Fake Video Girl Shoots Baby Daddy in Front of Son

Nine-year-old Devante Bryant was hanging out on the stoop of his 7th Ward home when a gunman quietly skulked up the side of the green, weatherboard house.

The attacker rounded North Villere Street onto Pauger Street, raised his gun and started spraying bullets. The fourth grader — seated closest to the shooter — was gunned down immediately, before he even had a chance to run. There were four others. A 15-year-old girl made it off the steps, where she was struck by a bullet and fell face down on the sidewalk. A teen boy was also shot but appeared to crawl down an alley and take cover.

Two more ran down the block, and the shooter fled.

It happened in an instant. Then, just 24 hours later, roughly a hundred people swarmed the exact spot to comfort grieving relatives and friends, as New Orleans police scoured the city for suspects in a shooting whose harrowing details were captured on a nearby, private surveillance camera.

Devante, a joyful boy who loved to dance and play sports, was supposed to celebrate his 10th birthday on July 31. Now, his father said, he will bury him that day.

"They killed my baby," Donald Bryant wailed outside the family home. "How am I supposed to protect my children if everybody's just trying to kill everything?"

Devante's grandmother, Monica Walker, said all the family wants now is "justice."

Donald Bryant, left, father of Devante Bryant, 9, who was shot and killed Monday is over come with emotion as a friend places a Teddy bear at the murder scene on Pauger Street in New Orleans, La. Tuesday, July 14, 2020. (Photo by David Grunfeld, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

STAFF PHOTO BY DAVID GRUNFELD

Police had yet to announce any arrests in the triple shooting as a candlelight memorial for Devante got underway late Tuesday. A brass band attempted to pierce the grief as mourners wept and prayed. They stopped to remember Devante, nicknamed "D-Man," at a memorial that included baloons, poster boards blanketed with pictures, stuffed animals and basketballs.

But a law enforcement source said investigators had made progress toward identifying suspects after tracking down and impounding a white Jeep that matched the description of the getaway car used in the fatal shooting.

Mourners gather at a memorial on the 2100 block of Pauger Street for 9-year-old Davonte Bryant who was killed the day before along with two other juveniles in a shooting in New Orleans, La. Tuesday, July 14, 2020. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

STAFF PHOTO BY MAX BECHERER

Officers found the Jeep parked outside an Algiers apartment complex Tuesday after investigators received a tip about its location. Police said it strongly resembled the Jeep seen in surveillance camera footage with black rims, wide off-road tires, dark tinted windows, and no license plate.

Nonetheless, many questions remained unanswered, including what motivated the pistol-wielding man shown in the surveillance video to gun down a child and two teens.

"It's just a senseless killing for nothing," Monica Walker, the grandmother, said. "It should have never happened."

The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate is not publishing the video out of respect for the victims' families.

Donald Bryant holds a photo of his son 9-year-old Davonte Bryant as people gather at a memorial on the 2100 block of Pauger Street where the child was killed the day before along with two other juveniles in a shooting in New Orleans, La. Tuesday, July 14, 2020. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

STAFF PHOTO BY MAX BECHERER

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The gunman isn't fully visible in the footage — just his legs as he walks up and his arms as he raises his pistol. But the source who provided the video on the condition of anonymity said it was a sobering reminder that the gun violence that has plagued New Orleans' neighborhoods for decades has not subsided, even as the coronavirus pandemic and protests against police brutality have consumed the public's attention this summer.

"We need to protest this, too," the source said. "We need to ... say, 'This is not acceptable at all.'"

Devante died after being struck in the head. The older boy was shot in the leg, and the 15-year-old girl was shot in her midsection.

The video shows the girl fall face-first and lay motionless a few yards away from Devante's body.

The teen boy also falls at that point, crawls up an alleyway and pushes past a wooden gate. Two others who were visiting on the stoop sprint off screen, away from the direction of the bullets.

The wounded victims were taken to the hospital, and neither has been identified.

There is no indication Devante was the intended target, officials said.

Donald Bryant took little solace in that.

"They shot him in the back of his head, and they shot him in his back," Donald Bryant said of Devante. "It wasn't no mistake — it wasn't no mistake."

Devante's death came just two months after a separate triple shooting in Algiers killed 3-year-old Isaha Adams, leading to the arrests of two brothers and an ongoing search for a third suspect.

Joyce Poole, the dean of students at Success at Thurgood Marshall, where Devante attended kindergarten through third grade, said the tragedy left her community "numb."

"He was such a bright kid, he loved school and we loved having him here," said Poole. "What do you say to a family who has to bury a 9-year-old?"

New Orleans deacon Ricky Clark was so moved by the tragedy that he marched down Pauger Street Tuesday holding up a handwritten sign that read, "Let's stop us from killing us."

"We have to come together as a city," Clark said. "This is unnecessary and it's cruel. … It could be any of our children."

Friends and loved ones pleaded with the public to come forward if they have any information about the killing. Crimestoppers is offering $5,000 for any information leading to indictments. Tipsters do not have to give their names to be eligible.

"Somebody had to see something," family friend Janette Robinson Lewis said. "Somebody (has) to say something."

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Fake Video Girl Shoots Baby Daddy in Front of Son

Source: https://www.nola.com/news/crime_police/article_6baff696-c613-11ea-a2b2-8749b7aaf94d.html

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