MARRERO, La. (AP) - The Latest on the shooting of a police officer in a town outside New Orleans (all times local):
9:30 p.m.
A New Orleans-area sheriff says that during negotiations while 32-year-old Sylvester Holt was threatening suicide, the man admitted shooting his pregnant ex-girlfriend and an off-duty police officer.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand says that Holt “indicated he had a pretty good idea they were dead.”
He says Holt is in critical condition after shooting himself in the chest.
Normand says that if Holt survives, he will face first-degree murder charges in the deaths of Simone Veal and Officer Michael Louviere, plus a charge of feticide.
Holt shot himself after threatening for hours to jump from the Mississippi River bridge at New Orleans. The span from the city’s east bank to its smaller west bank neighborhood was closed for hours, causing a traffic jam that stretched for miles.
__
9:15 p.m.
A sheriff says that a man accused of shooting and killing a Louisiana police officer and a woman the shooter had been romantically involved with had recently found out the woman was pregnant with a new boyfriend.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand says 32-year-old Sylvester Holt went Friday morning to Simone Veal’s house and an altercation ensued during which he shot her several times.
Holt then looked for Veal’s boyfriend as the woman fled in a car. She later crashed and a police officer, 26-year-old Westwego Officer Michael Louviere, pulled over to investigate.
Normand says Holt then arrived and shot Louviere as well.
__
6:20 p.m.
A Louisiana state police spokesman says the suspect in the slaying of an officer and a woman shot himself following a standoff on a New Orleans bridge but is alive.
Trooper Dustin Dwight says the man identified as Sylvester Holt shot himself once in the chest on Friday evening.
Dwight said negotiators had been talking with Holt but he does not know what was said.
Dwight said rescue workers were going down to get Holt, who was on a girder below and to the side of the bridge roadway when the shooting happened.
News outlets have reported that Holt has been brought back up.
__
5:30 p.m.
A man threatening to jump from New Orleans’ Mississippi River bridge ignored a rope lowered to him as police hunted for a man who fatally shot an off-duty police officer and a woman who had crashed her car.
Police pulled the rope back up late Friday afternoon, and the man lay down on a girder below the bridge and outside its railing.
Assistant Gretna Police Chief Anthony Christiana told The New Orleans Advocate (https://bit.ly/2jHRKH3) that he’d been told the incident on the bridge might be related to the shootings. Officials have not given further explanation.
State Trooper Dustin Dwight, who’s on the bridge, says the man’s been threatening to jump but investigators don’t know his name.
Investigators say 32-year-old Sylvester Holt is wanted for questioning in Friday morning’s shootings.
___
4:30 p.m.
Police officers are lowering a rope to a man standing on a girder below a bridge outside New Orleans as they seek a man who fatally shot an off-duty police officer and a woman who had crashed her car.
WVUE-TV (https://bit.ly/1LcyDNV ) showed live video of the rope being lowered to the man, whom police have not identified.
Assistant Gretna Police Chief Anthony Christiana told The New Orleans Advocate (https://bit.ly/2jHRKH3) that he’d been told the incident on the bridge might be related to the shootings. Officials have not given further explanation.
State Trooper Dustin Dwight, who’s on the bridge, says the man’s been threatening to jump but investigators don’t know his name.
Investigators say 32-year-old Sylvester Holt is wanted for questioning in Friday morning’s shootings.
___
4:20 p.m.
The Jefferson Parish district attorney says a rape charge against a ’person of interest’ in a double shooting was dropped by his accuser.
A sheriff’s office spokesman says 32-year-old Sylvester Holt is wanted for questioning in the shooting deaths Friday of a woman he’d been involved with and a police officer
He had been released from jail Jan. 7, after prosecutors withdrew a rape charge against him.
District Attorney Paul Connick Jr. says the woman who accused him told investigators repeatedly that she wanted to withdraw the charge, though she still alleged that he had raped her.
Connick says Holt said the woman had agreed to have sex with him.
___
3:15 p.m.
Louisiana authorities say a woman who was fatally shot along with an off-duty police officer in a town outside New Orleans had been chased down in a vehicle by the shooter, who killed her as she lay on the ground after crashing her car.
Col. John Fortunato says witnesses say the man shot at 32-year-old Simone Veal, then chased her car in his vehicle to an intersection where she hit a truck waiting at a light.
Fortunato says that while in the intersection, the man shot Westwego Officer Michael Louviere (loo-VYEHR), then ran around the car and shot Veal as she lay on the ground. Fortunato didn’t know if Veal has been hit in the earlier shooting.
Authorities have named 32-year-old Sylvester Holt as a person of interest in the investigation. Holt was released from jail on Jan. 7.
___
2:15 p.m.
The off-duty police officer who was shot and killed in a New Orleans suburb was a U.S. Marine who served in Afghanistan before he embarked on a career in law enforcement.
Westwego Police Chief Dwayne Munch says the slain officer, 26-year-old Michael Louviere, joined the department in July 2015 and “finished first in everything” in his police academy class of roughly 20 recruits.
Munch says Louviere, a married father of a 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son, was a dedicated family man with a strong worth ethic and was a “rising star” on the police force.
Authorities say Louviere was shot in the head after he stopped to help at an accident scene Friday morning on his way home from work. The same man suspected of killing the officer also allegedly shot and killed the woman Louviere was helping.
___
1:35 p.m.
The sheriff’s office in a New Orleans suburb has released the name of a woman shot to death with an off-duty police officer.
Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, says 32-year-old Simone Veal died from multiple gunshot wounds.
The attacker also killed an off-duty Westwego police officer who was trying to help her Friday morning.
The bridge from New Orleans’ main section to a small part of the city across the Mississippi River is closed because a man is on a girder outside and below the roadway. Authorities say it may be related to the search for a 32-year-old man wanted for questioning in the double shooting.
He’s identified as Sylvester Holt, who was released from jail Jan. 7 after prosecutors declined to bring a rape charge against him.
___
12:45 p.m.
Authorities searching for a suspect in the killing of a police officer say they have closed off traffic because a man is standing on a girder below the railing of a bridge in New Orleans.
Assistant Gretna Police Chief Anthony Christiana told The New Orleans Advocate (https://bit.ly/2jHRKH3 ) that he’d been told the incident on the bridge might be related to the deaths of a woman and the off-duty Westwego police officer Friday morning.
The bridge was closed, backing up traffic for miles. Helicopters circled the area, and police cars swarmed.
Col. John Fortunato, spokesman for the sheriff in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, said he had not been able to confirm whether the man on the bridge is 32-year-old Sylvester Holt, who’s wanted for questioning in the deaths.
He says Holt was released from jail Jan. 7 after prosecutors declined to bring a rape charge against him.
___
12:15 p.m.
Authorities say a man wanted for questioning in the deaths of a Louisiana police officer and another person was released from jail on Jan. 7 after prosecutors declined to prosecute him for rape.
The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesman 32-year-old Sylvester Holt was released after prosecutors said they could not bring a rape charge against him due to “lack of witness participation.”
Col. John Fortunato also said several women had restraining orders against Holt.
Authorities say Westwego Officer Michael Louviere was off-duty and had stopped to help at an accident scene when he was shot in the head. A woman was shot to death. Her name has not been released. However, Sheriff Newell Normand has told news media she had been romantically involved with Holt.
Fortunato says Louviere was married and had a 4-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son, and his brother is a New Orleans police officer.
___
10:45 a.m.
Louisiana authorities say that a police officer and a woman he was helping have been shot and killed.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand told local media that Officer Michael Louviere of Westwego was killed in a shooting in neighboring Marrero.
Louviere was 26.
A woman was also killed in the shooting outside of Visitation of Our Lady School, located just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans. Normand says police are looking for 32-year-old Sylvester Holt, who was romantically involved with her.
___
10 a.m.
Authorities say a police officer and a woman have been shot outside a school just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, said the officer from Westwego was shot Friday in the neighboring town of Marrero. There was no immediate word on either his condition or the woman’s.
Archdiocese of New Orleans spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey McDonald says it happened outside Visitation of Our Lady School. She says the sheriff’s office must answer all other questions, including whether the woman was a school employee.
The school teaches pre-kindergarten through seventh grade students.
A message on its Facebook page said an incident Friday morning disrupted the school day, and children could be dropped off but all absences would be excused. It also said that a sixth-grade field trip had been canceled and all tests, quizzes and assignments would be postponed.
___
9 a.m.
Abdallah Aballah works at a gas station near where a police officer was shot, just cross the river from New Orleans. He said a woman ran in about 6:30 a.m. Friday screaming for someone to call 911.
He said he and some customers made calls. Aballah says he heard two shots, and customers ran outside.
Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, says a Westwego police officer was shot and that a woman also was shot in the same incident, which happened in Marrero, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
There’s no immediate word on the condition of the officer or the woman.
___
7:45 a.m.
A spokesman says a police officer has been shot in a town outside New Orleans.
Col. John Fortunato, a spokesman for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, said in a short statement Friday morning that they had an “officer down incident” in which a Westwego police officer was shot.
He says a female victim was also shot in the same incident, which happened in Marrero, just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans.
There was no information on the condition of the officer or the victim.
___
Photographer Jonathan Bachman contributed to this report.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.