Just Steps Away From Murder

Your Humble Writer Was On Toulouse Street Near Bourbon As Shots Rang Out

Just after 1:30 this afternoon, as The BEC stood on the sidewalk looking through the window of a shop on Toulouse near Bourbon, five shots rang out to my left… a quick two, a brief pause, then three more.

Tourists scrambled, though a surprising number continued to loiter about as if a gun had not been shot nearby.

A young lady who works at one of the bars on the corner ran toward me, visibly shaken. She needed to take cover and feel safe; we stepped into the shop.

The victim had been shot on Toulouse just outside the Four Points Hotel; he got himself into the Slush Daiquiri Shop on the corner, bleeding out on the floor. I overheard that he took three bullets to his body.

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This officer was the first to arrive on the scene. He cleared the area, barking out orders to everyone, making room for the vehicles about to arrive.

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An officer with a medic bag exited one of the black French Quarter Patrol cars and went inside the daiquiri shop… an ambulance was not long behind.

A firetruck arrived, too.

The victim died at the hospital. Police arrested the accused shooter - a 16 year old - on Rampart Street, just minutes after and only about four blocks from the crime scene.

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This is as close to a murder as I have ever been. Though I never saw the victim directly, I stood just steps away. I heard him killed, reacted to the sounds of the gun’s discharge, and felt shaken myself.

A crowded corner on a sunny afternoon in the French Quarter… sadly, this has become an all-too likely time and place for a murder in New Orleans, the city’s 276th this year.

The BEC does not recognize a “gun violence” problem; guns don’t become violent. But people do, especially young people, 16 year olds, with an empty heart and a cold soul and very likely no father at home. His grades are low and he smokes blunts.

As with the mass shooting in the 9th Ward on Christmas night, this is an urban phenomenon badly misunderstood by the very people charged with solving it.

No gun laws can be written by any legislature to slow this trend.
No government programs will help.
No mentorship groups will make much difference.

Problems of the spirit have no secular solutions. 

At The BEC, we do not fear guns; we fear the empty souls of the people who use them.