A woman fatally shot Wednesday night (May 8) in Mid-City after New Orleans police say she and her husband confronted a teen as he allegedly tried to burglarize their car has been identified as 63-year-old Zelda Townsend.
The Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office said Thursday that Townsend died of gunshot wounds.
A 17-year-old opened fire on the couple when the pair saw him inside their vehicle, police said. The teen was also injured by gunfire after Townsend’s husband returned fire, said NOPD Superintendent Shaun Ferguson.
The teen, identified by a NOPD source with direct knowledge of the investigation as Emanuel Pipkins, had been released from the hospital as of Thursday morning and faces a charge of second-degree murder.
Townsend’s husband was shot in the arm, NOPD said.
Attempted car burglary turns deadly in Mid-City shootout: NOPD
Police responded to the shootout shortly after 10 p.m. in the 2700 block of Cleveland Avenue, near South Broad Street. Officers first received a call of a suspicious person in the area, then of shots fired. Ferguson said the woman was shot in the head and died at the hospital. Her husband was taken to the hospital, where he was treated for a gunshot wound to the arm.
Ferguson said the couple heard their car alarm and went outside to look into it. Outside, they saw a person inside their vehicle. Around that time, another vehicle, which police believe was the intended get-away car, pulled up and someone inside of it, “shouted to ‘shoot,’" Ferguson said.
The juvenile then, “did, in fact, shoot,” at the couple, Ferguson said, and the husband returned fire, resulting in the gunfire exchange.
Police were later notified the 17-year-old arrived in a private vehicle at a different hospital with a gunshot injury. Investigators were able to positively identify the wounded teen as the one they believe tried to burglarize the couple’s car then fired the first shots in the eventual gun battle with the husband, Ferguson said.
“One of our residents lost his wife. This is real. He lost his wife. A daughter lost her mother. And it’s senseless,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said at a news conference Thursday morning at NOPD headquarters.
https://www.nola.com
0 Comments:
Post a Comment