NEW ORLEANS — Family members of a man accused of being part of the wild shootout that wounded 12 people on Canal Street earlier this month helped authorities arrest him, court records released Thursday show.
The records also contain additional details about the purported years-long, two-parish feud which apparently led to the gun battle, indicating the feud involved prior attacks, shootings and even murder.
New Orleans police filed those documents in criminal court shortly after the suspect, 22-year-old LaBryson Polidore, was transferred to the city’s lockup from a jail in Baton Rouge, where he was booked following his arrest the night of Dec. 10.
A second man suspected of participating in the shootout, 21-year-old Stafford Starks, was arrested in St. Mary Parish earlier Dec. 10. He remained at that parish’s lockup Thursday afternoon but was booked into New Orleans' Jail Friday on eight counts of attempted second-degree murder.
The documents in Polidore’s case file show that the melee that erupted about 3:20 a.m. Dec. 1 in the 700 block of Canal Street is only the most recent instance of gunplay between two groups of people who frequented Franklin, the parish seat of St. Mary Parish, and Jeanerette, a city in Iberia Parish.
Without elaborating, New Orleans police said they were informed by officials in both those parishes that the groups in question had been fighting for years, targeting each other in “multiple assaults, aggravated batteries and murder.” When the two groups encountered each other on Canal the morning of the shooting, one man from each group began shooting at other, police said, citing the contents of surveillance footage which they recovered.
The men then ran in opposite directions, still holding their guns, while first responders arrived to help numerous wounded bystanders, police said.
Polidore fell under suspicion because, within hours of the shootout, he showed up at a hospital in Iberia Parish to be treated for a bullet wound that he claimed to have suffered in Jeanerette. The Jeanerette City Marshal’s Office said it investigated Polidore’s claim but found no evidence that he had been shot in that community, and the agency believed he was lying to cover up how he had actually been hurt.
Detectives said they later received Crimestoppers tips naming Polidore as one of the shooters on Canal Street, which was still crowded with revelers after the annual Bayou Classic football game at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome hours earlier.
Investigators arranged an interview with Polidore’s family, who viewed the surveillance video and confirmed their relative was one of the men firing a gun on the footage, the documents alleged.
New Orleans police obtained a warrant to arrest Polidore on Dec. 9. Polidore by then had left the hospital, and U.S. Marshals captured the Jeanerette resident late the following day in Baton Rouge.
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Fewer details have been available about how authorities were led to Starks. But he was arrested in Franklin while authorities searched his home.
The two guns seen in the surveillance video which allegedly implicated Polidore had not been recovered at the time his arrest warrant was signed.
Polidore and Starks each face multiple counts of attempted murder — 10 for the former and eight for the latter. Each attempted murder count could carry a sentence of up to 50 years in prison.
The pair are also accused of one count each of illegally discharging a weapon and obstructing justice.
Starks is being held without bail for now. Orleans Parish Magistrate Court Commissioner Jonathan Friedman set Polidore’s bail Thursday afternoon at $1.06 million.
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