According to the New Orleans Police Department (“NOPD”), one person was killed and another two were injured outside of Xavier University’s convocation center Tuesday, following a New Orleans high school graduation ceremony. Shots were fired shortly before noon, when the parking lot was full graduating students from Morris Jeff Community School, and their families. The victim of the shooting died at a hospital, and was a grandmother of one of the graduates.
NOPD deputy superintendent Christopher Goodly said during a press conference that the two injured, both men, were taken to the hospital by New Orleans EMS with non life-threatening injuries. A fight between two women broke out in the parking lot shortly after the ceremony ended, but police did not say whether either of the women involved in the altercation was the shooter. Three people were taken in for questioning, but no arrests have been made, Goodly said. Investigators also confiscated more than one weapon.
Xavier University’s convocation center hosts multiple high school graduation ceremonies each spring. This is not the first graduation ceremony to turn violent this season. A large fight broke out inside Xavier University’s convocation center on May 20 shortly after students from G.W. Carver High School graduated. Governor John Bel Edwards addressed both high school graduation shootings in a statement Tuesday: “We must do more to ensure that those who pose an unacceptable risk of harm to others aren’t able to acquire or keep firearms.” Edwards said, adding in light of recent gun violence in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, “gun safety discussions and action involving expanded background checks and red flag laws are very much in order.”
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