A custody swap turned deadly Sunday when a man who was picking up his child in the Costco parking lot shot the mother’s new boyfriend, according to multiple senior law enforcement sources.
Police took the shooter into custody for questioning but hadn’t booked him with a crime as of Monday. Officers found two guns at the scene and were trying to determine whether the father acted in self-defense. They were also working to recover video from the store’s security system and a dashboard camera in the victim’s car to analyze exactly what happened, the sources said.
The tragic confrontation outside the popular warehouse club off South Carrollton Avenue occurred when a woman went to the store’s parking lot to meet her child’s father about 7 p.m. Sunday, one of the sources said. The pair were romantically estranged, and the mother arrived at the Costco parking lot to drop off her child after the store had closed, one of the sources said. With her was her new boyfriend and another minor.
An argument erupted between the men, and the woman’s ex-boyfriend shot her new partner at least once in front of both children, the sources said.
First responders pronounced the wounded man dead at the scene. Police have described him as a 44-year-old man but have not identified the victim or the shooter.
Meanwhile, the father waited for police to arrive and gave officers his pistol, which was one of two guns found at the scene, the sources said. Detectives took him to police headquarters for an interrogation. By Monday, he had been allowed to leave.
Police suspect the slain man possessed the second weapon during the confrontation but were working to confirm that, the sources said.
Charges depend on whether authorities determine the killing meets Louisiana’s definition of justifiable homicide.
People in Louisiana can kill without being prosecuted if they prove they reasonably feared they were facing “imminent danger of losing (their) lives or receiving great bodily harm.” There is no duty to retreat if the person claiming self-defense is in a place where they have the right to be present.
Authorities in New Orleans for years have said public arguments that escalate into gunfire are one of the main reasons the city’s homicide rate is consistently high each year.
The Costco shooting was one of at least two killings in New Orleans overnight. In the other, one man was killed, and a second man was wounded during a shooting reported in the 7900 block of Chef Menteur Highway at about 1:20 a.m. Monday.
Police said one of the victims rammed a car into the vehicle of another person with whom he was arguing. Someone in the struck vehicle began firing a gun, killing one of the victims and critically wounding the other, police said.
Authorities haven’t publicly named anyone in that case.
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