NEW ORLEANS — Six shootings overnight and early Wednesday morning have New Orleans neighbors very concerned.
Gunfire could be heard from the West End to the East.
According to the NOPD, the shots left two people dead, and 5 others injured including a 10-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl.
There were two shootings on the same street in Algiers, just hours apart within blocks of each other.
Neighbors there say Lamarque Street sounded like a warzone.
“About ten o’clock I heard a pop,” Germaine Thomson said. “Then later on about 2:30, 3 o’clock I heard pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.”
“It sounded like it was coming in my house,” Ralph Bush said.
The shootings shocked Bush and Thompson.
The brother and sister live down the street from where shots were fired.
“It was quite terrifying. I rolled out the bed and laid on the floor,” Thompson said.
“At first, I thought someone was shooting at me because it was that loud,” Bush said.
Bush and Thompson have lived in Algiers all their lives.
“Very concerned,” Thompson said. “I don’t come out at night anymore. That’s for sure. It’s dark, I’m inside.”
The neighbors say they’ve seen a noticeable increase in violence and crime in general in this part of Algiers, in recent months.
“Just a month ago I was riding down the street on my bicycle, coming to my garage to get some charcoal to grill with one of my neighbors. A guy ran across the street and stuck a gun in my neck,” Bush said. “I told him I don’t have anything. I don’t have any money. I don’t have a telephone, a cell phone. He just walked away, jumped in a car and drove off.”
“We don’t really know what happened two blocks up,” Thomson said. “But again, it was pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, 4:30 in the morning.”
While detectives search for clues on Lamarque Street, Bush and Thompson call the violence in their neighborhood, “a sad sign of the times.”
“It’s really scary,” Thompson said. “I don’t know what we can do about it.”
“This is New Orleans, and we have to accept it,” Bush said.
Police are looking for suspects in both shootings in Algiers.
If you have information about any of the overnight shootings across the city, call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.