A woman leaned over the crime scene tape that cordoned off the intersection of North Acadian Thruway and Gus Young Avenue to talk to a police officer.
She burst into tears.
Nearby, a body lay on the ground near the driver’s seat of a car that appeared to have crashed into a light pole; the car’s back passenger side door was pierced by multiple bullets.
It was only one of the eight scenes of shootings where four people were killed and five were wounded in Baton Rouge between Saturday night and Monday afternoon, police and EMS officials said.
Police believe the shootings are not related and that they were all targeted, spokesman L’Jean McKneeley Jr. said.
“I stand firm that this senseless violence is unacceptable and has no place in our community,” Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said Monday morning.
Both fatal and nonfatal shootings have declined sharply over the past two years from their record high in 2021. But violence often increases when the temperatures turn sweltering, and city leaders and community groups recently unveiled plans for a second Summer of Hope campaign aimed at tamping down the bloodshed.
“Our commitment to public safety initiatives like Summer of Hope is more critical than ever,” Broome said. “We will continue to work tirelessly with law enforcement and community members to ensure that our streets are safe and secure.”
A deadly 48 hours
The surge in violence started with shots fired Saturday night on Victoria Drive, Baton Rouge Police said; no one called police, but officers later responded to a nonfatal shooting injury on Conrad Drive that turned out to be related.
Then, around 11 p.m. Saturday, someone was shot at 75th Avenue and Scenic Highway, EMS spokesman Brad Harris said.
Shortly after 2 a.m. on Sunday, a person was shot and injured at the Wendy’s on College Drive and taken to the hospital in stable condition, Harris said.
Then, around 8 a.m. Sunday, Tyron Davis, 52, was found dead of gunshot wounds in the 4000 block of Tuscarora Street, Baton Rouge police said. Around 10:30 p.m., Abel Palomares, 28, died of gunshot wounds in the 12000 block of Province Place, police said.
The violence intensified Monday. Shortly after midnight, a man was fatally shot in the 600 block of West McKinley Street; police said they were waiting to notify his family before publicly identifying him.
A second person was injured in the shooting and taken in stable condition to the hospital, EMS said.
Apartments at 650 West McKinley Street, where a shooting early Monday morning left one person dead and one injured near the intersection with Alaska Street, Monday, May 22, 2023.
Around 9 a.m. Monday, someone was shot and injured on Aldrich Drive — near the College Drive Wendy’s where one of the Sunday shootings happened, and near Interstate 10 — and was brought to the hospital, EMS said.
Then, around noon on Monday, a car was shot up and its driver was killed on North Acadian Thruway near Gus Young Avenue.
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