NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans police officers made several arrests in connection to shootings and armed robberies in April, and they've taken 20 illegal guns off the streets, the department's superintendent said Thursday.
NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said the arrests and confiscations of illegal weapons were a result of allowing officers to work overtime hours again.
"Our homicide division, just this week, closed four homicides," Ferguson said.
One of those was an Algiers triple shooting that killed two people on March 28, leading to the Wednesday arrest of Hollis Carter, 20.
Carter faces two charges of second-degree murder for the killings of Breyiana Brown and Caleb Johnson.
A 17-year-old suspect was also arrested Wednesday for Sunday's New Orleans East shooting that killed a 16-year-old victim, the police chief said.
An NOPD task force arrested a 13-year-old suspect on Sunday, charging him with attempted second-degree murder, simple robbery, and carjacking for an incident in Bayou St. John on April 6.
"This involved a 73-year-old female victim, who was accosted and ran over by her own vehicle at the hands of this 13-year-old juvenile," Ferguson said.
The 13-year-old suspect also faces charges for a purse snatching in
the Audubon area, an auto theft and possession of stolen property in Treme, and an aggravated assault with a firearm, possession of a firearm in an attempted auto theft that happened in Mid-City
Two other homicide cases closed in the past week were cleared by exception, an NOPD statement said. The perpetrator, or perpetrators, for those crimes is dead.
One was an Iberville area killing that happened December 2, 2013, in the 1200 block of Bienville Street. The other was a New Orleans East killing that happened on April 26, 2018.
Overtime pay for New Orleans police officers and firefighters was paused during the pandemic because of City Hall's struggle with revenue during the pandemic.
Members of the NOFD and the NOPD were able to work more than overtime hours after March 28, when Mayor LaToya Cantrell reinstated it.
The police chief said his officers have made 38 arrests in response to shootings, 51 armed robberies arrests, and 82 gun relates arrests so far this year.
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