Kenny Young, a 24-year-old Black man, was shot on the afternoon of May 6, 2022, in New Orleans East, in the area of the 4800 block of Alcee Fortier Boulevard. Police were dispatched at about 2:14 p.m. to reports of gunfire, and what they found was not a single victim but a burst of violence that had ripped through a group of men in seconds. By the time the scene settled, six men had been shot; two would not survive, while four others were left wounded and rushed into treatment as investigators
tried to piece together who fired and why.
In the hours after the shooting, the case quickly turned into a homicide investigation, and the public details that emerged painted the outline of a broad, chaotic incident rather than a clean, isolated attack. Reports described the event as a shootout, and authorities indicated early on that the investigation was still unfolding, with detectives working the leads while also signaling they were still looking for additional suspects. The sense of urgency came through in the official appeals for information, as homicide investigators asked anyone who knew anything to come forward, even anonymously.
By the next day, May 7, New Orleans police announced the arrest of Alex Madison in connection with the gunfire on Alcee Fortier Boulevard. Madison was booked on a murder charge, and NOPD later specified an arrest on one count of second-degree murder tied to the May 6 killings, while the department and local reporting emphasized that the work was not over and that investigators continued to pursue information about any additional suspects connected to what happened.
Away from the headlines, Young’s death left a private absence that read differently than police summaries and booking sheets. Family notices described him as Kenny Ray Young Jr., born March 19, 1998, and remembered by parents, siblings, nephews, and a wide circle of relatives and friends who gathered to mourn him in the days that followed. The violence that took him was public, sudden, and loud; the grief that followed was quieter, carried in names listed like a roll call of love and in the memories shared at his services.
