MORE MCKNIGHT: The latest on the case.
McKnight case gets murky, says prober
THE MAN WHO fatally shot exJets running back Joe McKnight in a street showdown has a history of road rage, police said Friday.
Ronald Gasser admitted to gunning down McKnight at the same suburban New Orleans intersection where he got violent with another man in 2006, Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said.
That charge was later dismissed.
Gasser, 54, was released from custody early Friday without being charged in the McKnight killing but isn’t in the clear yet, authorities said.
Normand said investigators were still trying to piece together the circumstances of the Thursday afternoon shooting.
Legal experts noted that Louisiana is a “Stand Your Ground” state where residents are allowed to carry concealed weapons in public.
“Everyone should pause and reflect and recognize that a rush to judgment does not equal anything,” Normand said.
“The easiest thing for me would have been, ‘Book ’em, Danno,’ ” he added. “But the fact of the matter is in trying to flesh out these details . . . we chose not to do that.”
Normand revealed that Gasser, contrary to a witness account, likely fired at the 28-yearold McKnight from inside his vehicle. An unnamed person was quoted by local media claiming that Gasser shot McKnight multiple times in the street, then stood over his body and taunted him before firing a final shot.
Three bullet casings were found inside Gasser’s blue Infiniti sedan, Normand said. An autopsy showed McKnight was struck in the chest, right shoulder and left hand.
The dispute spanned several blocks and may have been sparked by one of the drivers cutting off the other on the Greater New Orleans Bridge, Normand said.
Under Louisiana state law, a homicide is justifiable when, among other scenarios, a person believes “he is in imminent danger of losing his life or receiving great bodily harm.”
Gasser remained at the scene and turned over his semiautomatic handgun to police following the 2:43 p.m. shooting in Terrytown. McKnight was not carrying a weapon.
News of Gasser’s release drew a chorus of criticism from McKnight’s relatives, his former teammates and civil rights groups.
McKnight was black; Gasser is white.
“I don’t get it,” tweeted Antonio Cromartie, who played with McKnight on the Jets. “How in hell do you release someone who killed my brother, my friend a father a son a brother without charging him. Bull.”
McKnight’s grandmother Barbara Franklin told the Associated Press “Gasser might be released now, but God is going to bring about justice.”
The president of the NAACP’s New Orleans chapter put it more bluntly. “We think a black man was lynched yesterday,” Morris Reed said.
Normand lashed out at critics who claimed McKnight’s skin color played a role in the decision to release Gasser.
“This isn’t about race,” Normand said. “The gentleman that raised Joe McKnight used to work in this office.”
Gasser’s family said they couldn’t believe the telecommunications expert was capable of murder.
“I’m speechless at the moment,” said Gasser’s daughter, Candice Gasser-Bua. “I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened.”
Gasser’s neighbors in Gretna, La., said he was quiet and unassuming.
“He kept pretty much to himself,” said Jim Landry, who lives three houses away. “I suspect he had no intention of waking up and killing someone yesterday.”
Anthony Johnson could do nothing but shake his head.
Standing in front of his locker at the Jets’ facility Friday afternoon, the defensive lineman was trying to find the words to describe his emotions, the frustration and pain and sadness he’d felt over the past 24 hours. Johnson was born and raised in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans, just blocks from where Louisiana legend and former Jets running back Joe McKnight was shot and killed Thursday afternoon in an alleged road rage incident. McKnight was just 28 years old.
Friday morning, the alleged killer — a white 54-yearold man named Ronald Gasser — walked free. Police released him from custody without filing charges as the case raised more questions than answers. And here was Johnson hours later, attempting to digest the fact that his childhood hero is dead far too young, with far too much life left to live.
After several seconds, Johnson stopped shaking his head. He looked up, the agony visible in his eyes.
“Why? Just why?” Johnson told the Daily News. “That’s all we want to know. Why?”
Across the room, safety Antonio Allen, a former teammate of McKnight’s with the Jets in 2012, mirrored Johnson’s sentiment.
He was asked what Gasser’s release from custody says about our society.
“We got a lot of work to do,” Allen told the News. “I know that.”
“To see him pass is devastating, and my heart goes out to his family, his children, man. I just can’t fathom a person dying so young.”
Johnson’s family still resides in Algiers, including his daughter and her mother. That’s a scary fact for the Jets’ defensive lineman.
Earlier this year, former Saints defensive end Will Smith was shot and killed in a road
rage incident in the Lower Garden District of New Orleans, just across the Mississippi River from where McKnight was gunned down. In Johnson’s eyes, the city isn’t safe. “It is very concerning,” Johnson said. “Right now, where my family is located, I don’t feel too good. I’m looking over my shoulder everywhere I go now. And this is where I was born and raised. It’s bad, especially for athletes, especially for guys like myself, (Cardinals safety) Tyrann (Mathieu), guys that go back and try to give back to the community. It’s rough when you go back home and you got to look over your shoulder because you don’t know what’s going to happen. But at the end of the day, you can’t let that affect you. You just got to continue to live your life and try and go out there and be the best person you can be.”
For Johnson and many other kids in New Orleans in the early 2000s, McKnight was larger than life.
“I really didn’t look up to a lot of people,” Johnson said. “But when you were a young kid growing up, you always wanted to be Joe McKnight. He was the Reggie Bush of New Orleans. … It’s a hard time for my city.”
“Just to see my whole West Bank community shocked and to see somebody of that magnitude get left on the street like that, man, and somebody that had a heart like Joe, somebody that worked as hard as he did to make it from that place, it just goes to show that this world still has a way to go,” Johnson continued. “We have a long way to go in terms of growing as a people and in terms of bettering ourselves. At the end of the day, it’s a sad time for all of the world, especially the football world. But down home in New Orleans, man, it hurts a lot.”
Johnson, now 23, was barely a teenager when McKnight was shredding opposing defenses as a standout running back for John Curtis Christian High School.
Johnson credits McKnight with shining a light on the football recruiting hot bed that is the New Orleans and Baton Rouge area.
Johnson recalled flipping on the television one day when he was young and seeing John Curtis playing Hoover (Ala.) High School.
“If it wasn’t for Joe McKnight, the ESPNUs wouldn’t be down there in New Orleans,” Johnson said. “He brought television to a high school football game. When I saw John Curtis play Hoover, Alabama, that was the first time I’ve seen a high school game on TV. I had never saw anything like that. But it was only because of Joe McKnight.”
New Orleans lost a son, and the city mourns.
“It’s a sad day right now in the NFL for a lot of his former teammates,” Johnson said, “and especially for the guys who were originally from New Orleans and watched that player mature.”
Why? Just why? That’s all we want to know. Why? ANTHONY JOHNSON