Attorney: Killing of suspect wasn’t ‘vigilante justice’
Mar 26, 2022, 6:55 PM | Updated: 6:57 pm
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — An attorney for the man accused of fatally shooting the alleged killer of his 18-year-old son and 25-year-old daughter has denied that the incident was a “matter of vigilante justice.”
Bokio B. Johnson, 46, was arrested Friday in the death of 21-year-old Hollis Carter, who was fatally shot while driving to a pretrial hearing Wednesday, New Orleans police said. A woman was also wounded.
New Orleans police have said Carter confessed to killing Breyiana Brown, 25, and her stepbrother Caleb Johnson, 18, and wounding a third person in a gun sale gone bad last March.
Following Carter’s death, Bokio Johnson is now charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder, but his attorney Michael Kennedy said “people have jumped to conclusions.”
“While it is admittedly true that the victim in this matter was accused of the March 2021 murder of Mr. Johnson’s son and daughter, that does not, especially in a city like New Orleans, indicate that this is a matter of vigilante justice,” Kennedy wrote in a statement.
“If and when the State of Louisiana chooses to indict Mr. Johnson, I can state without question, we will stand together and loudly and clearly respond, ‘Not Guilty,'” Kennedy wrote.
Kennedy said his client is a husband, a “local tradesman,” and a father to two young children. He said “to think of (Johnson) as anything else at this point is reckless.”
Carter, who was free on $375,000 bond, had been due in court Wednesday for a status hearing on two counts of second-degree murder and one count of attempted second-degree murder. Police said he was shot while his car was waiting at a stop light.
Carter’s defense attorney John Fuller told The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate that he had planned to argue in court that Carter’s confession was false and was made because he was afraid of the actual killer.
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