Jerry Devante Harris, a 20-year-old Black/African American male, was killed in a daylight shooting in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 28, 2019. Late that afternoon, New Orleans police were dispatched to the 1500 block of Freret Street after reports of gunfire. A woman who witnessed what happened told officers she saw a silver sedan moving along Terpsichore Street and firing as it passed the block, turning the street into a sudden corridor of shots.
Not long after the call, officers located the vehicle at the intersection of Harmony and Prytania streets, and near it they found Harris lying on the ground. He was pronounced dead at the scene, while the woman who reported the shooting was not physically struck by gunfire. The Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office later identified Harris as the person who died there. The violence appeared to move quickly—shots on Freret, then the car discovered blocks away—leaving investigators to reconstruct the route, the timing, and who had been inside the sedan when the trigger was pulled.
In the weeks that followed, police publicly focused on people they believed could help fill in the missing pieces, emphasizing that they were not announcing suspects. On April 13, 2019, the New Orleans Police Department said Demontre Smith had been identified as a person of interest; detectives wanted to question him and had obtained legal authority for a DNA buccal swab. In an update the same day, the department reported Smith had been located, questioned, and that a DNA swab had been obtained.
Then, on April 24, 2019, police issued a similar request involving Quitman Hartford, also described as a person of interest. Detectives again said they were seeking an interview and had obtained a buccal warrant for a DNA swab, while stressing that Hartford was not currently wanted in the investigation. Those public releases described the case as active and ongoing, but they did not announce any arrest, charge, trial, or conviction connected to Harris’s killing in the information they shared.
