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BATON ROUGE - According to the Baton Rouge Police Department's database, the first three months of 2024 have been the deadliest in Baton Rouge in 25 years.
With 32 homicides since Jan. 1, it surpasses the first quarter of 2021 — otherwise known as the year with the most homicides on record. This time last year, the number was less than half of what it is now.
Blue bars represent homicide number for first quarter, Red bars are total homicides during year
Since midnight Monday — the official end of the first quarter — there have already been two additional homicides.
City leaders are acutely aware of the problem, giving a press conference about it just last week.
"I want the public to know that what we've been experiencing. In regards to shootings in our city, most have been very personal, highly targeted incidents," Chief T.J. Morse said.
Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, in lock-step with Morse, attributes the issue to a nationwide increase in gun violence.
"Let's not forget...We've been here before, and just as we have done before, we will drive down the crime stats once again," Broome said at the press conference March 25.
The response — approving $35K a week in overtime for officers to do proactive patrols, going to neighborhoods that are experiencing high levels of gun violence and trying to prevent shootings before they happen.
"We deploy people or resources to that area and their presence, or enforcement action actually quiets that area down," Captain Bill Clarida said.
One of those areas — the North Sherwood Forest area — has had five fatal shootings in as many weeks. The most recent on Easter morning. On Monday, there were at least two BRPD units patrolling those streets.
An 18-year-old, who only wanted to be known as 'Dante,' lives in this area. He says he's become accustomed to the violence.
"It's Baton Rouge. It's the usual. It's the same. It's constant. It ain't really nothing different. It's not really something you should be afraid of— it's something you need to be prepared for. If you was born and raised in Baton Rouge, you gon' go through that," he said.
BRPD say they have made 830 felony arrests this year — which is down about 17 percent from this time last year. They've also taken 365 guns off the streets — also down from last year by about five percent.
BATON ROUGE - An attorney for an LSU student who was arrested along with three other people in the rape of Madison Brooks has filed a motion that claims a different LSU student caused Brooks injuries that were consistent with sexual assault.
The motion, which was filed Monday by Casen Carver's lawyer, alleges that an unidentified LSU student — who is not named in the filing — had sex with Brooks the day before she died. The motion said that the unnamed student caused sexual injuries to Brooks that were used in evidence to arrest and indict the four men on rape charges.
The motion says that the new testimony "will gut the State's theory of the case."
District Attorney Hillar Moore said the filing was "totally inappropriate and not in accordance with the applicable rules of law."
On Tuesday, the DA's office filed its own motion to seal the records. Moore said Carver's motion violates the Louisiana Code of Evidence because it discusses a victim's past sexual behavior, which the code requires to be in documents kept separate and sealed.
HAMMOND - One week after the WBRZ Investigative Unit exclusively obtained body camera video from the Hammond officer involved shooting, excessive use of force experts shared their interpretation.
"This was a tough situation for these law enforcement officers no matter what. I'm making no definitive conclusions because I don't have all of the evidence, it's a dangerous job, they were in a dangerous situation," Dr. Wayne Thompson, a criminal justice professo at McNeese State University said.
Lionell Jackson was shot during a no-knock warrant in July. Thompson, a certified use of force expert, says he watched the body camera video several times from the day Jackson was shot.
"The reaction of the officer, the physical reaction, almost immediately after the gun is fired, like a reflex, not a conscious decision, was to jerk back like it was a surprise to him that the gun went off, so it looked to me like this was an accidental shooting," Thompson said.
He says the video raised several concerns.
"We would have to believe at this point that the officer entered the room, identified the male, identified he had something in his hand, removed the gun from safe to semi, inserted a finger into the trigger guard, and pulled the trigger to make a head shot in a half a second. I can't do that, I've never seen a swat operator do it that quickly. I've never seen it before, in my experience, it exceeds in my training and experience, normal human reaction time to do that in that time," Thompson said.
Thompson also pointed out officers are usually trained to shoot a threat twice in the torso.
It's not the first time a use of excessive force expert has watched video involving officer Craig Dunn. In 2017, Dunn, alongside now Police Chief Edwin Bergeron, is seen punching a handcuffed man in the booking room.
"There should have been some sort of disciplined levied against the officers involved," attorney Michael R. D. Adams, partner with DeCuir, Clark & Adams, L.L.P, said.
Adams was the attorney hired by the city council to make a recommendation on what to do then. He says the Lionell Jackson shooting is no surprise.
"There were red flags all over the place. It was really tragic an incident like this occurred, it probably did not need to happen," Adams said.
Thompson said he has faith that the FBI will extensively investigate.
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