A person was found shot to death in the 1400 block of Harrison Avenue near Gibson Street shortly before 7 a.m. Friday, in a stretch of New Orleans that straddles the border between City Park and the St. Bernard neighborhood. New Orleans EMS confirmed the victim was deceased at the scene, and police say no further information is currently available.
According to WWL-TV, emergency crews descended on the block early Friday, February 6, after officers located the gunshot victim. As reported by WDSU, the shooting occurred near St. Bernard Avenue, with the victim discovered shortly before 7 a.m. and pronounced dead by New Orleans EMS. The 1400 block of Harrison Avenue falls within the New Orleans Police Department's Third District, which handles police operations for City Park, Gentilly, and Lakeview, according to the City of New Orleans.
Police have not identified the victim or released a cause of death, and under standard protocols followed by NOPD and the Orleans Parish Coroner, that information stays withheld until an autopsy is completed and next of kin are formally notified, per NOPD News. No suspect or motive has been named, leaving the circumstances of the shooting unresolved for now.
A Quiet Stretch of Harrison Avenue Near City Park
The area around the shooting carries its own local landmark: the NOPD Mounted Division keeps its administrative office and horse stables along Harrison Avenue inside City Park, serving as a base for high-visibility patrols across the park and major city events, according to the City of New Orleans. The stretch of Harrison Avenue near Gibson Street sits just blocks from that equestrian outpost, in a corridor more often associated with park-goers and patrol horses than violence.
A Homicide Rate at Its Lowest in Decades
Friday's shooting lands amid a sustained, multi-year drop in violence across New Orleans. Metropolitan Crime Commission data published through late September shows Orleans Parish recorded 61 homicide victims year-to-date, a 39% reduction from 2025 and a 72% decline compared to 2022. NOPD News figures released in September also showed 22 homicides between May and August of this year, the lowest total for that four-month summer stretch since at least 2019.
Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Rogers Williams announced in January that New Orleans closed out 2025 with its lowest overall homicide rate in 50 years, following three consecutive years of violent crime reductions, according to the Orleans Parish District Attorney's Office. Quarterly NOPD analytics reported 20 murders in the first quarter of 2026, down from 27 during the same period in 2025.
Research and Resources for the Community
Researchers from Tulane University's Violence Prevention Institute and the Vera Institute of Justice established the Orleans Parish Firearm Violence Dashboard this year, combining police, health department, and coroner data for all local firearm homicides from 2019 to 2024, according to the Tulane University Violence Prevention Institute. The project is meant to help identify demographic and geographic risk factors tied to gun violence across the parish.
Anyone with information about Friday's shooting is urged to come forward. Crimestoppers of Greater New Orleans offers anonymous cash rewards of up to $5,000 for tips leading to an arrest and indictment in Orleans Parish homicide cases. Detectives with NOPD's Third District have not released further details as the investigation continues.
