The shirtless body of a young man lay on a sidewalk, a woman screamed in anguish and residents braved the midday sun to watch from porches and behind the police tape as officers swarmed a small grocery store.
A mother who was walking with her two young sons when they found a crime scene blocking their path stopped, pointing at the body. Addressing the boys, aged 10 and 11, she implored them to avoid situations that could put them at the same risk as the young man whose body was lying on the concrete.
“You all need to watch this,” said the woman, who later identified herself only as Chelsea, saying she feared retaliation if she gave her full name. “Think about what his mum is going through. She doesn’t deserve this.”
One of the boys put his hands on his head. The other covered his mouth.
Bystanders react as Baton Rouge police investigate a shooting at Terrace Grocery at the corner of S. 15th Street and Terrace Avenue on Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
The scene took place late Monday morning outside Terrace Grocery, a small store a few blocks west of Perkins Road – the site of the last fatal shooting in Baton Rouge that occurred amid of a gradual increase in homicides in the city in recent weeks.
The police did not release the identity of the victim.
After a record year of violence in 2021, murders have plummeted in East Baton Rouge this year, according to a database maintained by The Advocate, which tracks intentional and wrongful killings under FBI crime reporting rules. There have been 84 murders in the parish town in 2022 as of October 10, compared to 81 on the same date in 2020 and 111 last year.
A Baton Rouge police officer takes a photo of evidence at the scene of a shooting outside Terrane Grocery at the corner of S. 15th Street and Terrace Avenue Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
But the past few weeks have seen at least a modest increase in violence. Twelve people have been killed in the parish town since September 8, according to the newspaper’s records, compared to seven in the previous four weeks. Data is preliminary and subject to change if certain killings are later deemed justified, or vice versa.
The scene where police investigated Monday’s shooting spanned the entire block between South 15th Street and Julia Street, and bystanders watched, many of them wiping sweat from their eyes and fanning their face to get relief from the heat. Officers moved along the block taking photos of several vehicles.
A Baton Rouge police officer takes a photo of evidence at the scene of a shooting outside Terrace Grocery at the corner of S. 15th Street and Terrace Avenue Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
A woman who bystanders identified as the victim’s grandmother sobbed and had to be helped to stand. “They killed my baby,” she said between breaths.
The murder was the latest in a string of fatal shootings in the area wedged between Highland Road and Dalrymple Drive, a part of the town mired in poverty and divestment.
The neighborhood is one of several “micro-zones” in the city that have seen disproportionately high rates of violent crime in recent months, Baton Rouge Police Chief Murphy Paul said in September. Paul told residents of those neighborhoods that they should expect a heavy law enforcement presence in the coming weeks.
Family helps transport another relative as Baton Rouge police remove the body of a gunshot victim next to Terrace Grocery at the corner of S. 15th Street and Terrace Avenue Monday, Oct. 10, 2022 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana .
Several killings have taken place recently within the same “micro-zone” where Monday’s shooting occurred.
A 54-year-old man killed in June on Thomas Delpit Drive and a 66-year-old man gunned down the following month on Tennessee Avenue were among the victims of the violence in the area.
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