New Trayvon-Zimmerman Racial Case Brews, N.O. White Man Shoots Black Youth's Head 'In Self Defense'

Signs that the New Orleans Home Defense Foundation urges residents to print and distribute. Photo Credit: Home Defense Foundation NOLA

A story resembling the Trayvon Martin versus George Zimmerman case is sparking racial tension in New Orleans that is due to escalate with rallies there beginning Thursday. A white man shot an unarmed 14-year old Black youth in the head Friday morning in a city accused of ehtnic cleansing where vigilantism is increasing.

“I hope the intruder does come again, because he won’t leave alive,” is a violent sentiment commonly heard across America, one resulting in rallies scheduled for Thursday and Saturday in New Orleans, according to emails being circulaled Wednesday and planning meetings in New Orleans.

In New Orleans, where its slogan, the “City that care forgot,” once had greater meaning. Some say ethnic cleansing is at the heart of its violence. Others blame youth, who happen to have been born where the oil-mafia rules and other societal ills, such as low-education standards and poverty, rank among the nation’s highest.

“Here it is folks,” says a commenter on The Blaze about the New Orleans Landry-Coulter case about to boil. “Yes we do have the right to protect our family/property, just don’t let anyone find out, ie. dump the body(ies) elsewhere. I called the police to respond 2 a situation at my home, they said they were 2 busy 2 respond, ‘Can u deal with it yourself?’ I took that as permission 2 use whatever remedy that I felt necessary. The parents of the youth’s involved weren’t 2 happy, I told them 2 ‘call the police!’.”

There, another commenter, Fire_Vet, says:

your life isn’t even worth the nickels in my cars ashtray.
Assault me on the street: I kill you
Break into my home: I kill you
threaten my safety or that of my family: I kill you.

Battle Lines Being Drawn

Thursday evening, some New Orleans residents plan to rally in favor of shooting and killing trespassers. Others, outraged about New Orleans “ethnic cleansing” including that shooting trespassing black youth is supposedly justifiable, plan to rally Saturday.

A New Orleans homeowner, Merritt Landry, has been arrested and charged with attempted second-degree murder after shooting an unarmed youth in the head, saying he thought the boy was trying to break into his home.

New Orleans Police Department Detective Nicholas Williams has determined that the youth, Marshall Coulter posed no “imminent threat” and was not trying to enter the Marigny house of Merritt Landry who shot the youth from 30 feet away.

The Advocate quotes from the report: “victim was not armed, was not attempting to enter the residence, was not posing an imminent threat to Merritt Landry.”

“Nevertheless, we remain convinced our client has done nothing wrong, and we are sure — as facts come to light — it’ll become clear that Mr. Landry will be fully exonerated of any wrongdoing,” Landry’s attorney said.

Merritt Landry’s defense team in front of Home Defense Foundation sign at recent meeting. (Photo Credit: Home Defense Foundation)

Rally to Defend Landry 

A rally, scheduled to be held in front of Landry’s home on Mandeville Street, is is being organized by The New Orleans-based Home Defense Foundation.

The foundation boasts on its website about an “impressive” banner it has hung on the front of Landry’s home.

“If it happened to me, somebody jumped over my fence, I live with an eight foot fence around where I live, I wake up in the morning and somebody’s inside my fence, they would be killed,” said Benjamin John at a Defense Foundation’s Justice for Merritt Landry meeting last week, according to WGNO.

“I know the Landry family and I know Merritt well, and I think he was 110% justified,” Maurren Noonan stated at the meeting in a crowded room of Landry supporters. “He’s protecting his family and his property.” 

Jeff Crouere, a Home Defense Foundation board member, is a key organizer of the Thursday rally.

Crouere is also ABC’s WGSO 990 AM radio talk show host for the program, Ringside Politics.

An example of Crouere’s “Hot Topics,” #3 on July 30, reads: “A group of black men attacked and robbed a white man in Washington D.C. last Saturday.  When will Eric Holder and Al Sharpton demand justice?”

Under subject heading, “Merritt Landry Case,” on the Home Defense Foundation website, it says:

We are strong believers in the right of self defense, which is the most basic human right.  All four of our governing members, shown on the Home Page, are helping to organize homeowners and voters to try to convince the system to do the right thing in the Merritt Landry case.

We feel that if a law abiding citizen is asleep in his home, and a “professional thief” violates curfew and trespasses on the homeowner’s property at two o’clock in the morning, and the professional thief climbs over a locked steel fence to gain access to the homeowner’s courtyard right next to the homeowner’s windows and side door, the homeowner has a right to protect his young child and his pregnant wife.

In short, there is no civil right to be a “professional thief”  -  and there is no civil right to climb over a locked steel fence to trespass on someone else’s people’s property at two o’clock in the morning.

The Home Defense team wants the DA to drop all criminal charges against Landry.

Coulter is in the intensive care unit and cannot communicate.

Rally Against N.O. ‘Ethnic Cleansing,’ ‘Vigilantism’ and for Coulter Justice

“If you think it’s okay to shoot a black kid in the head for trespassing on a yard after climbing over a fence, then you’ll be pleased to note that likeminded people are holding a rally Thursday in Marigny, that is calling on the Orleans D.A. to drop all criminal charges against Merritt Landry,” reads a notice emailed Wednesday by New Orleans rights groups banning together for their own counter-rally.

“Mr. Landry violated the law when it comes down to self defense,” civil rights activist Rev. Raymond Brown said.

“The Home Defense Foundation apparently sees no contradiction in calling on the DA to drop felony aggravated battery and other felony charges against Landry, while simultaneously urging blacks and whites to come together in a united front against crime,” emailed a rally organizer opposed to what he calls ‘vigilantism.’”

“If you do not think it is okay to shoot a kid in the head, or anywhere else, for trespassing on a lawn, then you are urged to attend the Rally for Jobs, Justice, and Education 6:30pm Saturday on the corner of Mandeville and St. Claude in the Marigny,” the email says.

This rally in opposition to strong believers that Landry did the right thing, is being organized by C3/Hands Off Iberville, Reverend Raymond Brown, the Louisiana Ecosocialists, and others. 

C3 Hands Off Iberville, a group of four, on its website, states deeper societal issues related to the Landry-Coulter case:

The local and national 1% are stepping up their racist, capitalist offensive in New Orleans.

Not content with having demolished four public housing developments and 5,000 little damaged and badly needed apartments (in addition to destroying public schools and Charity Hospital), the real estate vultures (Kabacoff, Baron, and others) and their state agents (Gilmore, Landrieu, Obama and others) are trying get their hands on the Iberville public housing community.

But they don’t stop there!

To further the class and ethnic cleansing of the city, the Downtown Development District, an arm of the real estate industry, is trying to remove bus transfers from Canal St. This is a thinly veiled attempt to drive out, in particular, working class African Americans from the area.

On the top that the 1%’s enforcers, the NOPD, are stepping up murders of local workers, such as Justin Sipp, who cops murdered as he was driving to his job.

They are also unleashing more repression against fighters like activist Kawana Jasper, a tireless defender of public housing and oppressed people, who is now facing fabricated charges. 

The group of rights defenders planning Saturday’s rally say about it, “This is a non-violent action protesting, among other matters, the surfacing of vigilantism in New Orleans.”

“Enough is enough,” they say. “The near fatal shooting of Marshall Coulter in New Orleans is no more justifiable than the fatal shooting of  Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.” 

Sources: The Times Picayune, The Advocate, The Blaze, The Home Defense Foundation NOLA, C3 Hands Off Iberville, WGNO 

Human Rights news reporter Deborah Dupré is author of “Vampire of Macondo, Life, crimes and curses in south Louisiana that Powerful Forces Don’t want you to know,” 450 pages packed with US mainstream media-censored stories about the BP-wrecked Macondo Prospect in the Gulf of Mexico that continues catastrophic human and environmental devastation.

“In ‘Vampire of Macondo’, author Deborah Dupre has captured incredible factual detail and has explained the true magnitude of this horrendous Gulf Oil Spill tragedy. Including the Cover ups, Collusion, Human Consequences and the effects on the Environment. A must read for anyone that wants to know the REAL story!” – Ron Tully (TullyNews.Info)

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