Officer and landlord serving eviction notice shot, wounded

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A law enforcement officer and a property manager were shot and wounded while serving an eviction notice Wednesday, and New Orleans police detained a man after a brief standoff hours later, authorities said.

The man was taken into custody Wednesday after an anonymous tip that he was in the Mid-City neighborhood, Officer Reese Harper told The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate.

There was a brief standoff but nobody was injured before the man surrendered and was handcuffed, the newspaper reported. Police blocked off part of six-lane Canal Street and two schools were locked down.

Both men wounded in eastern New Orleans were “alert and responsive,” Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said earlier Wednesday. He identified the wounded officer as a deputy constable, or officer of a local court.

The deputy constable, who is a retired city police officer, was hit in the shoulder and the property manager in the chest, he said without naming the two.

Ferguson said the number of shots fired, and who fired them, was not immediately clear.

“Gunfire erupted and we’re still trying to determine who discharged and why,” he told reporters at University Medical Center.

The officer was identified as a deputy constable, or law enforcement officer for a local court.

Constable Lambert Boissiere, who was with Ferguson, said his officers are trained not to use weapons “unless it’s absolutely necessary.” Their civil duties include serving people with court pleadings and eviction notices.