NEW ORLEANS — The shooting on Canal Street that left five innocent bystanders injured happened because a suspected armed robber police were trying to arrest began a “violent confrontation.”
“It’s always the goal of the NOPD to make an apprehension peacefully and without incident,” Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said in a prepared statement released Tuesday afternoon.
“But in this case, responding officers were forced into a violent confrontation initiated by the suspect that unfortunately came to a tragic end,” Ferguson’s statement continued.
That suspect was formally identified by the Orleans Parish coroner as 32-year-old Reginald Bursey.
The coroner’s office said Bursey was shot in the “torso and extremities.” It’s not yet clear if he was killed by bullets from NOPD officers or a state trooper.
The shooting happened about 6:45 p.m. Sunday. It began at Canal Street and Elks Place and ended a few blocks away at Tulane Avenue and Elks Place, where officers found Bursey hiding in bushes in front of Tulane University Medical Center.
Police dispatch recordings said he was being held at gunpoint. But he apparently refused to drop his gun and was shot. He died a short time later at University Medical Center.
Five innocent bystanders were hit by bullets as the gunfight between law enforcement raged on near a busy bus stop at the Canal and Elks. None of those injuries were serious, but the officers’ actions raised questions from the city’s Office of Independent Police Monitor about what happened.
“Our concern is looking at what led up to that, looking at all the police activity that day,” said Tonya McClary, the office’s chief monitor. “Did they have a plan to take him down? What was it? Was it executed in the proper way?”
But former Superintendent Ronal Serpas said what happens in the field takes precedence over any possible plan to try to arrest a suspect.
“Officers are making some incredibly important, life-changing, split-second decisions,” Serpas said. “And a lot of that’s being controlled by the actions of the offender.”
Former Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand agreed.
“You can do this by the book and still have an ugly outcome. You can not do it by the book and have a very positive outcome,” Normand said. “So that’s part of having patience and let this reveal itself in due course.”
And that patience is something the Police Monitor’s office said it will also have to exercise.
“We’re not at a point not where we’re going to conclude that something was done that shouldn’t have been done,” McClary, the IPM’s chief monitor, said. “Right now we’re trying to work with the New Orleans Police Department to gather all the facts about the incident.”
The NOPD said it returned to the scenes on Tuesday and found “additional evidence” in the investigation.
Ferguson said officials are now reviewing the footage of the incident.
"The NOPD’s video release policy has been enacted. Real Time Crime Center video will be reviewed and a decision will be made concerning what video from the incident will be released to the public," Ferguson said.
The department also has enacted its video-release policy, and that a decision will be made at some point about what video from the incident will be released to the public.
Video that will not be released it bodycam footage from the NOPD officers involved.
The New Orleans Advocate reported that two detectives who first spotted Bursey on Canal Street were in plain clothes and not wearing cameras. Two uniformed officers who responded to try to arrest him also were without body cameras since they were working a paid detail for the Downtown Development District.
Anyone with information on this incident should contact the NOPD's Public Integrity Bureau at 504-658-6800 or call Crimestoppers anonymously at 504-822-1111.