NEW ORLEANS — More than 20 rounds of gunfire blasted a group of teenagers on a porch in Algiers Wednesday night. It sent them running for their lives, and was captured by a neighbor who was broadcasting on Facebook Live.
It happened on Hendee Street, where a memorial has grown for 16-year-old Cody Davis, who was killed in the shooting.
A 17-year-old girl was shot and hospitalized. She can be heard in the video yelling that she’d been shot.
We spoke with Davis’s uncle, who did not want to show his face on camera, but said he walked outside his home to find his nephew dead.
“When the shooting stopped, I come out and did not expect to see my nephew laying right there. Because I heard the kids screaming and hollering and they was all gone,” the man said. “Only one little boy was left out there, crying. His little friend, laying on him, telling me, ‘Uncle Mike, the guy was standing right there.’”
Stories like these can be heard across New Orleans. Nearly 130 people have been killed in just the first 160 days of this year.
And the problem is on both sides of the police tape. The New Orleans Police Department is losing officers much faster than it can train new ones.
Thursday, New Orleans City Council voted to nearly double its budget for police recruitment, from $500k to $900k.
“I mean, you cannot operate a department that's made for roughly 1,400 officers when it has less than a thousand,” City Council President Helena Moreno said Thursday.
Just hours after Council’s decision, New Orleans added to the growing body count.
Two men were gunned down on O’Reilly Street in the 7th ward. Their heart-sick families watched as ATF agents and NOPD gathered evidence.
In New Orleans, it’s a scene playing out nearly every day.
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