Five teenagers were shot to death in New Orleans early Saturday in a brazen crime that has shaken the city and police as returning residents struggle to regain their footing after Hurricane Katrina.
Police said the young men, ages 16 to 19, were sprayed with bullets while sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the working-class Central City neighborhood, which is notorious for drug trafficking.
The victims' names had not been released.
The incident follows a rash of crimes just west of New Orleans in Jefferson Parish, one of seven parishes that make up the New Orleans metropolitan area.
The shootings underscore what many here fear: Violent crime is making a comeback along with displaced residents.
Police statistics show 52 homicides in the city since Jan. 1, half as many as during the same period last year -- but the population is much smaller. Katrina, which hit on Aug. 29, scattered more than half of the city's 450,000 residents across the country.
New Orleans Police Capt. John Bryson, commander of public affairs for the department, said that investigations into the shootings of the young men -- three 19-year-olds, a 17-year-old and a 16-year-old -- were ongoing and that any preliminary police statements were speculative.
"It appears to be either a retaliatory murder or drug-related or both," said Bryson, former commander of the police district that covers Central City.
"Whoever the perpetrator or perpetrators were who carried out this heinous crime, they meant for every one of these individuals to be dead. Believe me, they were not trying to scare them."
A semiautomatic weapon was used to fire multiple rounds, the police captain said.
Several gun casings were found at the scene.
Bryson said the crime scene indicated that one 19-year-old had gotten out of the car when confronted. "He received a single gunshot wound to the head and fell where he was shot," Bryson said.
"The weapon was fired into the vehicle, fatally wounding the other four," Bryson said.
The victim in the front passenger seat managed to get out of the car, and collapsed about 100 feet away. He was taken to the hospital with four gunshot wounds and died in surgery, Bryson said.
The car was found smashed against a utility pole at the corner of Danneel and Josephine streets.
Bryson said speculation that the homicides were drug-related stemmed from Central City's reputation for illicit drug activity.
