NEW ORLEANS — “Glass right here, some right here,” said Curtis Anderson as he pointed to the ground outside his home.
Glass and tire marks still in his front yard are reminders for Anderson and his wife Debra about how deadly violence can show up at doorsteps across New Orleans.
“Sometimes you can wake up and get the unexpected and that's what it was,” said Anderson. “Unexpected.”
The couple was asleep in their Mansfield Avenue home in Algiers Thursday night when they woke up to find a car, about a foot away from crashing into the house.
“It was surprising, very surprising,” said Debra Anderson.
The Andersons say a young man inside the car had been shot multiple times. Police say he died at the hospital.
“It's just sickening,” said Anderson. “It's just sickening.”
This is the ninth reported homicide in New Orleans in seven days, the fifth in Algiers. More than 20 people have been shot.
“Oh God, by your strength and by your power, bring this violence to an end,” prayed Bishop J. Douglas Wiley Taylor during a faith leader's news conference.
Praying for unity, faith leaders are calling on the entire city to use Easter weekend as a time of reflection and prayer, to put a cease-fire to violence.
“I was having flashbacks of the year 1994, over 420 murders in our city and it was also called the bloodiest year in the history of New Orleans and we are prayerful. We are hopeful that we don't have to repeat that again,” said Rev. Tom Watson.
According to crime data presented to the city council, murders are up nearly 40 percent since the beginning of the year, compared to this time last year. Data shows two straight years of increasing murder numbers. Shootings are averaging two a day.
"When you're averaging two shootings a day, it's bad pretty much every day,” said crime analyst Jeff Asher.
Back at the Anderson's, Curtis spent Good Friday morning cutting up the two small trees that stood in his front yard. He believes those trees slowed down that car just enough to stop it from hitting his house. He just wishes something could also stop the violence.
“Things happen. We can't stop them from happening but there's a solution to everything,” said Anderson. “There's always a solution.”