Pretty Nice Environment
Birds chirp, gentle cool breezes blow, green mountain ridges everywhere I glance.

The first time I came out here, last August, I brought with me a New Orleans Times Picayune photo and stashed it in the kitchen cabinet right over there in front of me. It showed the muzzle flare from a machine gun being fired at someone off camera at an NO area carwash, the scene caught on the carwash's survelliance camera.

The camera showed two guys pretty clearly, which aided the police in quick identification and subsequent arrest. As it turns out the shooters were mistaken as to the identity of the people they were shooting at and besides that, no one was killed. At trial last month prosecutors were not able to find any actual human beings to back up the id made by the camera and so the judge let the two guys on camera and a third guy go home.

The one guy, 19-year-old Antoine Johnson--"A man now considered the city's most wanted suspect is accused of shooting at a 13-year-old boy late Tuesday before slipping back into the obscurity that has shielded him since he allegedly killed a man and wounded a teenage girl two days after his release from jail last month." (tara young, notp).

Police note that gun violence has increased dramatically in the area surrounding Johnson's home and hideouts (in the BW Cooper) since his release.

A woman I like but not like that has asked me if she could ask me over for a home-cooked meal sometime and this she was asking me while I sampled again the fare at an area eatery, near to which she was doing her laundry, and slipping into for drinks. I said sure, even though in our brief conversation there was not even one exchange which implied the mildest simpatico between us, the most glaring example of which is that she almost had me wanting to defend Dick Cheney just for the mean-spirited sake of it. (The new bartender was playing Incubus on the sound system and I, ever polite, said, no, you don't need to turn it down.) Not that it is without precedent but it has been awhile since I have felt so totally un-got. Sigh.

I should make clear though, that this is a pretty nice environment in which to be alone.
- jimlouis 6-03-2004 5:23 pm

"Since his release from jail, police said he has killed one man, injured a 14-old-girl and shot at two other juveniles.

In the latest shooting, police said Johnson shot at a 13-year-old boy and another juvenile near the intersection of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and South Johnson Street late Tuesday. No injuries were reported.

The $5,000 reward will be given to anyone who can provide information that leads to the arrest and indictment of Johnson.

"No one asks for your name, there is no caller ID and you do not have to testify to receive the cash reward," said Darlene Cusanza, executive director of Crimestoppers.

Police ask anyone with information to call Crimestoppers at 822-1111."
- jimlouis 6-05-2004 5:02 am [add a comment]





add a comment to this page:

Your post will be captioned "posted by anonymous,"
or you may enter a guest username below:


Line breaks work. HTML tags will be stripped.