The 38-year-old Martinus Mitchum was the 38-year-old Martinus Mitchum, the 2nd deputy constable and policeman of Tulane University who was shot dead outside a playoff game in high school at George Washington Carver High School on Friday night.
Investigators say Mitchum died after a school staffer had an argument with a man who tried to enter Carver’s home gym game against Warren Easton High School in the 3000 block of Higgins Boulevard at 6:30 p.m. Mitchum heard the dispute, intervened and tried to argue the man with the campus staff.
Chaotic scene kills officer outside basketball playoff
But then the man who was taken away pulled out a gun and shot Mitchum in the chest, police said.
Paramedics took Mitchum to University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
Delegates from the Orleans Parish Sheriff, who was also at the school, arrested a suspect. The suspect was not immediately identified.
According to sources, Mitchum’s family was notified of his death later Friday night. Officials suspended the rest of the match between Carver and Easton.
In addition to working as a deputy constable at the 2nd City Court, Mitchum was a member of the Tulane Police Department, police said. Information from Tulane’s website showed that he started working for the university’s police force on July 26, 2019.
He also worked at Landry-Walker High School in Algiers and John F. Kennedy High School when it was near City Park, according to newspaper clippings.
Mitchum has maintained an active presence on social media networks and has regularly commented on law enforcement. Only two days before his death, he wrote about how he supports officers to wear a body camera and to be certified if they do a poor job or appear to be racist.
On Thursday, he repeated a message from Vice President Kamala Harris, who mentioned the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which was named after the man who was killed by police officers in Minneapolis last year and aimed, among other things, for qualified immunity for to reform law enforcement.
He will also insist that courts hold repeat offenders accountable rather than release them on bail or under bail.
The news of the murder of Mitchum on Friday caused an intense sympathy over the networks he visited. One Twitter user recounted how Mitchum just “checked” him last week and wrote, “Rest yourself.”
Former UNO, LSU and Memphis basketball player Charles Carmouche, a local standout in high school, wrote that Mitchum believed in him “when no one did” and also joined him regularly.
“We really lost a big guy,” Carmouche said.
Several shots were fired near Carver High Gym