Guy McEwen, the witness who testified in the high profile murder trial of Dinneral Shavers and was gunned down in Uptown a week later, was not killed because of his testimony, according to the New Orleans Police Department.   

Guy McEwen leaving the courthouse after testifying in the Dinneral Shavers murder trial.

“This is exactly what we feared would happened,” Ken Foster of Silence Is Violence said.

"This is an unfortunate situation that David Bonds is walking the street because he truly should be doing life in prison," NOPD Superintendent Warren Riley said.  But even with that sentiment, NOPD investigators don’t believe McEwen died for testifying in the Dinneral Shavers trial.

"We believe that the young man was engaged in an incident that occurred a week ago and as a result of that incident,” NOPD Deputy Chief Marlon Defillo said, “the events occurred yesterday. I can't go into specifics because we're still validating that information."

In addition to a motive, police believe they’ve developed a suspect in McEwen’s murder.

“We've reached out to every witness [in the Shaver's case], we've contacted every witness who’s on the Bonds' case to ensure them that we are there for them if they need our assistance in any way,” Riley said.

The District Attorney’s office wouldn’t comment whether they were protecting or helping the other witnesses from the Shavers murder trail.

The same type of neighborhood feud that led to the Shavers killing may have also been the reason McEwen was killed.

“I can tell you that there is certainly is neighborhood feuding that is a part of this,” Riley said. “That continues, and it continues to be something that we're focused on targeting and stamped out, but it has continued since the trial, yes.”

This theme of neighborhood beefs and feuds resulting in murder is all too common, according the FBI.

“We really don't have gangs here,” FBI Special Agent In Charge Jim Bernazzani said. “It's very horizontal in nature. It's based upon neighborhood and family linkages. Whoever has the drugs that day is the kingpin.”

“We all need to take some sort of responsibility to stop this kind of thing,” Foster said. “To stop this from being a world that our teen agers think is normal.”