured and 9 killed in 16 mass shootings so far this year.
To put that in perspective, Texas had 21 incidents and California had 20, but those states have 7 and 10 times more people.
New Orleans has contributed the most in the state so far with four mass shootings.
“This is street justice, so the people that are pulling the trigger are looking for specific targets,” Rafael Goyeneche with the Metropolitan Crime Commission said. “What is so disturbing in New Orleans and other parts of the country, is that the people that have the intent to kill one individual will not think twice about firing into a crowd to kill that individual.”
Goyeneche has been referencing this alarming increase for the past few weeks. He says homicides are up 56% but shootings are down 8-percent, meaning there are more victims with each shooting.
“The people that are doing the shooting are more likely to kill their intended targets this year than they did last year. And that type of violence is escalating because of the diminishing numbers of officers because of the relatively low conviction rate in the District Attorney’s Office.”
In the four New Orleans mass shootings, 17 people were injured and three were killed.
Baton Rouge had the second most incidents in the state with three shootings in which 11 were injured and two were killed.
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