NEW ORLEANS — A social media dispute led a 25-year-old woman and her sister to an Algiers park to fight some other women in an encounter that eventually led to her death Monday night, family members told WWL Louisiana.
The family shared a video that they say shows Brittany Ussin in a fight. It shows about a half dozen young women punching and wrestling with some taking video of the encounter.
At some point in the encounter, you can hear what seems to be a gunshot. A shot injured Ussin, who was taken to the hospital where she was later declared deceased.
“It’s not easy. It’s hard. I haven’t slept yet,” said Ussin’s uncle Michael Willis, who happens to be the founder of H.O.P.E. (Helping Other People Endure), which advocates for youth families. “It’s like no love out here. It’s just pure raw, no love at all out here.”
Family members told WWL Louisiana that Ussin suffered from substance abuse issues and acute mental illness and that the deadly fight showed the bigger problem of social media fueling violence among youth and young adults.
The incident occurred around 7 p.m. Monday in the 300 block of Ptolemy Street in Algiers near McDonough Park, which is near the Mississippi River and the Crescent City Connection.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.