BATON ROUGE — Marcus Washington was briefly considered a “person of interest” in the mass shooting at the Mall of Louisiana. That interest later led to a drug arrest in Livingston Parish unrelated to the shooting. Washington is currently in the Livingston Parish Detention Center, where he is held without bond.
Now, the District Attorney’s Office is seeking to revoke his bond from a February arrest in which he was accused of bringing a gun to Istrouma High School.
February gun arrest
In the February case, a gun discharged inside his backpack during class. Investigators say he then hid the weapon in a bathroom before police arrived. Security video showed him entering the bathroom, and officers later found the gun partially hidden by a ceiling panel, according to court records.
Washington told police he accidentally grabbed the wrong backpack and did not intend to bring the gun to school, records show.
He was booked on weapons charges and released after posting a $50,000 bond. As part of his release conditions, he was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor and was restricted to his home, school, church, work, and medical appointments.
At a hearing on April 21, the conditions changed taking Washington off of GPS monitoring & switching him to cell phone-based tracking.
Mall of Louisiana confusion
Shortly after the April 23 shooting at the Mall of Louisiana, police “received information from an individual indicating that multiple subjects who are associates or possible relatives of Marcus Washington were known to have been present at the Mall of Louisiana during the shooting,” according to a motion to revoke his bond.
Investigators then contacted Magnolia Monitoring less than two hours after the shooting to verify Washington’s whereabouts, the motion states.
Philip Leonard with Magnolia Monitoring told police that at 12:28 p.m., Washington was on Highway 16 in Denham Springs, less than two miles from his home on Rustic Lane. Leonard said Washington had “been in Greenwell Springs all day” and that the last confirmed contact with his phone was the day before, according to the motion.
Leonard also stated Washington “turned his services off around 12:30 hours.”
After receiving that information, at the request of BRPD, Livingston Parish sheriff’s deputies went to Washington’s home. He was later stopped in traffic after leaving the home. Deputies said he had marijuana, a gun, and prescription pain pills at the time of the stop.
Washington was booked into the Livingston Parish jail.
Motion to revoke bond
The motion to revoke his bond in East Baton Rouge Parish cites the firearm and drugs as violations of his bond conditions, along with the fact that he was not at home.
Washington told investigators he was not at the mall during the shooting and had no involvement. A cell phone seized during the Livingston Parish stop was analyzed.
“Preliminary analysis indicates that this particular device was not in the vicinity of the Mall of Louisiana at the time of the shooting,” the motion states, adding that the investigation is ongoing.
“Currently, the defendant’s whereabouts at the time of the mall shooting are under investigation. However, Marcus Washington clearly committed other felony offenses in Livingston Parish and violated his bond conditions in East Baton Rouge Parish,” the motion says.
A hearing on the bond revocation is set for May 5, according to court records. Washington is currently in the Livingston Parish Detention Center, being held without bond.
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