NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans police are investigating another shooting involving a child on the streets of the city. This time it was two-year-old Denali Crawford in the Lower Ninth Ward.
“Leave these kids and families alone because we have nothing to do with this,” the boy’s grandmother Lynn Nelson said.
Tuesday night around 8:30, someone opened fire outside a home in the 1300 block of Lizardi Street. Crawford was hit in the leg in what his grandparents described as a barrage of about 8 gunshots.
Nelson said Denali is a loveable baby who smiles, grins, and just loves to laugh, clown, and joke.
“Please, you all have to stop,” she said. “These are kids that are being involved now. It’s hurting everybody.”
The child’s grandfather, Amos Crawford, said little Denali was sitting on his mother’s lap as she was talking with a friend inside a parked car in front of their home.
Then, he says, someone fired shots in their direction.
“When she finally opened the door, her and my grandson, they ran to the porch and that’s when we realized he was hit in the leg,” Crawford said.
Crawford added it appears the bullets were meant for his daughter’s friend.
“She was sitting with the guy that she knows, her friend. From what he said, it was somebody that he didn’t know that was shooting at him. We don’t know if they followed him there.”
Crawford also said the shooter sped away in a car.
Patricia Santiago lives down the street.
“I’m very concerned because we’ve got children around here and I’m a mother and a grandmother and I have kids that live around here,” Santiago said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
The little boy’s family and their neighbors say it’s time to put the guns down, and differences aside.
“We’ve got to stay prayed up,” Santiago said. “It’s just too much going on in the city.”
“You can’t even go to your car and you’re getting carjacked,” Nelson said. “You can’t walk to the store. Can’t bring your kids to school because it’s happening at schools all over on your job. What are we supposed to do?”
The grandparents said Denali was doing much better and was expected to be released from the hospital soon. It appears the bullet only grazed his leg.
“Shooting people for words passed, anger or fights or whatever, it doesn’t change anything,” Crawford said. All you’re doing is repeating the cycle (of violence).
The NOPD is investigating the crime as an aggravated battery by shooting.
If you have any information, you are urged to call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.