A third person has been arrested in connection to Wednesday’s (May 8) car burglary attempt that ended in an exchange of gunfire and the death of 63-year-old Zelda Townsend, New Orleans police said. Townsend was shot in the head and her husband shot in the arm when the couple went outside after they heard their car alarm then saw someone in their vehicle, police have said.
A juvenile, who police did not identify, was booked Tuesday with murder, burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary, NOPD spokesman Gary Scheets said.
Emanuel Pipkins, 17, was arrested the day after the homicide and booked with murder, records show. Police said he was the person inside the couple’s car who initiated the shootout.
Byrielle Hebert, 18, was charged on May 10 with manslaughter, simple burglary and criminal conspiracy to commit simple burglary. Pipkins has also been booked, since his arrest on May 9, on addition charges of burglary and criminal conspiracy to commit simple burglary.
An affidavit sworn by an NOPD homicide detective states Townsend’s husband went outside their home in the 2700 block of Cleveland Avenue after hearing the alarm. Townsend joined her husband outside and handed him a gun. Police allege Pipkins’ intended getaway car pulled up as the couple approached the car. Someone inside the gray Acura shouted, “Just shoot him. Just shoot him,” the detective wrote in his application for an arrest warrant.
Pipkins shot at the couple, the detective wrote, then Townsend’s husband returned fire. Pipkins also was struck – a graze wound to his back -- and police were led to him after he arrived at a hospital in a private vehicle seeking treatment.
NOPD did not say Tuesday night if the juvenile arrested Tuesday is believed to have been in the Acura, or if he was believed to have shouted at Pipkins to shoot.
The detective wrote in the affidavit for Pipkins’ arrest that his girlfriend was at the hospital, and Pipkins’ relative who was also at the hospital told police she believed the Acura she last saw them in belonged to Hebert’s relative. The Acura had been reported stolen, the detective wrote.
Pipkins told police he had been shot in New Orleans East by an unknown person, Detective Barret Morton wrote in the affidavit. The car his relative said she last saw him and Hebert in matched the description of the one seen at the homicide scene. Police recovered the vehicle after the fatal shooting.
The deadly end to the car burglary attempt prompted Mayor LaToya Cantrell and NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson to hold a news conference the following day remarking on the events they called tragic.
“It’s senseless,” Cantrell said.
“I’m disgusted,” said Ferguson.
Both also addressed the general problem of juvenile crime. Cantrell revealed details of a summer curfew, and both spoke about the need for accountability by parents and other facets of the criminal justice system, as well as police.
“We have to create spaces for these young people to go in the event they don’t have someone to go home to or that is at home,” the mayor said.
In a statement issued after the May 9 press conference, the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights said that “incarcerating youth has not worked in the past and it won’t work in the future.”
The center said that better community-based services, “from mental health treatment to mentorship, should be easily accessible in every school and community.”
No other details about the juvenile arrested Tuesday or his role in the homicide and burglaries were immediately available, Scheets said.
https://www.nola.com
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