Two suspects sought in fatal shooting of detective at restaurant.
After tireless months of fighting rising crime, longtime New Orleans detective Everett Briscoe took a much-needed vacation to Houston. While dining al fresco at a posh Galleria-area restaurant Saturday, an armed robber shot him dead.
The brazen and seemingly random shooting at the Tilman Fertitta-owned Grotto Ristorante at 4715 Westheimer enraged police brass in Houston, who are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to the two suspects in Briscoe’s death.
From over the patio fence at the restaurant, the robbers demanded valuables from Briscoe and another diner. Though Briscoe and the other man were complying, one of the suspects opened fire, killing the off-duty officer and critically wounding the other man, police said. The robbers fled in a four-door Nissan Altima with paper license plates, apparently leaving behind the items they originally sought.
The shooting put Houston’s growing homicide tally this year at more than 280. Homicides, as of Friday, have increased 27 percent from 2020, police officials said
New Orleans Police Superintendent
Shaun Ferguson choked up as he explained that the increase in crime amid the pandemic is what motivated Briscoe to travel to Houston.
“He was just going out there to have fun with friends, getting some much-needed rest and relaxation,” Ferguson said during a news conference. “He was just trying to get away for a bit.”
Briscoe joined the New Orleans police force in 2008 and was most recently assigned as a
persons crimes detective in the First District.
He was pursing a bachelor’s degree at Southern University and leaves behind a wife and two sons, ages 16 and 10, the police superintendent said. He was a member of the New Orleans-based fraternal group Zulu Social Aid & Pleasure Club.
“We lost a good one,” Ferguson said.
‘We keep doing this’
Ferguson and his Houston counterpart, Chief Troy Finner, decried the shooting as senseless violence.
“I’m very upset,” Finner said hours after the shooting. “And not just because it’s an off-duty police officer. That hurts. Every victim of a violent crime in … our city means something to me.”
He called on Houston to do better at preventing crime — a topic that Jay Banks, a New Orleans City Council member and longtime friend of Briscoe, touched on Sunday with other officials. Banks hoarsely denounced the nationwide increase in violence that intensified during the pandemic and the exhaustion from the repeated grief it causes.
“We keep doing this,” Banks cried. “I don’t know how to stop it, but I sure wish somebody would tell me. I would do it immediately.”
Banks said he went to Briscoe’s home Saturday to meet with the slain officer’s wife. Her attention turned toward her oldest son. She asked Banks, “Who is going to teach him to tie his tie?”
“There was no answer because the only answer she wanted to hear was, ‘Everett’s going to walk through the door,’ but he’s not,” Banks continued. “This cancer of senseless violence has to stop.”
Another politician, U.S. Rep. Troy Carter, also expressed his condolences to Briscoe and his family.
“Praying for his family and the other victim in this senseless act of violence,” Carter said in a tweet. “A tragic day for our community. Rest in Peace.”
‘Somebody knows’
Surveillance footage is one of the few clues as of Sunday in tracking Briscoe’s killers.
The two men wanted in connection with Briscoe’s death were last seen wearing white and black hooded sweatshirts, one in black pants and the other in denim. The pair got into a silver or gray Altima with paper plates.
Workers at a CVS in the same strip as the restaurant did not hear the shooting but soon noticed police swarm the parking lot.
The employees later looked at their security footage and saw a gray Altima pull out of a garage. They couldn’t tell which way the vehicle went.
“Somebody knows them,” Finner said. “I want every person in every neighborhood to stand up, give us some information so we can get these individuals into custody.”
The shooting is the second deadly incident at a Fertitta-owned restaurant this year — the first happened in July during an apparent murder-suicide at the Downtown Aquarium restaurant.
Fertitta, the billionaire owner of Landry’s restaurants and the Houston Rockets, has offered his support to Houston police during the investigation, Finner said.
“He’s concerned, but he’s concerned with not only his restaurant,” the chief said.