*Singer August Alsina expressed condolences to reality star Toya Wright after the murder of her brothers, Rudy and Josh Johnson, over the weekend.
“I’m so sorry Toya,” Alsina wrote on Instagram Monday (Aug. 1) next to a photo with Wright. “I know your pain too many times over. Sending so much light & love your way. Forever praying for my city, OUR city, New Orleans.”
Alsina lost his own brother, Melvin La’Branch III, to gun violence in 2010.
Meanwhile, the New Orleans Advocate is reporting that the fatal shooting was preceded by a heated disturbance on a 7th Ward street, according to one neighbor:
John Kemper, 55, said the voices he heard across the street from his residence in the 2800 block of Pauger Street just after midnight Sunday morning were so loud that he peered through the window to see what was happening.
When he looked out, he said, he saw several residents of a group of brick apartment buildings on the upriver side of the street, yelling at the occupants of a black SUV.
“They were yelling down, looking at the car,” Kemper said. “There was a commotion going on.”
He said such disturbances are so common on the block that he went back into a rear room of his apartment. From inside the apartment, he then heard nine shots, he said.
“When I looked back out, everybody was gone,” Kemper said.
The engine of the black SUV was still running, however. When police officers arrived at the scene, they found brothers Ryan “Rudy” Johnson, 24, and Joshua Johnson, 31, dead from gunshot wounds inside the vehicle.
Police have given no indication about who they think may have killed the Johnson brothers or why. But Kemper and several other neighbors said they suspected a connection to drug dealing near the brick apartment buildings.
“It be like they’re selling sno-balls over there,” one said.
Police asked anyone with information on the killings to contact Homicide Detective Theo Kent at (504) 658-5300.
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