Tragedy blocks from my house

[bfez1]

Man shot and killed, son and neighbor wounded on the way to Meraux school bus stop
12:47 PM CDT on Tuesday, August 19, 2003

WWLTV.com


One man was killed and two people were wounded, including a two-year-old boy, in a Tuesday morning shooting in a quiet St. Bernard Parish neighborhood.


According to Sheriff Jack Stephens, Danny Foto and his neighbor Steve Miller were walking their children to a school bus stop on Marquez Drive, when 45-year-old Louis Schenck the Third backed out of his driveway at a high rate of speed after reportedly having an argument with his father, who also lived on Marquez.




WWL-TV
Officers on the scene in the Meraux neighborhood
Stephens said Foto yelled out at Schenck to slow down, at which point Schenck got out of his car with a shotgun and began firing.


Foto, who was holding his two-year-old son Bryson at the time, was struck and killed by the shotgun blast. His young son was hit in the stomach.


Stephens said Schenck then shot at Steve Miller, wounding the man in the leg. Miller’s son then ran onto the nearby school bus.


St. Bernard Parish Sheriff’s Deputies were called to the scene and found Schenck walking through the neighborhood still armed with the shotgun. Stephens said he was arrested without incident.


“This is a tragic morning, a horrible morning,” said Stephens. “The sense of grief and anxiety in this neighborhood is palpable.”


According to Stephens, Schenck has a history or paranoid schizophrenia and his father has tried to have him committed in the past.


Miller and Bryson Foto were taken to Charity Hospital, where the young boy is undergoing emergency surgery.

[JetMaxx]

It is getting dangerous to leave your home....snipers in Wesst Virginia, crazies killing people for asking them to drive carefully....dear Lord!

Here's an incident from my "normally quiet, peaceful" suburban neighborhood -- A few mornings ago, a young black man came running up to my home claiming he'd been robbed. I was suspicious because he was carrying money in his hands, and acted as if he were high. When I started to call 9-1-1, he became angry....didn't want the cops called (which really sent my "spidey sense" into overdrive) -- he instead wanted me to drive him to a tough section of Douglasville to find his mother....I refused, which really made him angry..

I picked up my revolver -- which immediately scared the h#ll out of him...but he claimed robbers were chasing him, he was acting suspicious, and I didn't know what to believe. I went ahead and called 9-1-1, and he took off running ("I don't wanna see no cops man" -- While the police were enroute, he ran to the street behind mine and attempted to force his way into an elderly woman's home (her grandson ran him off with their shotgun).

It turns out the guy that claimed he was a robbery victim was instead suspected of burglarizing vehicles and lockers at Gold's gym -- located a few hundred feet across the woods from me (where he apparently ran from before approaching my home).

This guy was easy to ID (he has all gold teeth across the front); and has an arrest record a mile long; drug possession, theft, burglary, assault, car theft...dating back to age 13 (he's only 21 now).

Thank God for my security training and the snubnose .38 revolver I keep on the coffee table here in the living room. When he saw my handgun, he decided discretion was better than dying, so he split...but I wonder what would happened if I hadn't had a gun....or if I'd been stupid enough to drive him across town as he asked (I suspect I'd been robbed and possibly murdered).

[streetsoldier]

It gets "better"...yesterday, a young black male walked into a Sikeston bank on South Main, with something strapped to his stomach. He handed the teller a note demanding money, and telling her that he had a bomb. She gave him $4,000 in $100 bills, and he ran across the street where the police stopped him in an Arby's Restaurant parking lot.

Having him lie flat on the ground, they threw a bomb blanket over him, and FBI, ATF and State troopers were called in. They got the item off of him, transoprted him to the Sikeston DPS for holding (the FBI would later take him to St. Louis), and a bomb squad from the Missouri State Highway Patrol placed the bomb package in a mobile containment truck to be detonated. Policemen from Sikeston DPS, Scott County SD, New Madrid County SD, Missouri State Highway Patrol and the FBI and ATF responded to this incident.

During all this, about 0930, they closed off South Main and evacuated the surrounding businesses...the identity of the suspect was not divulged.

Even "small-town" Missouri is not proof against idiots...

[GalvestonDuck]

It gets "better"...yesterday, a young black male walked into a Sikeston bank on South Main, with something strapped to his stomach. He handed the teller a note demanding money, and telling her that he had a bomb. She gave him $4,000 in $100 bills, and he ran across the street where the police stopped him in an Arby's Restaurant parking lot.

Having him lie flat on the ground, they threw a bomb blanket over him, and FBI, ATF and State troopers were called in. They got the item off of him, transoprted him to the Sikeston DPS for holding (the FBI would later take him to St. Louis), and a bomb squad from the Missouri State Highway Patrol placed the bomb package in a mobile containment truck to be detonated. Policemen from Sikeston DPS, Scott County SD, New Madrid County SD, Missouri State Highway Patrol and the FBI and ATF responded to this incident.

During all this, about 0930, they closed off South Main and evacuated the surrounding businesses...the identity of the suspect was not divulged.

Even "small-town" Missouri is not proof against idiots...

And I'm willing to be there wasn't even a bomb.

[streetsoldier]

Nope, no bomb...the suspect was identified as one Brad Davis of Sikeston, who faces a world of Federal charges right now.

[azskyman]

These types of things can happen to any of us. We had a fellow on a Harley shot right off his machine a few months ago...just a couple blocks east of us. All over an argument relating to motorcycle parts.

To tell you the truth...it is a fear I have as a boss. Having 30-40 employees who have personal crises that can send them over the edge. My relationship with them is always great...but who knows what happened to them in the minutes before they come to work.

I have three hidden panic buttons linked directly to the alarm company and police if I should ever need them. That doesn't stop the gun from going off first, though.

Sad state of affairs sometimes.

[Anonymous]

I don't know about you, but the stress levels in America are off the scale. Additionally, some of your personal stories and crises you are all going through break my heart. It is overwhelming, there is so much going on at the same time. I can't turn on the news without hearing about something else bad like a shooting that turns out to be over such a trivial matter.

We need a National revival and we need it very desperately. God is the only one who can save us and help us.

We need to pray for God's mercy as never before, and to pray for each other.

-Jeb

[GulfBreezer]

I agree Jeb!! This is a sad state we are in We know where the answers lie, but it seems like our pleas are falling on deaf ears!