Harvey community holds vigil in honor of slain son
6th September 2022 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
More than a dozen local elected officials last Tuesday joined family members of a slain 20-year-old man at Israel Baptist Church in Harvey to rally for an end to a seeming increase in violent crime throughout the metro New Orleans area.
Orin Grant Jr., the son of a popular, longtime pastor at St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church in Gretna, was killed near his father’s church Aug. 2, a crime that shocked the West Bank and prompted last week’s “Stop the Violence” pray vigil and rally aimed at pushing local leaders and members of the community to work to end the type of violent crime that took Grant Jr.’s life and that continues to plague local streets.
Grant Jr.’s father, the Rev. Dr. Orin Grant Sr., said the family has been devastated at the loss of his son, but the outpouring of community support, including the rally, has been encouraging and is hopefully pointing the way toward positive change.
He said it was well attended and drew many people, including numerous local officials.
“The rally went wonderfully well,” he said. “We’re being contacted daily. People are joining in. We’ve been contacted by many officials because they want to see change.”
Grant Sr. said additional events are already being planned to help keep the momentum moving forward, including more rallies, forums and seminars on the theme of community action. He said mobilization and planning teams and commissions are already coming together.
“We want to be proactive, not reactive,” he said. Grant Sr. summarized the goals and message of last week’s rally. “Love, peace, unity,” he said.
One local official who attended the vigil and rally, Jefferson Parish President Cynthia Lee Sheng, said that like frustrated residents of the parish community, elected leaders were shaken by the murder of Grant Jr.
“We are deeply saddened by the senseless and tragic loss of Orin Grant Jr.,” Lee Sheng told The Louisiana Weekly. “Violence threatens our most fundamental human right — the right to life. I was humbled to join Reverend Orin Grant Sr. and members of our Jefferson Parish community at the Stop the Violence Rally for a much needed time of prayer and hope, in memory of Orin Grant Jr.
“We are better able to enact lasting, meaningful change when we mobilize together to provide societal, behavioral and mental health support to our youth,” she added. “Every citizen deserves to feel safe in his or her community. It is our responsibility to engage and empower younger generations and remain united in the message that violence is never the answer.”
Officials from nearby New Orleans, which itself has experienced a stunning increase in violent crime in 2022, came to last week’s rally, including New Orleans City Councilmember Eugene Green.
Green told The Louisiana Weekly that hopefully Grant Jr.’s murder can spur positive change and a united effort to end such violence.
“That Orin Grant Jr. was taken from his parents and from this community and world through another senseless act of violence is a tragic reminder of the negative impact that violence has on so many people,” Green said.
Green noted that the younger Grant was an active musician at his father’s church, where he was beloved, as are his parents, and said Grant Jr.’s ambition and dedication to the community make Grant Jr.’s killing all the more abhorrent and tragic.
“Orin Jr. has gone from a productive young man to a memory of someone whose future was so bright,” Green said. “I shudder to think what may come to pass as the reason for his murder, for far too often the reasons for killings of fellow human beings through criminal acts are grounded in the most misguided and non-sensical of facts and reasons.”
Green added that hopefully the vigil and rally can start to push the community to work together to prevent the sad loss of people like Grant Jr.
“The killings and attacks against fellow human beings is simply unacceptable,” he said. “Such actions must never, ever be deemed as inevitable, no matter the circumstances that confront the perpetrator. The victims of crimes…are often people who would share resources and support with you, as Orin Jr. did with his church members and friends.
“The violence must stop,” Green added. “That was the theme of the message of the recent rally that Pastor Dr. Orin Grant Sr. and others put together in the interest of making a better and safer community. The large number of attendees at the relatively hastily called event makes clear that there are so many others who grow weary and are saddened by the toll that violence has on the lives of so many others.”
Several state elected leaders and judicial officials also came out for the rally, including State Rep. Delisha Young-Boyd (D-102nd), who said she was very glad the Rev. Grant Sr. organized and publicized last week’s rally, an effort that can hopefully provide other young people with the type of community involvement guidance and mentorship that youth desperately need.
“Like never before, it does take a village to raise a child,” Young-Boyd said, “and a village is needed more than ever.”
She added that “our kids feel helpless and hopeless right now.”
She told The Louisiana Weekly that today’s youth often see high-profile adults like musicians and athletes as role models, but while such adults can provide mentorship, youth and young people need to see highly educated and accomplished professionals like attorneys, doctors and elected officials – pursuits that she said are more attainable than the precious few professional athletes out there – throughout the local community.
She added that young people need to be passionate about their academic studies instead of sports or music.
“The rally was a great start,” Young-Boyd said. “But if every leader who attended the rally started to make a difference, if everyone who came can make a conscious effort to give direction [to youth], they will feel like they have hope for the future.”
Grant Jr., who was a drummer at his father’s church and a process technology student at Nunez Community College in Chalmette, La., was lured out of his Harvey home and fatally shot outside a home on Pailet Avenue. Grant Jr. had graduated from New Orleans Military and Maritime Academy.
One man, 41-year-old Larry Dixon Jr. of Harvey, has been arrested on an obstruction of justice charge in connection with the murder. Dixon allegedly asked Grant Jr. to come out of his house, at which time Grant Jr. was shot and killed. Dixon allegedly drove away, and despite witnesses reporting two men running away after the shots, no one has yet been arrested for the killing itself.
“We must always continue the fight to make our people and communities and the public safe from violence, thorough words and actions and through continuing to apply pressure to people and to the systems that are in place to protect the health and well being of our fellow people,” Green said.
Other local leaders who were confirmed for the prayer vigil and rally Included Louisiana State Representatives Kyle Mark Green Jr. (D-83rd) and Rodney Lyons (D-87th); Gretna City Councilmembers Rudy Smith and Jackie J. Berthelot; Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph P. Lopinto III; Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Sandra Cabrina Jenkins; Second Parish Court Judge Sharlayne Jackson Prevost; Orleans Parish Criminal District Court Magistrate Judge Juana Lombard; Justice of the Peace Vernon J. Wilty III; Jefferson Parish Schools Superintendent, Dr. James Gray; and Jefferson Parish School Board Member Dr. Rickey Johnson.
This article originally published in the September 5, 2022 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
