Tension boils over Marigny shooting
6th August 2013 · 0 Comments
By Edmund W. Lewis
Editor
A group of community activists and residents of a Marigny neighborhood rocked by the July 26 shooting of a 14-year-old by one of their neighbors exchanged a war of words Monday
The heated exchange came just three days after Marigny resident Merritt Landry shot 14-year-old Marshall Coulter in the head at 2:00 a.m. on Friday, July 26. The incident occurred in the 700 block of Mandeville St.
Marshall Coulter remains in critical condition at interim LSU Hospital.
On Monday, community activist the Rev. Raymond Brown, president of Nation Action Now, joined a group called Brothers Against Crime in calling attention to the July 26 incident. Voices were raised and tempers flared as community activists were confronted by Merritt Landry’s neighbors, who defended him as a law-abiding family man. At one point during the exchange, Rev. Brown shouted to the neighbors that they were going to allow another community activist to speak or that he and others would protest and shut the community down.
Rev. Brown disputed a story that appeared on nola.com after Monday’s heated exchange that said Brown attended the press conference to show his support for Marshall Coulter. “[S]ome reporters went away believing that I was there to support 14-year-old Marshall Coulter,” Brown said in a statement Tuesday. “No, I was not there to support Mr. Coulter or Mr. Landry — I came to the news conference to talk about the law regarding self-defense and when to use a gun and not to use it. I think that Mr. Landry used bad judgement when he confronted Mr. Coulter in his yard. Mr. Landry’s life was not in imminent danger when he shot Mr. Marshall Coulter in the head. That’s all I was saying to the press, I was not supporting Mr. Coulter like The Times Picayune reported on nola.com. However, Mr. Landry was wrong, in my opinion. That’s why the NOPD arrested him. I am asking the press to please allow me the chance to clear up this confusion.”
Landry, the son of former St. Bernard Parish Justice of the Peace Larry Landry and a City of New Orleans employee, was suspended without pay after the incident. Landry, a building inspector for the CNO’s Historic District Landmarks Commission, faces one count of attempted second-degree murder.
New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu released the following statement last week: “Although the incident is still under investigation, it is clear that this was a tragedy,” New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu said in a statement July 26. “The New Orleans Police Department will continue to thoroughly investigate this matter to ensure that all of the facts are brought to light.
Later on Friday evening, July 26, a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office said that Landry has been suspended without pay pending the outcome of an ongoing criminal investigation.
Landry was released on bond Tuesday afternoon by Orleans Parish Civil Court Judge Franz Zibilich.
Zibilich, who reportedly served as a defense attorney for the Landry family, had attempted to release Merritt Landry on $100,000 bond only seven hours after Landry was arrested July 26 and booked on the attempted second-degree murder charge. It generally takes a day for the release of a defendant on a property bond.
New Orleans police said they arrested Landry because the 14-year-old who was shot in the Landry family’s yard was unarmed and standing 30 feat away when he was shot and did not pose an immediate threat to Merritt Landry.
Marshall Coulter’s older brother, David Coulter, spoke to several media outlets about his brother’s case last week. He told FOX 8 News Tuesday that his brother’s troubles began after the passing of their father in 2010.
Marshall Coulter is still in critical condition at the Interim LSU Hospital and continues to fight for his life, David Coulter told FOX 8 News Tuesday.
“He responds and moves his hand and wiggles his toes, but as far as talking he can’t see or talk,” Coulter said. “His eyes are still swollen and his tongue is still swollen.”
Coulter admitted that his brother was not an innocent bystander who just happened to get shot, but made it clear that his brother’s involvement did not warrant the use of deadly force by Landry.
“He would steal — he was a professional thief, sure,” Coulter, 23, told nola.com. “But he would never pick up a gun, not in a million years. He was too scared to aim a gun at the grass, let alone aim it at a person. No way. Before he’ll ever pick up a gun, he’ll be your friend first.”
Coulter said several times last week that he wonders why Merritt Landry didn’t fire a warning shot to scare off Marshall Coulter rather than shoot to kill the unarmed 14-year-old.
David Coulter has reportedly created a Facebook page for his young brother titled “Justice for Marshall Coulter.” WGNO News reported that the first post on the page is an article titled “The next Trayvon?”
Rev. Brown said Thursday that it would be wrong to place the blame for Marshall Coulter’s delinquent behavior solely on the shoulders of his family. “I think that the mother should not be the only person to blame for the criminal life style of her son,” Brown told The Louisiana Weekly. “The system as a whole should be blamed for the misguided behavior of Mr. Marshall Coulter. The school system failed him, the church and pastors failed him, the economy definitely failed Mr. Coulter. Lastly, the mayor’s so-called Nola for Life program has failed the Black community. The mayor has no job-training facility or program for African-American men but, says he is trying save our sons. Actions and government policy speak louder than words.”
On Wednesday, the New Orleans Branch of the NAACP and other civil rights groups and community activists gathered at a press conference to demand “a full, transparent investigation” of the shooting incident.
The timing of the shooting could not have been worse, coming less than two weeks after the racially polarizing acquittal of George Zimmerman, the Sanford, Fla., Neighborhood Watch captain charged in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
“There is boiling under the surface,” the Rev. Dwight Webster, pastor of Christian Unity Baptist Church, said referring about the perception of youth of the local and national criminal justice system. “They are beginning to wonder whether there is one code of justice that is equally applied to everyone.”
Also attending Wednesday’s press conference was attorney and WBOK talk-show host Tracie Washington, executive director of the Louisiana Justice Institute, who told reporters, “I recognize the guy had a wife at home who was pregnant. Lots of people have extenuating circumstances. That jail is filled with people with extenuating circumstances.”
“The New Orleans Branch NAACP demands that the U.S. Department of Justice, the New Orleans Office of Inspector General, the Louisiana State Judiciary Commission and all other responsible government agencies conduct a full, complete and transparent investigation of the issues associated with the initial bond granted by Judge Franz Zibilich to Merritt Landry in connection with Mr. Landry’s shooting of Marshall Coulter,” the New Orleans Branch of the NAACP said in a statement Wednesday. “Those issues include, but are not limited to the following: Is the Landry case assigned to Judge Zibilich’s court section? If the Landry case is assigned to Judge Zibilich’s section, how was it assigned to his section? If it was not assigned to his section, how was he able to participate in the setting of the initial bond? Was the initial bond legal? Was the subsequent bond hearing legal or in any way unusual?
“The media has reported that Orleans Parish District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro has called the initial bond ‘illegal.’” the NAACP statement continued. “It also reported that Judge Zibilich has a prior relationship with Mr. Landry and his family. The reported actions of Judge Zibilich have caused great concern in our community. For many in our community, the reported actions of Judge Zibilich have destroyed the trust and confidence that ‘blind justice’ will be applied in the case of the shooting by Mr. Landry.
“Because of the reported actions of Judge Zibilich, and because of the community’s lack of trust and confidence in Judge Zibilich’s ability to be fair and impartial in this another case, the New Orleans Branch NAACP further demands that if the case is assigned to Judge Zibilich’s court section, that the case be immediately reassigned to another section of court.”
The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office filed a motion Tuesday that called the bond illegal.
Essentially, Landry’s release was fast-tracked because of his family’s relationship with Judge Zibilich, civil rights and community leaders have said. Some have already compared the kid gloves with which Landry is being handled to those that took 40 days after the killing of Trayvon Martin to arrest George Zimmerman, although at least one lawyer said last week that there was nothing illegal about Landry’s release.
“Judges have a wide range of discretion under the criminal code of procedure and case law as to how bonds are set,” defense attorney Jason Williams told FOX 8 News last week.
Williams, who isn’t involved in the Landry case, told FOX 8 that Judge Zibilich did nothing illegal.
“You could feasibly call in a release to have someone released from jail, and that paperwork could be filed in a timely fashion, and that was a customary procedure at Tulane and Broad. That’s available for all sorts of crime,” Williams said.
FOX 8 News reported that Judge Zibilich declined to comment because it is an open case.
“If tensions are escalated now, if there’s a perception in the community that justice is not going to be done in this case, then I expect the tensions to heighten,” Danatus King said Wednesday.
“This whole flare-up over the way this case is being handled should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the way things are done in New Orleans,” Ramessu Merriamen Aha, a New Orleans businessman and former congressional candidate, told The Louisiana Weekly Wednesday. “We’ve seen the corrupt, abusive practices of the NOPD and the dysfunctional Landrieu administration’s efforts to block the NOPD and OPP consent decrees, but we’ve also seen judges routinely taking advantage of supplemental insurance programs and other professional perks and Orleans Parish prosecutors railroading Black and poor defendants. All of this tells you that the entire criminal justice system in New Orleans is broken, not just the police department.
“We need the U.S. Department of Justice to come in and thoroughly examine the practices of City Hall, the Orleans Parish Criminal Court and the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office and root out all of the unjust and illegal practices that routinely violate the constitutional and civil rights of New Orleans residents,” Aha added.
“As tragic as this shooting was for all parties involved, it has effectively shined a light on the imperfections and inequities of the criminal justice system.”
This article originally published in the August 5, 2013 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
