Dad: Teen killed in drive-by had never been in trouble

NEW ORLEANS – The father of an 18-year-old killed in a drive-by shooting outside a New Orleans school says his son just wanted to see a basketball game at the school where he’d graduated two years ago.

Lawrence Williams IV was in a culinary catering program at Tulane University and planned to join the Army Reserves, Lawrence Williams Jr. said Wednesday.

“Seventy per cent of his life had been in the ministry. Now he’s gone,” Williams told Mayor Mitch Landrieu outside Edna Karr High School, near the spot where his son and a friend were shot in the car his son had driven to the school in the west bank neighbourhood called Algiers.

The second victim’s identity has not been confirmed, the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office said in an email. Police don’t have a motive or suspects in the shooting, Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said Wednesday afternoon.

They were unable to get into the gymnasium, which school officials said was at capacity with at least 600 people cheering a close game. The young men were in the car when a silver sedan drove by. Both men had multiple bullet wounds, police said in a news release.

Harrison, Landrieu, school officials and ministers held a news conference after meeting with students at Karr, a college prep school where a programmable sign bragged “Top open admission school in Orleans and Jefferson parishes. Second to none.”

The officials spoke mostly about the students’ reactions: worry that people would judge the school by an unrelated shooting, and that money is going into prisons instead of schools and Louisiana’s college scholarship program. One after another, they urged reporters to cover the school’s academic awards assembly Thursday.

The shooting was less than a mile from the intersection where pizza delivery driver Michael County was killed Jan. 23. Both shootings were in good neighbourhoods, making them hard to predict or prevent, said district Commander Ceasar C. Ruffin.

“The wife of the pizza delivery man is a teacher at this school, and both of his children go to this school,” Landrieu noted. County’s funeral was Wednesday, Orleans Parish School Board member Leslie Ellison said after the news conference.

Local media reported the school’s gymnasium was at capacity and was locked down for more than an hour Tuesday night after the shooting.

“The kids were so engaged in the game they had no idea what was going on outside,” Ellison said.

Williams, holding a little girl, went up to speak with Landrieu after the news conference.

“He was an innocent 18-year-old,” Williams said. “This is a 7-year-old who will never see her big brother again.”

He didn’t give the girl’s name, but continued to hold her while he spoke briefly with reporters.

“He was loving. He was caring. He has never even jay-walked,” Williams said.

Like the public officials, he asked anyone who knows anything about the shooting to tell authorities.

“I waited for him this morning to come home,” he said, his voice breaking. “He will not come in no more.”