BATON ROUGE — It was April 17, 2024 when multiple shots rang out in broad daylight, but had one employee not gotten up for a bathroom break just seconds before the shooting, she may not be here to tell her story.
“I have never felt fear like that in my entire life,” Sarah Parsons told UWK.
Sarah Parsons works at the Louisiana Pond Management on Town South Lane near Staring Lane. On April 17, 2024, around Noon, roughly 20 rounds went off in a brief shootout in front of the building. He said Sarah Parsons was the lone employee in the office at that time.
She says she had just gotten off the phone and began walking to the bathroom when she heard the gunshots.
“I just started hearing back-to-back, back-to-back shots going off,” she recalled. “I ran in the hall, and I dove into the bathroom, basically hugging the bottom of the toilet. I put my hands over my head and just started praying. All I could think about at that moment was my husband and my kid going through life without me. I could hear the bullets hitting our building.”
Sarah says she spoke with her husband as she tried to calm herself. After that, she called her manager and the business owner, Ken Rust, who alerted the police.
“They hit our building three different times. Two of the projectiles came through the side of the building,” said Rust. “She was just getting up to kind of leave the room and go to the center part of the office and she dove on the floor in the bathroom because she could hear the gunshots hitting the building.”
“If the shooters would have been a fraction off to the left, they would have hit straight through my window and they would have hit me,” she said. “I think that’s probably the most scariest reality of my life.”
There are bullet holes in the wall near where Sarah’s head usually is when she sits at her desk. She says one bullet would have hit her in the head and one in the stomach area.
One person was injured in the shooting on Lake Calais Ct. and transported to a hospital but not further details have been released into the shooting.
Meanwhile, Parsons returned to the office for work on Monday after working remotely a week after the shooting. However, she said it is going to take time before she is completely comfortable again at work.
“Those bullets hit within two feet of where this lady sits. She likes the sunshine, so she sits in front of the window at the front of the office. I mean, it was just within two feet. If it would have come through that window, it would’ve killed her,” said Rust.
Anyone with information on this shooting or any crimes in the parish is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 344-STOP.
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