Man and teenage accomplice arrested in Rousseau Street slaying

A 20-year-old man and his 15-year-old accomplice have been charged with the murder of a man found shot to death in a car near the River Garden development, police said.

Antoine Martin, 26, was driving on Rousseau Street with Rufus Bray in the passenger seat and the teenager in the backseat, when Bray abruptly shot Martin, said Lt. Troy Savage of the NOPD Sixth District investigative unit. The car crashed into the side of the road, and Bray and the teenager ran off, Savage said.

Immediately after police were called to the scene, a resident informed police that the two from the crashed car had run back in the direction of Soraparu Street, Savage said. A Sixth District task force led by Sgt. Eric Gilliard and assisted by officers from the special-operations division and the neighboring Second District created a perimeter around the area and quickly found Bray and the teenager hiding, Savage said.

Commander Bob Bardy credited the apprehension to the good relationship between police and residents of the River Garden neighborhood, where the Sixth District task forces have been focusing their patrols lately.

“You already had a route of flight, a general area of play, but this particular person zoned them in,” Bardy said, praising Gilliard’s work apprehending the suspects. “Don’t take this that the whole world hates the police. Citizens do feel good about y’all.”

Bray, who is being held on $300,000 bond on a charge of second-degree murder, has no prior criminal history. The juvenile’s name, however, had surfaced as a suspect in a May 9 drive-by shooting on nearby St. Thomas Street, Savage said.