Watch New Orleans Police Try to Deescalate During Tense 4-Hour Standoff with Murder Suspect

By Missy Wilkinson

Source The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate

Early on April 10, about an hour after Jared Pawlus allegedly shot and killed his roommates, he stood in the middle of a French Quarter street with a gun to his head.

On Tuesday, the New Orleans Police Department released video footage from multiple cameras of the culmination of a four-hour standoff on Royal Street. It ended moments after Pawlus, 39, allegedly fired his weapon at five officers with the NOPD's Special Operations Division. They fired back with one bullet and six "less lethal" 40-millimeter foam rounds, NOPD said.

Two of the foam rounds hit Pawlus, police said. Nobody was struck by the bullet.

The gunfire put an end to hours of negotiation with the man police say murdered his roommates in their Seventh Ward home hours earlier. Officers found James Newman, 53, and William Shoop, 73, fatally shot inside the double in the 1700 block of Rousselin Drive, NOPD said. Pawlus allegedly called his sister to confess, and she notified police, according to court documents.

"He stated he shot his roommates, and he asked his family member to tell other members of his family that he loved them," a police affidavit states.

At around 1 a.m., NOPD Eighth District officers received a call of a suicidal man standing in the 900 block of Royal Street. He fit the description of the homicide suspect, said NOPD Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick, who was at the scene.

"He was armed with a gun, and he had it to his head in an ... attempted suicide type situation," Kirkpatrick said. "Eighth district officers ... immediately tried to deescalate the situation. They tried to get him to drop the gun, obviously, and talk with him."

Those officers requested backup from the police SWAT team for what Kirkpatrick called a "high-risk" situation. Over four hours, Pawlus allegedly "made articulations that he had killed his roommates, and he did not want to return to prison" but did not surrender or drop his weapon, Kirkpatrick said.

Footage released Tuesday shows multiple angles culled from bodyworn cameras, a Nest camera, a drone and a surveillance video. It shows Pawlus shuffling back and forth on Royal Street before "tak(ing) a combat stance and rais(ing) that gun toward the officers," Kirkpatrick said Tuesday, summarizing the footage.

"Just put it down. Put it down," an officer says in the video.

The footage shows Pawlus appearing to fire, and one officer firing back. Pawlus runs to a doorway to take cover and fires again. NOPD officers fire six foam rounds at him, two of which meet their mark, according to police. Pawlus collapses on the sidewalk, and officers surround him and recover his weapon.

Pawlus was arrested on five counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of illegal use of weapons, as well as two counts of second-degree murder. The murder charges carry a life prison sentence upon a conviction.

Bond for Pawlus was set at $2 million for the second-degree murder counts and $1.5 million for the attempted murder and weapon counts.

NOPD releases bodyworn camera footage of officer-involved shootings in accordance with its 2012 federal consent decree. That reform agreement has entered a two-year "sustainment period," after which the NOPD may exit federal court oversight. The department continues to release footage of critical incidents under policy.

The Office of the Independent Police Monitor was present and monitored NOPD's Force Investigation Team at the scene of the shooting.

"This is transparency in action," Kirkpatrick said.

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