NEW ORLEANS — It’s been one year since the deadly mass shooting on S. Claiborne Avenue outside a crowded daiquiri shop. Three people were killed and seven others were hurt.
After a year with few leads in the case and zero arrests, many of the people near where the shooting took place are still trying to heal.
Inside Greater Pleasant Green Baptist Church it’s not hard to find people rejoicing for service. For some, church is their sanctuary. Teachings in the church help them make the right decisions.
"There's so much violence going on," said Deacon Arthur Cooper.
Cooper said last summer’s mass shooting, when two unknown gunmen opened fire on a crowd, brought back memories of his own family members who passed away because of violence.
"I had a cousin murdered about 50 years ago," Cooper said.
He said the people who were responsible for the shooting, whoever they are, likely didn't have any guidance in life.
"There's only two ways to go in that type of life and that's in the jailhouse for the rest of your life, or in the cemetery," he said.
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They "fire indiscriminately"
On July 28, 2018 at around 8:30 p.m., two people wearing hooded sweatshirts stepped in front of a large crowd at a mall that includes the Jazz Daiquiri Lounge, a cell phone store, the Chicken & Watermelon restaurant, and other retailers.
The men opened fire.
NOPD officials said the pair "appeared to fire indiscriminately" at the crowd. Then, they stood over one individual, 28-year-old Jeremiah Lee, an alleged gang member and their apparent target, and shot him multiple times before they fled the scene on foot toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
In total, 10 people were shot. Three of those people died: Besides Lee, 27-year-old Taiesha Watkins of Houston and 38-year-old Kurshaw Jackson were also killed.
Robin Jackson is the mother of Kurshaw Jackson, who died from his wounds that night.
She declined to speak to WWL-TV on camera a year after the shooting but said over the phone that the people responsible for the shooting took her son, and she will never be able to get him back.
"It just hurt me every single moment. All I want is justice for my son," Jackson said.
As law enforcement continues there investigation to find those responsible, New Orleans Crimestoppers (504-822-1111) has increased the reward for information leading to an arrest to $12,500.
"We are not asking who you are. We don’t want to know your identity. We just want information, on maybe where these guns are, because the guns were never recovered or certainly who the shooters were," said Darlene Cusanza with Crimestoppers New Orleans.
There's also another $5,000 reward from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and $10,000 from the FBI.
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Gunmen at large
According to The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate, an internal police memo said that before Lee was killed that night, he was a suspect in the December 2016 killing of Kareem Dowell.
While solid leads have been few and far between, detectives do know one of the weapons used in the Claiborne Avenue shooting was also used in the murder of local rapper BTY YoungN at a gas station in Hollygrove in 2017.
Police were able to link the gun to both killing through a national database that allows investigators to match photos of spent bullets and casings, according to The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate.
Back at the Greater Pleasant Green Baptist Church and outside the search for those hooded men, though, people just want to heal, deacon Cooper said. Some remain hopeful.
"Those tragedies are all too common in this community but it does not reflect the spirit of this community. There are good people here and that act does not embody the spirit of those who live in this neighborhood," one worshiper said.
Anyone with information on this crime should call Crimestoppers New Orleans at 504-822-1111