NEW ORLEANS — Update: The Orleans Parish Coroner's Office has identified the 25-year-old male victim as 24-year-old Ahmontae Wishom and the 17-year-old female victim as Layla Scott.
New Orleans Police are investigating a shooting that happened around 7 p.m. Sunday at the corner of Esplanade and North Claiborne. Witnesses say the day started out joyous as a second line rolled through the Ninth Ward.
“The Ninth Ward is a place we can go to celebrate. Everyone loves the Ninth Ward,” Derranae Wilford said. “Everyone was having fun doing things everyone was giving their all having fun.”
Wilford says though, the fun didn’t continue into the evening. Instead, a few hours later, shots rang out. The NOPD said two people were shot - a man and a teenaged girl, when multiple gunmen approached and started firing.
Wilford says she was across the street and didn’t hear the gunshots because of the loud noise under the bridge. A few minutes later she crossed the street to check out the commotion.
“His friend was holding his chest crying and I went to go apply pressure to the wound because that’s what you’re supposed to do. And I was like calm down, it’s ok. He’s still going to be alive, calm down. His friend was crying,” Wilford said.
Wilford then went to help the girl. She says she didn’t’ see a gunshot wound, but did notice the girl had a heartbeat. She began CPR.
“I started doing CPR and my friend was like, 'keep going, keep going. She’s going to stay alive. We tried to talk to her,” Wilford said. “I just kept going. My friend is holding up her head while I’m giving her breath and we keep going until the paramedic got there.”
Wilford recalled what was going through her mind.
“In my head I’m praying ‘God keep her alive, keep her alive for me.’ I’m asking ‘my God please put the blood over her my God’ and I don’t talk to God a lot but [that day] I was calling on him ‘please my Lord. Please save her. Save her, that’s all I ask. That’s all I ask’,” Wilford said.
According to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, there have been 204 homicides this year and 336 shootings. Theysay, 32 of the homicide victims have been under the age of 18. That number has increased from this time last year, where 24 victims were under the age of 18.
Wilford says it shouldn’t be like this.
“You lose your life on the most vulnerable years of your life,” she said.