NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — Two times in the last week at least one person as brought a gun near a football game in the area.
The first, killed a 15-year-old after being shot outside the Bogalusa High School homecoming game.
The second was Wednesday night in New Orleans East. A 13-year-old girl and 15-year-old boy were arrested after witnesses say they had a gun near Joe Brown Park while a football game was underway. That witness is the one who alerted security to the incident.
“For people to bring that type of mindset to a child’s game or an adolescent, it’s uncalled for,” said Brice Brown, the Head Football Coach at Edna Karr High School.
Although his school has not been involved with recent instances of teens bringing guns to football games, he says leaders need to come together before something else happens.
“Because of the communities of which they live in they feel like they have to bear arms to protects themselves, but we need to flip that mindset we need to get out that mindset to think of more positive things we can do instead of watching our back and carrying a gun,” Brown explained.
New Orleans city officials say although no one was hurt during the incident near Joe Brown Park, additional safety measures will be in place at future football games.
“Two additional security wands just to decrease the possibility of someone entering a stadium or just being around a stadium with a weapon,” said John Lawson, the press secretary for Mayor Latoya Cantrell’s office.
Lawson says in that incident, a community member did exactly what they were supposed to – they saw something and said something.