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'We got to make examples of people' - Councilman irate after graduation shooting

"Who are these people who said one of the most important things I need to do is bring my weapon to a damn graduation?" said City Council Member Oliver Thomas.

NEW ORLEANS — No arrests have been made yet in the shooting that happened on Xavier's campus Tuesday following the Morris Jeff High School graduation.

It started with a fight that happened in a Xavier parking lot just moments after the graduation ended. It led to three people being shot - one of them, the grandmother of a graduate, died from her injuries. Several guns were recovered from the scene.

According to NOPD, the fight was between a female student and the mom of another student. NOPD said two female students have had ongoing confrontation and families got involved at graduation.

"Who are these people who said one of the most important things I need to do is bring my weapon to a damn graduation?" said City Council Member Oliver Thomas. "They were probably fighting and arguing over some B.S., something that didn't even matter on a whole damn human scale. Something so trivial and irrelevant that no one deserves to die at all."

He feels these shootings are becoming too common as criminals are too comfortable.

"We got to make examples out of people, but we also need mental health and healing," Thomas said. "You can't shoot someone, kill someone, and get away with it."

He said it will take all hands on deck across the city.

"Everyone needs to look in the mirror, look at their children, in their families, organizations and say can I be a peaceful person?" Thomas said.

"In my opinion, if you fire a gun at someone your intent is to kill them," said City Council Member At-Large JP Morrell.

Morrell wants to see a higher sense of urgency to address the crime problem.

"As NOPD continually classifies these mass shootings as aggravated batteries, they are underlying he community's concern that there is no sense of urgency to address the crime," he said.

Family identified 80-year-old Augustine Greenwood as the victim who was fatally shot. She was attending her youngest grandson's graduation. A juvenile boy and adult man were also shot, but they are expected to survive. 

RELATED: Grandmother killed moments after grandson graduated high school on Xavier campus

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