One man dead, three wanted in fatal Kentwood gas station shooting
KENTWOOD, La. (WGNO) — A man is dead following an argument turned shooting in Kentwood, according to officers.
On Wednesday, Jan. 29, Kentwood Police Department officers were called to a gas station in the 400 block of Third Street in response to a shooting in the area.
Woman hospitalized after car crashes into Metairie canal: JPSO
Upon arrival, officers reported finding 24-year-old Zykerien Bickham on the scene suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. They said despite rendering aid, Bickham was pronounced deceased.
An investigation revealed Bickham had been involved in an argument with three other subjects when one of them allegedly pulled out a gun and began to shoot.
He was hit and officers said the three subjects fled the scene on foot.
'Largest fentanyl bust' conducted in St. Tammany Parish
'Just over a month ago, I was investigating another senseless shooting right next door from this location. Now here we are again! The thoughts and prayers of myself, and the Kentwood Police Department are with the Bickham family! As the Chief of Police of this normally docile community, I pledge a swift resolution to this incident, and I will personally see that ALL parties involved in this are brought to justice! My message to the alleged perpetrators is, I know who you are, and I will find you! Your best option is to turn yourself in quickly!' said Chief Michael Kazerooni.
Tangipahoa Parish Shariff's Office Deputies are also assisting in the investigation.
The incident has been marked as the first homicide of the year.Republicans advance Trump OMB nominee as Democrats boycott vote
President Trump casts blame during briefing on deadly plane crash
Bucket list for New Orleans students is fashion class
Where Y'at this Weekend: Rosy's Jazz Hall, Mahalia Jackson Theater, Chewbacchus, Mardi Gras World
How does the NFL pick its Super Bowl cities?
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Newsweek
36 minutes ago
- Newsweek
California Fourth Grader Detained By ICE Sparks Outrage
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A 9-year-old boy in California was detained by federal immigration agents at an immigration hearing. Martir Garcia Lara, a fourth-grader at Torrance Elementary School, was taken into custody along with his father on May 29 after reporting to federal authorities in downtown Los Angeles. They were transferred the next day to an immigration facility in Texas, where they are currently held pending deportation to Honduras. A spokesperson for ICE told Newsweek they remain in federal custody pending deportation to Honduras. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers wait to detain a person, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers wait to detain a person, Jan. 27, 2025, in Silver Spring, Md. Alex Brandon/AP Why It Matters The arrest comes amid a hardline crackdown on immigration by President Donald Trump's administration, which has vowed to deport millions of migrants without legal status. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has maintained under the second Trump administration that ICE does not arrest children. What To Know "Martir Garcia-Banegas, 50, illegally entered the United States July 10, 2021 with a family member, Martir Isaac Garcia Lara, 9," a spokesperson for ICE told Newsweek. On September 1, 2022, an immigration judge issued an order for the family to be removed to Honduras. Garcia appealed this decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals; however, the appeal was dismissed on August 11, 2023, according to ICE. After being detained by officials in Los Angeles, the father and son were transferred to the Dilley Immigration Processing Center in Dilley, Texas. The administration has taken an estimated 500 children into government custody since Trump returned to power, according to CNN. Courthouses nationwide have recently become focal points in the Trump administration's immigration enforcement efforts. Federal agents have been stationed to arrest individuals immediately after they appear before immigration judges. Many of these individuals have been in the U.S. for less than two years, and attorneys from the Department of Homeland Security often request that their deportation cases be dismissed. When a judge approves such a request, immigrants leaving the courtroom are sometimes taken into custody by plainclothes federal agents for expedited removal. What People Are Saying A spokesperson for ICE told Newsweek: "Parents, who are here illegally, can take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering aliens $1,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right, legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return." A spokesperson with Torrance Unified School District said in a statement: "It is our responsibility as a District to support the families of every student and connect them to resources and assistance for their continued education and healthy wellbeing, if, and when, a family requests it." What Happens Next Martir and his father will remain detained at a facility in southern Texas pending removal.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Data fail to support Trump's justifications for latest travel ban
The Trump administration on Wednesday announced travel restrictions targeting 19 countries in Africa and Asia, including many of the world's poorest nations. All travel is banned from 12 of these countries, with partial restrictions on travel from the rest. The presidential proclamation, entitled "Restricting the Entry of Foreign Nationals to Protect the United States from Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats," is aimed at "countries throughout the world for which vetting and screening information is so deficient as to warrant a full or partial suspension on the entry or admission of nationals from those countries." In a video that accompanied the proclamation, President Donald Trump said, "The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colo., has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted." The latest travel ban reimposes restrictions on many of the countries that were included on travel bans in Trump's first term, along with several new countries. But this travel ban, like the earlier ones, will not significantly improve national security and public safety in the United States. That's because migrants account for a minuscule portion of violence in the United States. And migrants from the latest travel ban countries account for an even smaller portion, according to data that I have collected. The suspect in Colorado, for example, is from Egypt, which is not on the travel ban list. As a scholar of political sociology, I don't believe Trump's latest travel ban is about national security. Rather, I'd argue, it's primarily about using national security as an excuse to deny visas to non-White applicants. Terrorism and public safety In the past five years, the United States has witnessed more than 100,000 homicides. Political violence by militias and other ideological movements accounted for 354 fatalities, according to an initiative known as the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data, which tracks armed conflict around the world. That's less than 1% of the country's homicide victims. And foreign terrorism accounted for less than 1% of this 1%, according to my data. The Trump administration says the United States cannot appropriately vet visa applicants in countries with uncooperative governments or underdeveloped security systems. That claim is false. The State Department and other government agencies do a thorough job of vetting visa applicants, even in countries where there is no U.S. embassy, according to an analysis by the CATO Institute. The U.S. government has sophisticated methods for identifying potential threats. They include detailed documentation requirements, interviews with consular officers and clearance by national security agencies. And it rejects more than 1 in 6 visa applications, with ever-increasing procedures for detecting fraud. The thoroughness of the visa review process is evident in the numbers. Authorized foreign-born residents of the United States are far less likely than U.S.-born residents to engage in criminal activity. And unauthorized migrants are even less likely to commit crimes. Communities with more migrants -- authorized and unauthorized -- have similar or slightly lower crime rates than communities with fewer migrants. If vetting were as deficient as Trump's executive order claims, we would expect to see a significant number of terrorist plots from countries on the travel ban list. But we don't. Of the 4 million U.S. residents from the 2017 travel ban countries, I have documented only four who were involved in violent extremism in the past five years. Two of them were arrested after plotting with undercover law enforcement agents. One was found to have lied on his asylum application. One was an Afghan man who killed three Pakistani Shiite Muslim immigrants in New Mexico in 2022. Such a handful of zealots with rifles or homemade explosives can be life-altering for victims and their families, but they do not represent a threat to U.S. national security. Degrading the concept of national security Trump has been trying for years to turn immigration into a national security issue. In his first major speech on national security in 2016, Trump focused on the "dysfunctional immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country." His primary example was an act of terrorism by a man who was born in the United States. The first Trump administration's national security strategy, issued in December 2017, prioritized jihadist terrorist organizations that "radicalize isolated individuals" as "the most dangerous threat to the Nation" -- not armies, not another 9/11, but isolated individuals. If the travel ban is not really going to improve national security or public safety, then what is it about? Linking immigration to national security seems to serve two long-standing Trump priorities. First is his effort to make American more White, in keeping with widespread bias among his supporters against non-White immigrants. Remember Trump's insults to Mexicans and Muslims in his escalator speech announcing his presidential campaign in 2015. He has also expressed a preference for White immigrants from Norway in 2018 and South Africa in 2025. Trump has repeatedly associated himself with nationalists who view immigration by non-Whites as a danger to White supremacy. Second, invoking national security allows Trump to pursue this goal without the need for accountability, since Congress and the courts have traditionally deferred to the executive branch on national security issues. Trump also claims national security justifications for tariffs and other policies that he has declared national emergencies, in a bid to avoid criticism by the public and oversight by the other branches of government. But this oversight is necessary in a democratic system to ensure that immigration policy is based on facts. Charles Kurzman is a pProfessor of sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. The views and opinions in this commentary are solely those of the author.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Trump's Campaign Firm Is Cashing In on the Admin's Ads Praising Him
Donald Trump's top campaign firm has quietly handled the administration's television advertisements thanking the president for closing the border and locking up criminals, according to a Rolling Stone review. Strategic Media Services Inc. does not appear in any publicly available records regarding the Department of Homeland Security's controversial $200 million ad campaign. However, the ad buying firm — which was the single-biggest vendor for Trump's 2024 campaign — is the only company that's been associated with DHS' ads in filings with the Federal Communications Commission since the department announced the ads in February. A DHS spokesperson denies knowing anything about Strategic Media Services, and says the firm isn't one of the department's vendors. 'DHS doesn't have control of subcontractors and cannot tell a vendor who or who not to hire,' they add. Strategic Media Services did not respond to outreach from Rolling Stone. The Trump administration has faced scrutiny over its profligate, political-style ad campaign, in which Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem repeatedly thanks the president while attempting to scare immigrants into leaving the United States or never coming here at all. The ad campaign is one of many ways that Trump and his administration are marshaling vast public resources to make the president feel good about himself. In one set of ads, Noem thanks Trump for 'securing our border and putting America first,' while telling undocumented immigrants: 'We will find you and deport you.' In another, she credits 'President Trump's leadership' for her Department of Homeland Security having caught several people accused of heinous crimes. A Trump White House official says that 'it is normal for an agency head to thank their principal — in this instance the president of the United States — for their policies and leadership.' While Trump has purged the federal workforce and slashed government programs in the name of eliminating waste and abuse, his administration determined there to be such 'an unusual and compelling urgency' for this $200 million ad campaign that officials selected two Republican firms to work on the ads without a competitive bidding process. One of the firms, called People Who Think, has ties to former top Trump adviser Corey Lewandowski, a longtime Noem confidant who is reportedly acting as her 'gatekeeper' at DHS. (They have both denied reports that they had an affair.) The second vendor, Safe America Media, is a newly created shell company operating at the home of GOP consultant Mike McElwain. Rolling Stone attempted to call McElwain for this story, but the man who picked up immediately hung up the phone and did not respond to texts. People Who Think did not respond to a request for comment. Officials specifically exempted the DHS ads from review by Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The DHS briefly attempted to fund these ads with money from its Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, an oversight office the administration has tried to gut, but backtracked after Rolling Stone reported on the maneuver. The involvement of Strategic Media Services, the Trump campaign's ad buyer, has not been disclosed in government procurement files or spending data. Trump's campaign committee disclosed paying $270 million to Strategic Media Services during the 2024 election — or more than half of what the campaign raised, according to federal election records. Most of the spending went toward ad placements. Dozens of FCC records show the firm buying TV time for DHS ads in recent months. The firm's buys can be traced to a 30-second version of the ad in which Noem starts: 'Thank you, President Donald J. Trump, for securing our border and putting America first.' Strategic Media Services also apparently placed an ad in which Noem says: 'An accused rapist, murderer and child pornographer. All illegal aliens caught because of President Trump's leadership.' Noem pledges in that ad that 'if you're here illegally, you will be fined nearly $1,000 a day, imprisoned, and deported,' as video plays showing her touring CECOT — the notorious mega-prison in El Salvador where Trump shipped hundreds of immigrants without due process, in open defiance of a judge's order. After encouraging immigrants to self-deport, Noem concludes: 'Under President Trump, America will be protected.' So far, DHS has disclosed spending roughly $77 million on the ads, federal records show. Tony Carrk, executive director at the watchdog tells Rolling Stone, 'President Trump and his allies in Congress say they have no choice but to rip away health care and basic food aid from millions of working people and seniors. Yet there's somehow plenty of money for more Trump tax breaks for his billionaire donors and for an overtly political taxpayer-funded vanity project to repair Kristi Noem's image after her many scandals. That's the Trump administration in a nutshell: There's always enough taxpayer money to promote their brands or enrich themselves and wealthy insiders — but no money left to help everyday Americans get ahead.' In a budget hearing in May, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) pressed Noem on the way her department is using the public's money, including her spending '$200 million for an ad campaign fawning over President Trump's supposed accomplishments.' 'You're just spending recklessly and it would seem wastefully, without authorization,' Blumenthal said. 'That's against the law.' More from Rolling Stone Inside the Billion-Dollar Effort to Make Trump Feel Good About Himself Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Trump and Musk Feud: 'It's Even Better Than I Imagined' Bromance Is Dead: Splitsville for Besties Trump and Musk Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
