New Orleans officer shot and killed outside of Carver basketball game identified as Martinus Mitchum | Crime / Police

The second deputy city court constable and Tulane University campus policeman who was shot dead Friday night outside a playoff game at George Washington Carver High School was Martinus Mitchum, 38, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the murder. .

Investigators say Mitchum was killed after a school staff member argued with a man trying to get into Carver’s game at his home gym against Warren Easton High School in the 3000 block of Boulevard Higgins around 6:30 p.m. Friday. Mitchum overheard the dispute, intervened, and attempted to escort the man who was arguing with the staff member off campus.

But then the man taken out drew a gun and shot Mitchum in the chest, police said.

Paramedics took Mitchum to the University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Assistants from the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office who were also at the school arrested a suspect in the shooting. The suspect was not immediately identified.

Sources said Mitchum’s family learned of his murder later on Friday evening. Officials have called off the remainder of the game between Carver and Easton.

In addition to working as a reserve deputy police officer at the 2nd Municipal Court, Mitchum was a member of the Tulane University Police Department, police said. Information on Tulane’s website showed that he began working for the university police on July 26, 2019.

He had also worked at Landry-Walker high school in Algiers and at John F. Kennedy high school near City Park, according to newspaper clippings.

Mitchum maintained an active social media presence and frequently commented on law enforcement. Just two days before his death, he explained how he supported the requirement for officers to wear body cameras and revocation of their certification if they performed their jobs poorly or turned out to be racist.

On Thursday, he retweeted a message from Vice President Kamala Harris supporting the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which is named after the man murdered by cops in Minneapolis last year and aims, among other things, to revise the qualified immunity for the police.

He would also lobby for courts to hold repeat offenders accountable rather than releasing them without bail or low bail.

The news of Mitchum’s assassination on Friday sparked an intense wave of condolence on the networks he frequented. A Twitter user recounted how Mitchum just ‘checked it out’ last week and wrote, ‘Have a rest’.

Former UNO, LSU and Memphis basketball player Charles Carmouche, a top player at the local high school, wrote that Mitchum believed in him “when no one else did” and watched him regularly.

“We really lost a great guy,” Carmouche said.