BATON ROUGE — When a woman left her house to take her daughters to gymnastics on Wednesday afternoon, she never thought they would witness a crime.
“It’s just, it’s scary. It really is,” she said. “You don’t think you’re going to see that at 3:45, in the afternoon, you know?”
According to Baton Rouge Police, the shooting happened Wednesday afternoon in the 800 block of Staring Lane. Investigators say the victim was riding an electric scooter when a Jamal McKenzie pushed him off, stole it, and tried to leave. The victim got back up and confronted McKenzie, leading to a fight.
That’s when police say McKenzie pulled a gun and fired between three to nine shots, grazing the victim on the left side of his head and causing a brain bleed.
Witnesses followed McKenzie, who rode the scooter to Stoney Creek Avenue. Police later found him with a gun that had missing rounds matching shell casings recovered at the scene.
McKenzie was arrested and charged with armed robbery, attempted first-degree murder, and illegal use of a firearm.
The mother, whose name UWK is not releasing, said there were two males involved in the shooting. “It was so surreal. I saw, before my eyes, this guy running with a sack or a bag of something,” she recalled. “And I could tell he was running from something. Then the next thing I know, I see the other guy come from around the corner.”
“He came up around the corner all of a sudden and he raised the gun. I realized what was going on, and the next thing I know, shots were fired,” she said. “I could see the smoke coming out of the gun.”
She called 911, and said by the time she got off the phone with them someone else had already called. “There were a lot of cars on the street. I’d be surprised the bullet didn’t hit a car.”
The mother is no stranger to seeing tragedy first hand. “I worked in the OR for many years, and we saw gunshot wounds. We had car accident victims,” she said. “But to see two people shoot at each other right there with your kids in the car. It was just crazy.”
One of the scariest things about the shooting for her was that her two daughters were in the back seat. “My kids were like, ‘Mommy. What just happened?’ I said, Those two men were just shooting at each other,’ because they heard it too. ‘That was that sound,’ I said,” she said.
“I emailed their school counselors and told them what happened, and they talked to them today. They seemed to be fine this morning, and they seemed to be fine last night. They were shaken up when it happened, though, because they were scared,” she said.
She said there appears to be an increase in crime in the area where the shooting happened. “I see it on the neighborhood apps. People are always posting, ‘Hey, do you know this guy?’ Or, ‘Do you have any more footage of this?’ Things will happen in middle of the night, and then every now and then I’ll see something about a shooting on the other side of Staring,” she said.
Baton Rouge Police are investigating the shooting. At this time, no details were readily available. Anyone with information on this shooting or any crime can call Crime Stoppers anonymously.
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