(New Orleans, LA) — Three people are dead and two wounded after a shooting in a Louisiana gun store.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s deputies responded to the Jefferson Gun Outlet in Metairie around 3pm Saturday.
Detectives are examining the possibility that the deadly shootout at Jefferson Gun Outlet may have started when a customer who carried in a pistol with an extended magazine argued with store staff who told him to unload.
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It all started after a gunman opened fire on two people inside the Jefferson Gun Outlet in Metairie over a disagreement inside the store, leading the suspect who was armed with a weapon that possessed an extended magazine to shoot two people, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Joseph Lopinto told reporters.
Multiple sources familiar with the investigation said detectives were examining the possibility that the gunfire began when the initial shooter argued with store employees who ordered him to unload an extended magazine from a pistol he carried into the business. Gun ranges generally forbid patrons to carry loaded weapons in the lobby.
Two of the victims and the suspect were pronounced dead at the scene.
That’s when “several individuals ended up engaging that original suspect, whether inside the location or out here in the parking lot.”
He said authorities were still in the process of “trying to put it all together” at the grisly crime scene, where “multiple shooters” were thought to be involved, including employees and customers of the store.
“We have a total of three deceased, including the two inside,” Lopinto said, adding that two other victims were hospitalized in stable condition. The suspect was among the three killed.
Coroner Gerry Cvitanovich said the dead were two men and a woman. He withheld their names.
Jefferson Gun Outlet’s website bills the business as “the premier firearms outlet for the Greater New Orleans Area.” It has a 14-lane, 25-yard indoor firing range