Bud Landrum was a 42-year-old man who died on February 17, 2018, after a midday burst of gunfire shattered the ordinary rhythm of Tremé in New Orleans. Just after 11:30 a.m., police were called to the area of St. Ann Street and North Prieur Street, where they found two men struck in their upper bodies—one slumped inside an automobile, the other lying out in the street.
The scene had the stunned stillness that follows violence: sirens, taped-off corners, and neighbors trying to piece together what could have happened so quickly.
In the first hours, investigators treated it as a double homicide and focused on the scramble to preserve whatever the moment left behind—shell casings, witness accounts, the direction any fleeing vehicle might have gone. The New Orleans Police Department said detectives were working to identify whoever was responsible and to determine a motive, while the coroner’s office handled the formal process of confirming identities and cause of death. At the time, authorities indicated there was no immediate public description of a suspect, and the search for the person or people responsible was still underway.
Days later, the Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office publicly identified Landrum as one of the two men killed in the 1900 block of St. Ann Street, with Ronald Hawkins, 50, named as the other victim. With the names released, the story turned from “unknown victims” to two real lives abruptly cut off—families notified, phones lighting up with disbelief, and the kind of grief that spreads outward through friends, coworkers, and anyone who recognizes a name.
As for arrests and suspects, the official public updates available from the initial police notice and contemporaneous reporting describe the investigation as active but do not name any arrested person connected to Landrum’s killing or identify a specific suspect in the double shooting. Publicly available incident summaries tied to the date and location also list Landrum as a fatal shooting victim but do not provide suspect, arrest, or charging details. In other words, in the sources that directly describe this February 17, 2018 double shooting, there is no documented arrest, indictment, trial, or conviction reported for the homicide of Bud Landrum.
