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Deadly shootout involving teens marks latest violence at troubled Tigerland apartment
Update: Two suspects, ages 18 and 17, have been arrested in the killing. Read the latest here: https://www.wbrz.com/news/juvenile-among-2-arrested-in-tigerland-shootout-that-killed-teen
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BATON ROUGE - Pelumi Folojimi has lived at the Tiger Plaza apartments for two years. On Sunday, he came home to something peculiar: white dust on his couch.
"I saw this dust and I see this broken thing. I was wondering what happened, then I open my [curtain]. It was strange, and then I saw this thing was broken, I was wondering what happened and then I saw this."
He didn't know how it happened, but he knew what it was.
"I suspected bullets," said Folojimi, pointing to a single bullet-sized hole in the front window of his second-story apartment.
That same day, a shootout between two teens in the front of the complex resulted in the death of 17-year-old Beyond Wright. It happened in broad daylight, and it's far from the first time something like that happened there.
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"Sometimes there are undeniable cases of gun violence in the environment," Folojimi said.
Last October, after several shootings, District Attorney Hillar Moore decided to take action.
He wrote a letter listing a litany of reasons why the property should be declared a nuisance, including several murders, and pressed forward with an abatement. But the issue is complex.
"It's kind of difficult for us to go in and say we're going to shut your entire place down, because you displace 300 families when it should just be a few," Moore said.
Since then, the complex has taken several measures to improve safety but with seemingly little to no avail.
"They did take steps to improve the property by adding cameras and other security measures that we agreed on, but now we see that they're still continuing shootings and calls for service."
Even with the increased cameras, Sunday's deadly shooting wasn't recorded.
Despite it all, Nigerian native Folojimi says he's not moving out anytime soon.
"There are some occurrences of gun violence, but I feel safe. I don't feel threatened, but I feel cautioned."
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