Viewpoint: Business leaders courting state Rep. Royce Duplessis for mayoral run

With qualifying for New Orleans municipal races just five months away, New Orleans business leaders are still scrambling to find a candidate they consider suitable to challenge Mayor LaToya Cantrell. District 93 state Rep. Royce Duplessis recently rose to the top of that list after a poll showed he would be viable in the race. 

Duplessis distanced himself from the poll and denied any current mayoral ambitions when asked about it Wednesday (Feb. 17), stating that, while he may be considering his future options, “challenging the incumbent mayor is not one of them.” 

Duplessis is one of the few elected officials who supported the election of DA Jason Williams, who is one of Duplessis’ closest allies. Business Council Chairman Henry Coaxum and Executive Director Coleman Ridley are both Williams’ donors along with HRI’s Pres Kabacoff. It’s no secret that many members of the business community are disappointed in Cantrell’s style and decision-making process.

Suspect, vehicle sought in Claiborne car wash homicide

The NOPD is seeking to locate and identify a person of interest and a vehicle in the investigation of a homicide that occurred Wednesday (Feb. 17) in the 3700 block of South Claiborne Avenue. The pictured suspect was seen at the Claiborne Avenue car wash where Bruce Gaten, 31, was shot to death at 3:19 p.m. The suspect was seen wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt with an unknown image on the front, dark colored jeans and dark shoes. The unknown suspect was observed driving the pictured silver 2016 Honda Pilot bearing Louisiana plate ZRT 457 with a bike rack affixed to the rear. The Honda was reported stolen.

Man shot to death at South Claiborne car wash

A man was shot death Monday afternoon at the Pelican Pointe Car Wash on South Claiborne Avenue, the New Orleans Police Department reported. Bruce Gaten, 31, was in a car at the business in the 3700 block of South Claiborne at 3:19 p.m when a vehicle parked next to him. A gunman got out of the vehicle and fired multiple gunshots, police said. Gaten died at the scene. Further information was not immediately available.

Police arrest one suspect, seek another in string of armed carjackings

The NOPD has arrested Joshua Dean, 18, and has obtained an arrest warrant for Robert Garrett, 23, in the ongoing investigation of multiple armed carjacking incidents in Uptown neighborhoods and in the Navarre neighborhood and Jefferson Parish. NOPD Second District detectives determined that four recent armed carjacking incidents were related, three in the Uptown area. Two occurred in Carrollton on Feb. 9, one in the 8100 block of Green Street, targeting two women delivering food. It was quickly followed by another on Cohn and Pine streets.

New wine shop from Second Vine Wine proposed for Magazine Street

The stretch of Magazine Street between Gen. Pershing and Milan streets has seen a lot of comings and goings of businesses through the years, and even more recently due to the COVID-19 pandemic. One new business that plans to open in the next few months is Second Vine Wine, in the space that most recently housed the Claudia Croazzo clothing store, at 4210-14 Magazine St. If the wine shop’s name is familiar, it’s because Second Vine Wine was previously located in the Marigny Triangle. It closed last year in March, just after the pandemic and lockdowns began. But you can’t keep a wine lover and educator away from Bacchus’ call, and Troy Gant, one of the previous Second Vine Wine owners, is harvesting a new wine shop.

Man killed in Central City double shooting

A shooting left one man dead and another wounded Saturday (Feb. 13) evening in Central City, the New Orleans Police Department reported. At 5:08 p.m., NOPD Sixth District officers were called to Washington and Loyola avenues for an aggravated battery by shooting. The officers found two men suffering with gunshot wounds.va
One victim, Bryan Veal, died at the scene. Veal was 26.

Viewpoint: Lusher School leaders turn their backs on the need to remove a racist legacy

By Corinne A. Williams, guest columnist

On Jan. 1, New Orleans transformed one of its many relics of the Confederacy into a new monument for justice and excellence. When Jefferson Davis Parkway was renamed for Dr. Norman C. Francis, we cast off a president of the Confederacy for a president of a historically black university, a purveyor of educational equity and a living civil rights legend. In this moment, New Orleans took the time to register that white supremacy and sedition have no place on one of our most prominent parkways. For New Orleans — one of the Blackest cities in the United States, held together by the culture of Black people and kept afloat by a tourism industry that relies on the labor of Black people — it was a wrong made right.