In the late hours of a New Orleans day, 26-year-old Calvin Louis Brumfield II, an African American male, lost his life on September 16, 2007. The initial circumstances surrounding his death were shrouded in uncertainty, leaving a void of information for his grieving family and community. His passing was officially ruled a homicide, a result of gun violence that cut his life short.
For years, the case remained without public resolution, with no arrests made and no suspects officially named, adding to the pain of his loved ones.
The silence in the case was eventually broken by information that emerged from the federal prosecution of a notorious New Orleans drug dealer, Gregory 'Rabbit' Stewart. As part of a plea agreement in July 2014, Stewart, facing numerous charges including heroin and firearms conspiracies, admitted his involvement in a string of violent crimes. In exchange for prosecutors taking the death penalty off the table, he confessed to his role in several murders, one of which was the 2007 killing of Calvin Brumfield.
Further details of the events of that fatal night came to light through what was reported to be Gregory Stewart's court testimony. He described an altercation where he claimed Brumfield had fired upon him and an associate. Stewart testified that after the initial shooting, he and a partner pursued Brumfield as he tried to flee. They reportedly caught him as he attempted to scale a fence. According to Stewart's account, he and his associate pulled Brumfield down, and another individual then retrieved a firearm.
While Gregory Stewart's confession, as part of his plea deal, provided a resolution to the case from a legal standpoint, it meant that he would not be separately tried for the murder of Calvin Brumfield. This development brought a close to the official investigation into the death of the young New Orleans man, years after the violent end to his life.
