A Jefferson Parish law enforcement officer and a suspect were both shot and hospitalized in stable condition after an exchange of gunfire on the West Bank shortly after 5:15 p.m. Monday. The shooting unfolded as deputies and detectives tracked down two men who had fled from an initial encounter, one of whom allegedly produced a weapon before shots were fired.
Conflicting Accounts of Where and Who Was Hit
Conflicting Accounts of Who Was Hit Accounts of the shooting differ on exactly who was wounded. According to WDSU, the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said a deputy was shot in the forearm shortly after 5:15 p.m. in unincorporated Gretna. WGNO, however, reported that a JPSO detective, not a deputy, was the officer injured in the shooting alongside a suspect. The dossier does not resolve whether these two accounts describe the same injured officer or reflect a reporting discrepancy.
The station's report lays out how the confrontation developed. At around 5:15 p.m., two JPSO detectives were assisting deputies with a suspicious-person investigation in the 300 block of Lapalco Boulevard when two male suspects ran from the scene. Detectives later caught up with the pair at the intersection of Cherrywood Drive and Brookwood Drive, per the same account.
Gunfire Erupts During the Encounter
During that encounter, one of the suspects pulled out a weapon, and gunfire was exchanged, according to WDSU. The officer suffered what WDSU described as a non-fatal gunshot wound to the forearm, while the suspect was shot multiple times in the incident, the station reported.
Both the officer and the suspect ended up in stable condition at a hospital, JPSO officials said, as reported by WGNO. Officials told the station that the suspect will face multiple criminal charges once he is released from the hospital, though the specific charges have not been disclosed.
The shooting was first flagged Monday evening by FOX 8 Local First, which reported that it had received information about the shooting just after 5:30 p.m. and that its crews were headed to the scene. At the time, FOX 8 said it had not yet received a specific location or confirmation of which agency was involved, noting the officer's injury was believed to be non-life-threatening according to a source.
A Pattern of West Bank Shootings Involving JPSO
Monday's shooting echoes a 2023 case on the West Bank in which a Jefferson Parish deputy shot Louis Alexander, a suspect wanted in a string of armed robberies, after he was found hiding under a house in Marrero, according to nola.com. In that incident, one deputy discharged his firearm multiple times and Alexander was struck by gunfire, ending up hospitalized with multiple gunshot wounds in stable condition.
That case was one of six times JPSO deputies fired their weapons in the line of duty in 2023, a year in which those shootings killed two men and wounded three, according to officials cited by nola.com. The parish's history with officer-involved shootings underscores the stakes each time deputies and detectives pursue armed suspects on the West Bank, though the full circumstances of Monday's encounter remain under investigation.
