NEW IBERIA, La. (KLFY)— Two teenage boys fatally shot one another in New Iberia, Louisiana Sunday evening, according to police.
The family of one of the victims has identified him as 16-year-old I’egan Harrison.
“It’s just hard right now,” Shantera Harrison, I’egan’s aunt said. “It’s hurtful. It’s very painful.”
Just hours before I’egan took his last breathe, Harrison said she stopped and talked to him while driving through the neighborhood. She said everything seemed normal.
“We kept going, not knowing it would’ve led to them calling and saying, ‘Your little nephew is laying down on Rosalie,’” she said.
Hours after she saw I’egan, she heard two boys had been shot on Rosalie Street.
“Instead of me calling my sister, I called I’egan’s phone. It just rang, and it just rang. I said, ‘Oh lord, the phone’s just ringing, and he’s not answering,’” Harrison recalled.
That’s when her neighbor delivered the tragic news.
“She came knocking to the door and said, ‘Shantera, I’egan just got killed.’ I said, ‘What?’ She said, ‘Yeah, I’egan just got killed,’” she said.
Right down the road from where she’d joked with her nephew hours earlier, his body now laid lifeless on the cold, hard ground.
“I just pray that he made it. That’s our prayer, you know. He’s gone,” Harrison said, holding back tears.
Next to I’egan’s body laid another sixteen-year-old boy. Police say the teens fatally shot one another.
“Back in the day, you fight. You go home. You know, you might be talking the next 15, 20 minutes,” she said. “It’s just totally different today. They’re ready to pull out a gun when you figured you want to fight. It goes both ways. It goes for I’egan, and it goes for the other guy that got killed. I’m not sugarcoating it for nobody.”
Police have not identified the other victim.
“I want to tell the other family that I’m sorry, whatever happened between them and my little nephew, and all we want is peace. Love goes out to them also because they are grieving just like we are,” Harrison said.