Woman says she was shot while exiting interstate

By Kimberly Curth | October 26, 2020 at 5:15 PM CDT – Updated October 26 at 5:50 PM

NEW ORLEANS, La. (WVUE) – A New Orleans woman says she was the victim of what appears to be senseless and random gun violence. She was shot when someone sprayed her car with bullets Friday night as she exited I-10 at Carrollton Avenue.

We are not identifying her for her safety.

“I do wish I understood why me. I think it was random but that in and of itself is really terrifying because the next person might not be as lucky as I was,” she said.

It was just after 9 Friday night. She exited I-10 West at Carrollton and Tulane, on her way to her mother’s house.

“At the stop sign, at the end of the ramp, while talking with my mom on the phone, I heard four or five gunshots, then felt something like a wasp stung me, I told my mom I thought I was shot,” she said.

She doesn’t know where the shots came from. Her mother called 911 while she pulled over in a state of disbelief.

“No one tried to rob me afterwards, you know, I stayed in the neighborhood. I have no reason to think they were trying to take my money or that it was a case of road rage. I really have no idea why me, to me it does highlight that this could happen to anyone. It was relatively early on a Friday night in a well-populated area. I’m not sure what I could have done differently to avoid this.”

Four bullets hit her car. She was struck too on her left side near her hip.

“One of the bullets grazed me, another one ricocheted off of my car interior and hit me, so, I have a few welts from that,” she said. “I am so fortunate, had it hit me an inch over it would have been a really, really bad situation, so, I feel very lucky and unlucky at the same time. I know that this could have been a lot worse.”

She was able to leave the hospital that night. But, she says what happened to her highlights the senseless gun violence happening in New Orleans right now.

“I can’t speak to the motivation of the person who shot me but it does seem like things are getting worse in my opinion. I don’t know if it’s related to Covid or some other desperation that’s happening right now but it was an extremely senseless act of violence. I can’t begin to understand what motivated this shooting.”

She worries if it happens again, the next person might not be as lucky.

“We really need to make sure this doesn’t happen to someone else,” she said. “I don’t think it’s just on the NOPD to solve the issue of gun violence in New Orleans, I think because it is such a multi-faceted issue there’s got to be more that goes into making sure, to me gun violence is a sign of desperation, so, we have to get to the root cause of why this happened.”

We reached out to New Orleans Police about that shooting and two other similar shootings reported near the same area. The NOPD says the investigations into the incidents remains open and active. Anyone with information is asked to contact the NOPD or Crimestoppers.