A drive-by shooting in New Orleans killed a man and a teen girl and left five people injured.
According to a New Orleans police spokesman, a woman and two children, aged 2 and 4, are in critical condition and a 13-year-old girl and a 37-year-old woman are recovering and stable after being shot in the Lower 9th Ward, at around 8 p.m. Sunday.
Officer Frank Robertson said that all the victims were in front of a house when a car full of people, probably gang members, drove up, opened fire and fled the scene, reports the Associated Press. No details about the shooting or descriptions of the suspects have been released.
The Lower Ninth, which is located less than 8km from the tourist hub of the French Quarter, was badly struck during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The location never fully recovered and since then has become a hub of crime and has witnessed scores of felonies.
In a separate case of violence, a 20-year-old man shot and injured a friend Sunday morning inside a hotel room at the edge of the French Quarter. He shot himself following a three-hour standoff with the police, authorities said, reports Fox News.
The incident happened in a 17th-floor room at The Westin Hotel on Canal Street, where four friends from the Lafayette area planned came to stay for the weekend, Robertson said in a news release. Three of them came in from partying in the Quarter, waking the fourth at about 5 a.m., Robertson said. He said the man went back to sleep only to be awakened by a cry for help, "Put the gun down." The 20-year-old, looking "dazed and confused under the influence of some unknown substance," was pointing a gun at the 24-year-old friend, he said. Despite repeated pleas, the 20-year-old man shot him in the chest at around 6:30 a.m.
