Shooting rampage 'just unbelievable'

[TheeBadOne]

Russell Hughley had never flashed a violent side, not when he and Shenitha Coleman separated eight years ago, not when the estranged couple began haggling about child support, not in March when he agreed to pay almost $800 a month to support their 9-year-old daughter.

So when Coleman listened to the message on her answering machine, the menace in Hughley's voice stunned her.

The message began with Hughley telling her, "I need to leave you something here at your mother's house." Then she heard gunshots -- the sounds of Coleman pumping two bullets into the head and neck of her 65-year-old mother, Irma Coleman.

Those shots Thursday night were the beginning of a rampage by Hughley, an explosion of violence that left Coleman's mother and sister wounded at the family's house and, 10 minutes later, two New Orleans police officers shot inside the 5th District police station.

Hughley, 33, a truck driver who had been living near Coleman outside Dallas, was gunned down in the lobby of the police station about 10:25 p.m. in the station's lobby.

Coleman was in Dallas when she heard her mother and sister had been shot, but it was only after driving frantically through the night to get to New Orleans that she played back Hughley's telephone message. Only then was she hit by the full force of the nightmare.

"It was just unbelievable," she said. "I can't even put into words how I felt. It didn't sound like him at all."


Critical injuries

On Friday, Coleman, 38, was keeping vigil with relatives in her family's 9th Ward home on Franklin Avenue as her mother and sister fought for their lives in the hospital. Irma Coleman was reported in critical condition Friday. Coleman's 41-year-old sister, Regina Coleman, was in guarded condition with gunshot wounds in her back, arm, leg and torso.

Officer David Carter, 47, a 25-year Police Department veteran, was in intensive care Friday in serious condition with four or five bullet wounds in his face and torso. One bullet damaged a lung, Charity Hospital trauma chief Dr. Norman McSwain said, but the most serious threat was from a bullet that ripped through Carter's colon. The damaged section of the organ was removed during emergency surgery, he said.

"He's doing as well as could be expected given the injuries he got," McSwain said.

Carter is being kept in an artificial state of paralysis and tethered to a breathing machine to aid his recovery, McSwain said.

Officer Jon Steele, 47, an 18-year veteran, was shot once in the right collarbone, McSwain said. The bullet, which remains lodged in Steele's back, damaged a cluster of nerves, leaving Steele with limited mobility in his right arm and hand. McSwain said it will take several days before doctors can determine how much mobility Steele will regain. Steele probably is facing physical therapy, McSwain said.


Change in assignment

The two officers aren't even assigned to street patrols, much less the rough-and-tumble 5th District, which encompasses the 9th Ward. Both are assigned to administrative jobs in the Technical Support Bureau, where they spend most of their time indoors at police headquarters. But as part of Chief Eddie Compass' recent initiative to put more officers on the street, Carter and Steele were pulling their twice-a-week duty on Thursday's second shift.

Steele and his partner were on routine patrol when they heard the broadcast describing Hughley's dark blue GMC Tahoe. A few minutes later, they spotted it in the parking lot of the police station.

According to officers' accounts, Steele entered the large glass doors leading into the station's lobby and saw Hughley approaching a sergeant seated behind the front counter. Steele stepped behind Hughley and, placing a hand on his back, told him, "Sir, you have to take your hand out of your pocket."

Hughley pulled a .44-caliber handgun from his pocket and dropped it on the floor. Steele and Hughley scrambled for the weapon, but Hughley wrested it away and came up firing, the officers said, hitting Steele once. Carter was hit four or five times when he entered the lobby from a doorway leading to the roll call room.

Two other officers in the station opened fire, killing Hughley. Police say the last time a shooting took place inside a police station was in 1990, when a suspect broke free at the 8th District station, snatched an officer's gun and shot the officer three times before he was fatally wounded.


Caravan of cruisers

Carter and Steele were conscious after the shooting, police said, and were able to walk to the parking lot. Officers rushed them to Charity Hospital in squad cars, aided by a caravan of police cruisers blocking every intersection along the way. Steele had been wearing a protective vest at the time of the shooting, but Carter was not, police said.

Compass called the shooting "an isolated incident," saying it would not prompt him to limit public access to any of the Police Department's eight district stations. However, Compass said, the department will look into protective measures such as security cameras and metal detectors.

"We cannot keep the stations away from the people and citizens," Compass said. "We're just going to have to stay on guard, stay alert, use our training to protect ourselves and protect the citizens.

"You just don't know what's in the mind of a guy like that," he said.

Hughley's grandfather, who identified himself only as Domino, said the family knew nothing about the shootings until he and other relatives were called to the coroner's office to view the body Friday morning. The relatives, who live in the Lower 9th Ward, were hit hard by the news, he said. Hughley's mother is devastated, he said.

Coleman said Hughley was "a good person" who had never shown signs of violence.

"He was never like this, never like this," she said. "It is very heartbreaking."

Coleman said she and Hughley, both New Orleans natives, separated eight years ago. She said she moved to Dallas about a year ago because she wanted a better life for her three children, one of them Hughley's. Hughley followed Coleman to Texas to be close to their daughter. He lived in Plano, a Dallas suburb.

Coleman said she moved to a new house last weekend and Hughley apparently "figured I was here by my mama's when he didn't find me in Texas." She said the last time she saw Hughley was March 16 in a Denton County courthouse, when a judge signed the court order requiring Coleman to pay almost $800 a month to support their daughter. The payments began April 1.

Perhaps he was angry about the arrangement, she said. "He had just started paying it and I guess he just couldn't handle it. Whatever the reason, he took it to his grave with him."




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[Slim-Zippy]

A ver tragic incident that was totally shocking.

I'll say some prayers for them.

[TheeBadOne]

Originally posted by Slim-Zippy
A ver tragic incident that was totally shocking.

I'll say some prayers for them.

Amen

Makes me wonder if "his cheese slipped off his cracker"...