Police look for motive beyond road rage in shooting death of Will Smith

Wash Post ^ | 4/10/16 | Cindy Boren

[5150 FREEPER]

Police are investigating whether the shooting death of Will Smith, a former defensive end who played on the New Orleans Saints‘ Super Bowl-winning team, was a random act that occurred when an argument erupted into road rage after an auto accident Saturday night in New Orleans’s Lower Garden District

[sean327]

Smith was one of the good guys in the NFL.

[wally_bert]

The short lived "The Middleman" was better to me than all of the MIB movies.

[smokingfrog]

Beats me.
They’re an advocate for The State?

[rlmorel]

THAT sounds like a hit job, the way you described it.

[Vendome]

[Chgogal]

What a sad event. Hopefully this thug will get the death penalty.

[SaxxonWoods]

Advocacy is for advocates.

Prosecutors advocate for the state.

[Pining_4_TX]

Drug deal gone wrong? That’s the usual cause.

[Charles Martel]

Ah, yes - Antoinette Frank. I grew up in the part of New Orleans where those murders occurred. The cop who was killed in that restaurant was Frank's own patrol partner, with whom she shared the guard detail at the restaurant. That's how the witness (may be more than one, I can't recall) recognized and identified the shooter.

Some time later, I think they found the remains of Antoinette's father buried under his own front porch, or something like that.

Even for New Orleans, that was one twisted story.

[Charles Martel]

Hopefully this thug will get the death penalty.

If the charge stays at Second-Degree Murder, the death penalty is not on the table. IIRC, Louisiana's laws re: 2nd Degree Murder are where the "heat of blood" mitigating factors are included. Escalating arguments which end in manslaughter are usually charged that way.

That said, I think the DA is looking at this one very carefully. It wouldn't surprise me to see the charges revised to 1st Degree Murder, if it becomes clear that this was more premeditated than initially described.

[Robert DeLong]

The Advocate is the name of a newspaper out of Baton Rouge.

[smokingfrog]

doh!
If it were a snake it would have bit me.

[Robert DeLong]

LOL

[PAR35]

Don’t forget Len Davis. Federal death penalty for organized crime hit on a witness while working as a New Orleans cop.

There are one or two other New Orleans cops who made it to death row, but I don’t recall their names or the details.

As they say - it can be easy to spot criminals in New Orleans - just look for the police uniforms.

[Rockpile]

So Hayes was employed by the Saints at the same time Smith was playing.

Hayes also shot Smith’s wife twic,e in the leg.

This does look like an assassination.

[strongbow]

Left NOLA in 76 after graduation. My 40th reunion is this weekend and I am traveling from AK to attend it. I have serious reservations about being in that crap hole of a city. I plan to get out of town as soon as possible. Its always been a dark spiritual place and nothing has changed. This guy looked like a great role model for the young black people there.

[rlmorel]

That is a bit of a coincidence.