Victims of Shreveport Mass shooting

A block party turned deadly, with 11 people shot, 4 fatally in Shreveport, Louisiana, just before midnight on July 4. The coroner’s office identified the four people killed, Victims of Shreveport which include two teenagers, as Moriz Aziz, 22, Jarike Dorsey, 19, Demorie Williams, 24, and Syncere Brown, 17. Aziz and Dorsey were pronounced dead at the scene. Williams died less than an hour after her injuries at a local hospital, said Sgt. Angie Willhite of the Shreveport Police Department tells the PEOPLE.

Continuing the search for bodies overnight, investigators found a fourth person, 17-year-old Brown, in a wooded area near the party just before 9:30 a.m., police said. The teen was dead when officers found him, Willhite said. The Shreveport Police Department described in a news release a scene of “crowds of frightened people fleeing the intersection calling for officers’ help” in the moments after the shooting.

Just a few days later, standing in the same area in the pouring rain, some under umbrellas, others in sodden suits, neighbors gathered for a Thursday night prayer vigil at the corner of Jones Mabry and Pearl Street, where the explosion exploded. the shooting. Among the guests noted by The Shreveport Times was Alexis Rachal, who leaned against a loved one as she mourned the loss of Dorsey, with whom she shares a son.

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Victims of Shreveport are identified

“He was the love of my life,” Rachal said, shaking her head. “He was everything to me. He was also a father, a brother, a son, and they took him for no reason. “I feel so empty without him,” she added, her breath coming short. “I know I got other people to help me, but he was everything to me, he was a bigger part of my heart, and when they took him, they took my heart.”

Brandon Patterson, director of Shreveport Funeral Home & Cremation, told KSLA that he will offer assistance to families now facing the unexpected cost of burying their loved ones. “I felt like I had to do something,” Patterson told the outlet. “And being in the death care industry, this is my way of giving back to my own neighborhood.”

Shreveport has not had a single such fatality since 2003, when there was a quadruple murder at an apartment complex, Willhite said, noting that Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith could not recall another such incident. beyond those two in his 42-year career with the department.

“Four of our community members were lost. There’s no way to make that okay,” Willhite said. “We just hope for justice, that’s all we can do.” The annual Fourth of July block party was a longstanding neighborhood tradition that had never turned violent before, local councilwoman Tabatha Taylor told reporters. But just before midnight, a group of young people, who had not been invited to the party, came up, Willhite said.

While police have yet to determine a motive for the shooting, investigators believe the uninvited guests argued with another group of men at the party. Several people opened fire, police say, noting that pistol casings and rifle casings were found scattered around the neighborhood.

“The people of the MLK neighborhood are like a very close family,” Mayor Tom Arceneaux said in a news release Thursday. “That family has suffered more than its share of gun violence this year.”

Arceneaux added: “Every death, every injury resulting from gun violence affects us all, diminishes us as a community. These deaths, these injuries, are no exception.” One person remains in critical condition, police said Thursday night. No arrests have been made. “At this time, we have no suspects,” Willhite said. “And those are the worst words that can come out of my mouth.”

She said people have started posting short videos of the shooting on social media, but nothing to help identify the suspects. “We’re starting to get information and that’s a good thing,” she said. “But there’s not as much as we’d like and it’s not coming as quickly as we’d like.”

The Shreveport shooting was just one of a series of at least 23 mass shootings that occurred over the Fourth of July holiday weekend from Friday to Wednesday, according to the Gun Violence Archive.Read more………