October 30, 2008
4 people slain in botched La. pool hall robbery
By CAIN BURDEAU
Associated Press Writer
A pool hall where owners cash local workers' paychecks erupted in
gunfire Thursday, leaving four people dead in a botched robbery.
Authorities identified two of the dead as co-owner Wallace Gomez, 76,
and his 74-year-old brother, Beuford Gomez, who ran the family
business in a working-class district of suburban New Orleans.
Two pool hall patrons, also shot, were pronounced dead at a hospital,
said Col. John Fortunato of the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
They were identified as Wayne Hebert, 64, of Harvey and Jeffrey
Camardelle, 71, of Marrero.
Six Hispanic men are believed to have been involved in the shooting,
the spokesman added. A deputy on patrol arrived soon afterward and
stopped two men carrying away a third man, who was shot and bleeding.
All three were detained.
The injured suspect was identified as Mario Funez, 26. He underwent
surgery for multiple gunshot wounds and remained in a hospital
intensive care unit, Fortunato said. His condition was not immediately
available.
Authorities were seeking to reconstruct events and did not provide
details of what happened inside the bar. They said the search
continued for three other men seeing leaving in a car with Texas
license plates, later found abandoned nearby.
Dawn Gomez Lauland said her 83-year-old father, Stanley Gomez, was in
the bar but ducked when the shooting began.
"He dove behind the bar with a phone in his hand and he called 911,"
she said of her father, who co-owns the business. "He's a fit man for
83."
Lauland said her family has been ca****ng checks at the bar every
Thursday for decades. The bar was held up about two months ago by
three armed men, relatives have said.
"It's all this greed," she said in explaining the violence.
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