An unidentified assailant riding a pedicab ambushed two police officers in New Orleans, opening fire into their police vehicle on Friday night. The shooter hit one cop in the face and the shards of glass from the bullet wounded the other officer.
Police Superintendent Shaun Ferugson announced that the assailant opened fire at around 4:30 p.m. in the city’s French Quarter. The suspect hit one officer in the cheek and the bullet lodged in his skull, Fox News reported.
“They were just crossing through intersections going in different directions,” Ferguson said. “This is a dark day for our officers.”
The officer who got shot was in serious but stable condition, the superintendent reported. “He was able to walk into the hospital holding his cheek,” Ferguson said. The wounded officer has served with the department for four years.
The other officer, a 16-year veteran of the force, suffered minor abrasions on his arm from shards of glass.
Ferguson would not identify details about the officers or the suspect, but he did thank a retired Army veteran who helped treat the wounded officer before paramedics took the officers to a hospital.
Police arrested the suspected gunman and Ferguson said he appeared to be “under some sort of medical condition.” It remains unclear how many shots the assailant fired at the cops, but the police did not shoot back.
The shooting came after months of violent riots after the death of George Floyd in police custody. Black Lives Matter and antifa agitators have repeatedly targeted police in the violence, accusing police forces across America of systemic racism. The Black Lives Matter movement seizes on isolated incidents of police shooting black men, some of whom had charged at the cops with knives (as in the recent Philadelphia case), as evidence of racism. Rioters have used these incidents as an excuse to loot businesses and attack police.
While the rioters claim to help the black community, the riots disproportionately damaged black communities in Kenosha, Wisc., Minneapolis, and Chicago. The riots have destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. At least 26 Americans have died in the riots, most of them black.
For these and other reasons, many black leaders have denounced the official Black Lives Matter movement, the founders of which have described themselves as “trained Marxists.” Over 100 black pastors recently condemned the Black Lives Matter movement and urged Nike to distance itself from it.
It remains unclear if the suspect intended to kill the cops in supposed retribution for the shootings of black men, but the Black Lives Matter rhetoric has inspired racial violence and violence against police. In August, a black man stabbed a “random” white man in the neck at an AutoZone after watching police shooting videos.
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Tyler O’Neil is the author of Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Follow him on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.
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