A 14 year old boy was shot in the head by a homeowner in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans at 2 am this past Friday. The boy is in critical condition and if he survives will likely suffer from paralysis among other complications. The 14 year old boy, Marshall Coulter, was seen on neighbor’s security video riding his bicycle multiple times around the block several hours apart. Although as a juvenile, any prior criminal record is not available under public record laws, his family admits that he has been subject to multiple prior burglary arrests. At 2 am the 14 year old is captured on video climbing over a high fence to enter the driveway. The shooter is Merritt Landry, a 33 old Caucasian employee of the City of New Orleans with a pregnant wife and young child who were all in the house with him when the incident happened. Landry apparently was alerted by his barking dog, went out into the driveway where he found the boy and fired one shot, from a distance believed to be about 30 feet, the distance between the found shell casing and the first drops of blood. The police did not hesitate in arresting the shooter who was released on a property bond. He has been charged with 2nd degree attempted murder. While the comparisons to the George Zimmerman case were immediate, there are some substantial differences between the two cases as well as some similarities that are notable. (More below)
The Marigny neighborhood borders the French Quarter and is a historic neighborhood that is substantially gay in character and has become one of the premier residential neighborhoods in the city with property values skyrocketing since 2005. While young families do reside in the neighborhood, they are relatively rare. Within just a few blocks of the shooting are several gay bars. Notable gay bashing incidents have occurred and random late night street crime is not as rare as you would think. It’s a small historic area approximately 7x12 city blocks in size.
There have been several spectacularly notable crimes of severe violence within a block or two of this incident in the post Katrina years including a home invasion and murder of beloved progressive children’s filmmaker Helen Hill and more recently an extremely violent gay bashing attack with multiple perpetrators which was widely viewed on video. With the exception of a few section 8 housing units, there are very few African Americans who actually reside in the neighborhood itself although there are large traditional African American neighborhoods within walking distance of the location. It would be safe to say that an African American teenager is immediately suspect in this neighborhood as someone who doesn’t belong and is probably up to no good.
The police maintain that Landry was never actually threatened by the presence of Coulter on his property and handled it like a common second degree attempted murder case. I don’t know how they made this determination, but that is where we stand officially.
The fact that this teenager was captured scoping out the neighborhood multiple times on video and was subsequently caught climbing over the fence in an apparent attempted burglary at 2 am does not make for a very sympathetic victim. Louisiana does have both pre-existing castle laws as well as more recently enacted stand your ground laws. The fact that this happened in a small, enclosed space on the grounds of the Landry’s home where his pregnant wife and young daughter were sleeping makes the shooter seem even more sympathetic. There have been local examples in the past few years of homeowners shooting car burglars under less understandable circumstances, before the stand your ground laws were enacted. The justice system went though the motions, but none of the shooters were convicted.
The most likely scenario for this case will be to have the DA submit the case to a grand jury. This is the favorite tactic of the DA whenever faced with a political, hot potato of a case. There is a saying that a grand jury in Louisiana will indict a ham sandwich if given the opportunity, but in these kinds of cases they often return what is called a “no true bill” and the case is not prosecuted. Even if somehow this case winds up with a trial, Orleans Parish juries typically are hard to get convictions out of. The racial dynamics of this case have been remarkably subdued and public comments from the local African American community do not seem very sympathetic to the 14 year old boy. While his prior burglary arrests are not submittable as evidence in court, it has had a profound effect on public opinion. In fact there have been calls to prosecute the boy’s parents for their child’s curfew violations which will never happen. Most people in New Orleans, an overwhelmingly Democratic city, seem to think that even if the boy did not deserve what happened to him, he has nobody to blame but himself. There is very little public outcry demanding prosecution.
Of course, there may be important facts that haven’t been revealed yet and the public’s perception of this incident may change if the facts change. Perhaps video will show Landry lying in wait for the opportune moment to leap out and shoot an unsuspecting Coulter. Perhaps Coulter raised his hands in surrender and was then shot. It’s not really responsible for me to speculate like this, but the facts may change. I abhor gun violence which threatens to damage this city in a way no hurricane could possibly do. I do not advocate gunning someone down in the street because their mere existence is perceived as a potential threat, nor should vigilantism be tolerated. However if it turns out that the facts of this case do not substantially change, many locals, progressives or not, would be very troubled by a second degree attempted (or worse) murder conviction under the circumstances. You can find links to local news stories on this case here:
http://www.wwltv.com/...
http://www.nola.com/...