Six killed in new round of shootings in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS – Three brothers and a friend were killed in a neighborhood not far from the French Quarter, and two other people were gunned down in separate incidents hours later, authorities said Saturday.

Police found a 31-year-old man lying in the middle of a Central City street with multiple gunshot wounds, officer Garry Flot said late Saturday. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, the sixth slaying in the city in 24 hours.

The shootings were the latest round of killings as the city struggles to rein in violence that has shadowed the recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

In mid-June, Gov. Kathleen Blanco sent the Louisiana National Guard and state police to New Orleans to help fight crime there after five teenagers were shot to death in a single attack.

Such sensational murders have a crippling effect on the city’s struggle to rebuild its tourism industry and persuade evacuees to return, said New Orleans City Councilman James Carter, who heads the council’s committee on crime.

“Unfortunately, it’s not a new reputation,” he said. “People go back to those old days when we had so many murders. We’re nowhere near that, but we have to make sure we don’t get back there.”

The latest shootings did not happen in the high-crime areas police have been targeting in their drive to stamp out the violence, police Superintendent Warren Riley said Saturday.

Detectives were uncertain about the motive and were still looking for the assailants Saturday.

The three brothers – 16-year-old twins and a 21-year-old – were killed late Friday in the Treme neighborhood, as was their 39-year-old friend, Riley said. They were sitting on the porch of an abandoned house when two men walked by, then turned and started blasting, Riley said.

The fifth shooting happened early Saturday in the Gentilly neighborhood, an area that was severely flooded. Police said they found a man dead in a street after receiving reports that shots had been fired.