Several Shot Along Mardi Gras Parade Route

Police have two suspects in custody

Police said an infant and six other people have been injured in a shooting along a Mardi Gras parade route.

New Orleans police spokesman Bob Young said the shootings were reported near the Garden District about 1:40 p.m. after the last major parade of the celebration had ended. Truck floats that follow the Rex parade were going by when gunfire broke out.

"Everybody was petrified. They hit the ground, the floats stopped, everybody on the floats ducked," witness Toni Labat, 29, told MSNBC.

Two suspects, males ages 18 and 20, are in custody and three weapons believed used in the shooting have been recovered, according to reports.

The victims were taken to local hospitals. Young says the infant was grazed by a bullet and not seriously hurt.

Despite the violence, this year's Mardi Gras is going to be considered a success. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that this year marked the biggest turn out since Katrina.

"When we come alive, we're really alive,"  City Council President Jacquelyn Brechtel Clarkson told the Journal. "It's not a total surprise. We said three to five years after Katrina we'd be back to normal. I was kind of hoping it would have been last year. But there's been lot of resurgence in the past year."

An estimated 8.3 million people celebrated this year, compared with 10 million in 2004, just before the hurricane devastated the region.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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