NEW ORLEANS — New cell phone video from a witness who was standing at the intersection of Royal and St. Phillip Streets Friday shows the aftermath of a shooting that left two officers injured, one of them seriously.
“I saw the driver’s side window basically burst and then I realized what was going on,” said Nicholas Dumas who recorded the video on his cell phone.
Dumas can even be seen in surveillance video standing right on the corner when the shooting happened.
“They were just cruising through and the suspect just seemed like he wanted to get his shots off and then run,” said Dumas.
The suspect is 44-year-old Donnell Hassell from Georgia. Police say he’s a 20-year military veteran who, without any warning or interaction with those officers opened fire from the back of a pedicab. Surveillance video shows the ped-cab driver run into a store and then talk about what happened on the cell phone video.
“He got on at Lafitte’s and then said Royal Sonesta. I was biking along and then I just heard something click behind me he started firing,” said the pedicab driver, who was not identified in the video but wearing a Bike Taxi Unlimited shirt.
Police say as many as 12 shell casing were found here at the scene, all of them fired directly at the police unit and all of them matching the type of gun found, registered to Hassell.
Police chief Shaun Ferguson calls it a cowardly act.
“They were ambushed by this coward at that intersection,” said Ferguson.
Officer Trevor Abney was shot in the face and is still recovering in the hospital with concern as to whether he’ll regain vision in his left eye.
“I saw him get out of the vehicle. He kind of feel and rolled a little bit and then stumbled and went towards the back of the vehicle,” said Dumas.
The other officer, Brooke Duncan, suffered minor injuries.
“This brings to the reality of what we signed up for, the danger,” said Ferguson.
At the scene, Dumas says he started recording to help.
“I felt helpless in regard to the officer, the situation and that part really sucked,” said Dumas.
Hassell is now charged with two counts of attempted murder of a police officer, as police are still trying to figure out why he started shooting in the first place.
More Stories:
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.
