A neighborhood Mother’s Day Parade in New Orleans turned bloody as 19 people, two of them children, were shot in what the FBI was quick to classify as random gunplay — not terrorism.
Many of the victims were grazed when bullets started to fly at about 2 p.m. at the “second-line” parade, a traditional jazz party, in the city’s Seventh Ward.
Authorities later said that they were looking for three suspects and that none of the wounds was deemed life threatening.
“It’s strictly an act of street violence in New Orleans,” said FBI spokeswoman Mary Beth Romig.
A boy and a girl, both 10 years old, were among those grazed, police said. Doctors later listed both kids’ condition as good.
“People were just hanging out, just chilling, and this happened,” Leonard Temple, whose wounded friend was undergoing surgery, said outside the hospital.
In March, four people were shot during an argument in the city’s French Quarter on the last weekend before Mardi Gras.