SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – As part of Gov. Jeff Landry's mandate for a special legislative crime session, victims of gun violence and family members who lost a loved one to gun violence were invited to the state capitol to emphasize the importance of victim's rights.
One of the family members in attendance was Michele Anglin, mother of Landry Anglin, a 13-year-old middle schooler whose life was brutally interrupted as wild gunfire struck her grandparent's South Highlands home during a shootout in the Spring of 2022.
"She screamed help me, and it was a scream you immediately knew you had to act fast – something is very wrong," Anglin said as she described the moment a bullet struck her teen daughter.
She tearfully described seeing the emergency doctors lined up in the hospital hallway, "That's when I knew, that's when I knew that they were coming to give me the worst news."
Anglin said it was obvious to her that the individuals shooting at each other didn’t have any regard for life. She learned that the perpetrators were rivals with a score to settle and did not care about collateral damage as they indiscriminately fired shots on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.
While her pain was deep and still very raw, nearly two years after her daughter's brutal end, it didn't take long for Landry's mother to take action.
She did lots of research into the court case, met with other mothers who had lost children to gun violence, and came to understand that even though a judge may sentence someone to prison, the full term they received in sentencing may not be served.
After attending an event in Shreveport about crime and hearing from then La. Attorney General Jeff Landry and Steve Prator in which she heard them say Louisiana prisons are revolving doors for criminals who are in and then back on the streets committing more crimes that she decided Landry may be her only hope of getting laws changed.
She appeared in a political ad for Landry's gubernatorial campaign and attended some events he had on crime, but at the end of the day, she says she just wants the violence to stop. She wants people to cooperate with the police because many crimes go unsolved.
Michele says she does not agree with the governor's stance on everything, but she supports him trying to crack down on crime and criminals because she doesn’t want to see another mother lose a child.
