Residents gather for Please Stop the Killing Nation Community Prayer Walk in Bossier City

BOSSIER CITY, La. (KSLA) — Recent gun violence in the Shreveport-Bossier City area spurred dozens of residents to gather outside Living Waters Apostolic Outreach Center in Bossier City for a Please Stop the Killing Nation Community Prayer Walk around the neighborhood Sunday evening.

Pastor Donzell Hughes has organized several such events over the past few years.

“We need to come together. It’s one thing for us to do this and somebody else doing that, but we have to come together and do something collectively to really have an effect.”

Lonzo and Tina Sheffield have lived in the neighborhood for the past 19 years.

“We want to be visible and we want people to know we care,” Tina Sheffield said. “We care about this neighborhood. We care about the families in this neighborhood. We want to do whatever we can to show that we are not backing down, we are not going away.

“And we do need people to start loving and start figuring out other ways to resolve their issues and differences. We have to come together as a community and show a united force. It has to be together.”

The Sheffields have experienced the violence firsthand. Their daughter Hannah Sheffield was driving home from work when Demetrius McCoy allegedly shot into her vehicle, causing her to crash into a home. She was taken to the hospital, where she later died.

The Bossier City Police Department says Sheffield was not the intended target in the shooting.

“We know there was a fight earlier in the day,” Lonzo Sheffield said. “She just happened to drive the same car as the young man.

“She was coming in from work and was passing through the intersection when she was shot underneath her armpit. She fell to the left and the car swerved and that’s how she ended up in the back of a house. She wasn’t a part of the fighting. She wasn’t a part of the argument. She wasn’t a part of anything. She was coming home from work.”

McCoy is being held in the Bossier City Jail.

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