A pool hall where owners cash local workers' paycheques erupted in gunfire today, leaving four people dead in a botched robbery.
Authorities identified two of the dead as co-owner Wallace Gomez, 76, and his 74-year-old brother, Beuford Gomez, who ran the family business in a working-class district of suburban New Orleans.
Two pool hall patrons, also shot, were pronounced dead at a hospital, said Col. John Fortunato of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office. They were identified as Wayne Hebert, 64, of Harvey and Jeffrey Camardelle, 71, of Marrero.
Six Hispanic men are believed to have been involved in the shooting, the spokesman added. A deputy on patrol arrived soon afterward and stopped two men carrying away a third man, who was shot and bleeding. All three were detained.
The injured suspect was identified as Mario Funez, 26. He underwent surgery for multiple gunshot wounds and remained in a hospital intensive care unit, Fortunato said. His condition was not immediately available.
Authorities were seeking to reconstruct events and did not provide details of what happened inside the bar. They said the search continued for three other men seeing leaving in a car with Texas license plates, later found abandoned nearby.
Dawn Gomez Lauland said her 83-year-old father, Stanley Gomez, was in the bar but ducked when the shooting began.
"He dove behind the bar with a phone in his hand and he called 911," she said of her father, who co-owns the business. "He's a fit man for 83."
Lauland said her family has been cashing checks at the bar every Thursday for decades. The bar was held up about two months ago by three armed men, relatives have said.
"It's all this greed," she said in explaining the violence.
