Iberville Parish law enforcement expressed outrage over a mass shooting in Baton Rouge at Mall of Louisiana in an incident that hit very close to home.
The shooting that took the life of a 17-year-old high school senior from Ascension Episcopal of Lafayette and left five others wounded.
“This little 17-year-old girl left her home for her “senior skip day, something they all look forward to — and today this mother woke up without a daughter this morning,” Sheriff Brett Stassi said April 24, one day after the incident.
Five suspects were taken into custody after the shootout in the food court area. Two groups of people were in the dining area when the shooting broke out.
Exterior of Mall of Louisiana after a shooting inside on April 23, 2026. A shooting broke out at the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge on Thursday, April 23, injuring multiple people and leaving one dead.
The leg monitor on one of the alleged assailants had been removed prior to the shooting.
“That really adds insult to injury,” Stassi said.
The incident shows the lack of respect some people have for life, the sheriff said.
“They don’t have respect for their life and nobody else’s,” he said. “It’s unbelievable and sad. People are resorting to gunfire too quickly, and — as in the case at the food court — it takes life of innocent bystander.
“Gone are the days when people could watch national headlines and assume those incidents would not occur so close to home.”
St. Gabriel Police Chief Kevin Ambeau, who serves an area just over 10 minutes away from the mall, said it’s too close for comfort.
The proximity keeps the department on higher guard, he said.
“We’re always assisting Baton Rouge on things that happen nearby,” Ambeau said. “We train for stuff like what happened Thursday… we must be prepared for stuff like that at all of the time.”
Plaquemine Police Chief Stephen Engolio, another law enforcement veteran, said nothing prepares police or residents for what happens in those circumstances.
He disputed the media classification of the incident as “a mass shooting.”
“This is thugs in Baton Rouge shooting thugs,” Engolio said. “It’s not the mass shooting of a terrorist … it’s just thugs shooting thugs not giving a damn.
“This type of thing is avoidable by putting those thugs in jail. It’s as simple as that.”
White Castle Police Chief Harold Brooks said he sees much of the same Baton Rouge criminal element in his town.
One recent suspect who had been arrested recently in Baton Rouge found refuge in White Castle before Brooks alerted Baton Rouge Police.
“We’re a little further away, but we do get people from Baton Rouge,” he said. “It trickles down into our area – not as much, thank God – but we do see people from the Baton Rouge area causing trouble in our area.
“We do our best keeping things straight in our area. We don’t need people from other areas coming here to cause trouble.”
This article originally appeared on Plaquemine Post South: Baton Rouge mall shooting draws ire of Iberville law enforcement
