Newspaper reporter shot in Baton Rouge

KLFY TV ^ | 9/6/06 | AP

[BurbankKarl]

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. A well-known Florida newspaper says one of its reporters was shot and wounded while covering the hurricane aftermath in Baton Rouge.

The St. Petersburg Times says Marcus Franklin was shot Monday night while on his way back to a motel. The newspaper says the reporter was at a stop sign in a dimly-lit area when a man with a revolver walked up to the car and asked for his money. Franklin says he heard a pop but didn't realize he'd been shot in the stomach until he started driving off.

The 34-year-old journalist called 9-1-1 and was taken to the hospital. He was treated and released. Doctors decided not to remove the bullet, saying it was too risky. Officials say he was expected to fly back to St. Petersburg earlier today.

[msnimje]

Remember the mayor of Baton Rouge said, "We are not going to put up with those New Orleans Thugs?"

[FlingWingFlyer]

QUAGMIRE!!!!!!!! We're DOOMED!!!!

[BurbankKarl]

Times reporter shot in attempted robbery
Marcus Franklin was treated and released from a Baton Rouge hospital today after doctors decided removing the bullet was too risky.
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
Published September 6, 2005

---

A St. Petersburg Times reporter covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was shot and wounded late Monday night in Baton Rouge.

Marcus Franklin, 34, was treated and released from Baton Rouge General Hospital today after doctors decided removing the bullet was too risky at this point.

Franklin said he had been up since before daybreak reporting on people returning to their homes in Jefferson Parish near New Orleans. After filing his report, Franklin headed to a Baton Rouge motel to spend the night after spending four nights in his car.

He said he was driving on Interstate 110 in Baton Rouge when he discovered he was heading the wrong direction, so he got off. He had been driving with the air conditioning off and the windows down to save gas.

About 11:30 p.m., while trying to get back onto the interstate, Franklin stopped at a stop sign at a poorly lit intersection in a residential area.

"I didn't hear footsteps or anything," Franklin said. Suddenly, he heard a man say, "How much money you got?"

The man tried opening the passenger door of Franklin's rental car. That's when the reporter said he realized the man was holding a black revolver.

"I looked at the gun sort of in disbelief," Franklin said. He hit the gas to get away. "That's when I heard a pop...It sounded like the proverbial firecracker."

Franklin said he drove off quickly, then checked himself for wounds. He spotted blood on his shirt and discovered he had been shot in the stomach. He called 911 on his cell phone and police and emergency medical technicians showed up.

He was taken by ambulance to Baton Rouge General hospital, where he was kept overnight. A Baton Rouge police officer drove his rental car to the hospital, Franklin said. Upon his release from the hospital Tuesday, the Times chartered an air ambulance to fly him back to St. Petersburg.

A native of Detroit and a graduate of Wayne State University, Franklin has been a general assignment reporter for the Times for nearly three years.

Baton Rouge lies about 90 miles north of New Orleans. When thousands of New Orleans residents fled their city before and after the hurricane, many headed for Baton Rouge, swelling the population of the state capital beyond its usual 260,000.

Since then there have been widespread rumors of an increase in assaults and rapes. Last week Baton Rouge Mayor Melvin "Kip" Holden warned that he would not tolerate "lawlessness" from the evacuees.

But the Washington Post has reported that police officials say the crime rate is about the same as before the storm.

-- Times staff researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this story.

[Last modified September 6, 2005, 17:44:10]

[SAJ]

Hey, it's the agenda-driven, not the narrative-driven, LSM.

WTH do you expect?

[JLS]

Odd especially since nabbing the perp is not mentioned?

[MJY1288]

Coverage????..... I haven't seen real coverage in 30 Years. Until we build more refineries. For a Nation this size not too have an aggressive energy policy is beyond negligence, it's incompetence

I personably think that once the brunt of the storm bypassed" New Orleans", The Mayor of New Orleans and the Governor of Louisiana, are two of the most miserable people on or near this entertainment, I'd leave quietly :-)

[Echo Talon]

I thought the .22 auto was more common. I know in the inner cities the snub nosed .38 is very common. I have been shot at with one of these in East Chicago before, I know because I made it about 6 blocks and had to change the tire. Found the projectile after I took the tire off the rim.

[Uncle Joe Cannon]

I'm guess a deal gone bad...

[JennysCool]

Odd especially since nabbing the perp is not mentioned?

There will be very little nabbing of perps in the near term. The perps know this.

[SAJ]

Yah, there are going to. The mayor of Red Stick, for making that statement, is every bit as stupid as Nagin, although his demonstrable incompetence in making such a silly-a$$ statement will take a bit of time to prove out.

Estimate: no more than 60 days.

G-d Bless Louisiana, because too many people seem to want to consign its good citizens to the same hell that its ''public servants'' so richly deserve as a destination.

[Calvin Locke]

But the Washington Post has reported ...

*Yawn*.
(Vague memories of Janet Cooke (Cook?))

[PureSolace]

He said he was driving on Interstate 110 in Baton Rouge when he discovered he was heading the wrong direction, so he got off. He had been driving with the air conditioning off and the windows down to save gas.

I went to middle and high school right off of the 110... It's a small stretch of high way that attaches the I-10 to the northern cites in the East Baton Rouge Metro Areas of Baker and Zachary. It was NOT a safe neighborhood at all (graduated from the school in '97)... And I can imagine it's a lot worst even now.

[HiTech RedNeck]

Well, this seems to show that he had the window DOWN. Otherwise, there would have been a heck more clue than a POP that something had gone down.

Never, never, never roll the window down at night in a strange area, unless for someone recognizable as a police officer. Oh, and did I say, never?

[Eastbound]

Agreed. I guess the reporter didn't want to say the perp who walked up to the car carrying the gun actually pulled the trigger and shot the driver. The new, lawsuit-free journalism. Let the reader imagine what happened.

[trubluolyguy]

"No description of the perp, I suppose."



Sure, I bet it goes something like this.


Tall....between 20 and 40. Male. Muscular.

Dark complected.

Wearing? White "wife beater" t-shirt. Baggy jeans. Do rag on his head.

White or Black?

Yes.

[GoBucks2002]

QED, it was clearly Bush's fault.

I guess after he kills off all the Black folk, or lets them starve to death, he's going after the reporters.

If I were Bush, I'd have knocked off the reporters first. He gets more votes from the Black community than in newsrooms.

[HiTech RedNeck]

He had been driving with the air conditioning off and the windows down to save gas.

Big mistake in more than one way; most modern cars are more fuel efficient at highway speeds with windows up and A/C at normal.

[clee1]

That may or may not be true (racism on FR), I honestly don't know. Call me a racist if it make you feel better, but my black friends would really be surprised.

However, in my experience in the last few years, white criminals are fully described; white male, approx. 25 years of age, wearing a Atlanta Braves baseball cap - while black criminals aren't described at all or are with the vaguest of descriptions. They won't even describe the clothing worn because EVERYBODY knows that very few white people wear FUBU or Fila clothing, and that description alone will fairly scream "black".

I'll make you this bet, though. There will be numerous dead punks in BR over the next few months. BR is NOT yet NOLA; the people absolutely will not put up with the shiz that NOLA folks did. People there, like my parents, will NOT HESITATE to shoot down a thug like a rabid dog - regardless of the color of the scumball's skin.

[trubluolyguy]

Reply to your #19


You care to take any bets on whether the criminal was black or not?

If they catch him that is.

[clee1]

Kip Holden, BR Mayor, is also black.

I guess that makes him an "Uncle Tom" or an "Oreo".