By Janet McConnaughey
Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — An off-duty police officer and a woman he was helping were shot and killed Friday in a New Orleans suburb, and authorities were searching for a man who had been involved with the woman, officials said.
Authorities shut the Mississippi River bridge from New Orleans’ east bank to its west bank to conduct the search, causing traffic to back up for miles, because a man was standing on a girder outside and below the roadway. Helicopters circled the area, and police cars swarmed.
Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the Jefferson Parish sheriff, said he could not confirm a report on WVUE-TV (http://bit.ly/2jIhwL4 ) that the man was Sylvester Holt, 32. Holt was released from jail Jan. 7 and is wanted for questioning in the deaths of Westwego Officer Michael Louviere, 26, and Simone Veal, 32, of Marrero.
Assistant Gretna Police Chief Anthony Christiana told The New Orleans Advocate that he’d been told the incident on the bridge might be related to the double shooting.
Louviere lived in neighboring Marrero, online records showed. He was heading home when he was shot, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told local media. Louviere was married and had a 1-year-old son and a 4-year-old daughter, Fortunato said. He said Louviere’s brother is a New Orleans police officer.
Normand said dozens of officers from multiple agencies were searching for Holt, who had been romantically involved with Veal. Several women had taken out protective orders against him, the sheriff said.
He was released from jail Jan. 7 after prosecutors said “lack of witness participation” kept them from bringing an aggravated rape charge against him, Fortunato said.
The shooting occurred outside Visitation of Our Lady School, across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
Louviere was on his way home after work when he stopped at the scene of a car crash to offer help, Westwego Police Chief Dwayne Munch told WWL-TV.
He was shot in the back of the head, Normand told the station.
Archdiocese of New Orleans spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey McDonald says the shooting happened outside Visitation of Our Lady School, but referred all questions, including whether Veal was a school employee, to the sheriff’s office.
The school teaches pre-kindergarten through seventh grade students.
A message on its Facebook page said an incident Friday morning disrupted the school day, and children could be dropped off but all absences would be excused. It also said that a sixth-grade field trip had been canceled and all tests, quizzes and assignments would be postponed.
Abdallah Aballah, who works at a nearby Brother’s Food Mart gas station, said a woman ran in about 6:30 a.m. Friday screaming for someone to call 911.
He said he and some customers made calls. Aballah says he heard two shots, and customers ran outside.
A sharp increase last year in the number of police officers killed in the line of duty was marked by a pair of deadly ambushes in Louisiana and Texas.
On July 7, a sniper in Dallas killed five law enforcement officers and wounded nine others at the end of what had been a peaceful rally against police brutality. Less than two weeks later, a lone gunman shot and killed three law enforcement officers and wounded three others in an attack outside a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, convenience store.
More recently, authorities arrested a man accused of fatally shooting an Orlando, Florida, police officer outside a Wal-Mart on Jan. 9.