Business owner leaving downtown BR after shootout leaves several bullet holes in his window

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - A business owner says he’s leaving downtown Baton Rouge after the wild shootout over the weekend left multiple bullet holes in his window and sent people scrambling.

The shootout happened early Sunday morning, September 10, after the bars closed.

“I was pretty happy I wasn’t here that night, because I’ve spent many long nights doing designs and working here, and it could’ve been a bad situation,” said James Curtis, a business owner in downtown.

RELATED: WATCH: Video shows people running for cover after hearing multiple gunshots in downtown BR, police investigating

According to Baton Rouge Police, multiple shots were fired in the 200 block of Lafayette Street around 2:45 a.m., but no one was hit. However, a few vehicles and several windows of buildings were struck by bullets.

“I think it’s very important that people realize that these problems aren’t just black and white issues, that bullet had no color, it could have hit anyone, anyone of us. And we have to start seeing that these issues aren’t just sidelined to one particular race or group of people, it impacts us all,” said Curtis.

James Curtis has operated many businesses out of that space on Florida Street for the past 5 years now. He currently uses it as a studio and a personal workshop for his design business.

But after last weekend’s shooting, Curtis has simply had enough. He now plans to move his business elsewhere in Baton Rouge or somewhere different.

“This was the nail in the coffin. This will be our last month at this location. When people are more attracted to the bullet holes than they are to anything else that’s here, it should be a sign that that’s a problem,” said Curtis.

He believes downtown shifted after COVID-19, with fewer people visiting businesses. Curtis is also seeing bars outnumber mom and pop stores.

“Oh look at this new, you know this new establishment, you know this new thing . It shouldn’t be oh now we’re going to talk about downtown because there’s bullet holes ridden in all the retail establishments,” said Curtis.

Officials with the Downtown Development District (DDD) say this was a rare occurrence that happened after the bars closed and people were supposed to be heading home.

“Downtown is a safe place when people are here and doing things like going to work, going to a show, going to restaurants, all those sort of things. It’s just really unfortunate to hear that this happened,” said Whitney Hoffman Sayal, Executive Director of the DDD on Tuesday.

According to stats from BRPD and the Mayor-President’s Office, Downtown has experienced only two shootings with injuries and one domestic related homicide this year.

Mayor Broome says she’s also ordered BRPD to re-assign 8 police officers to downtown, and they are advancing plans to construct a 24 hour police station in the area.

But that’s not enough for Curtis, whose sense of security was broken with his windows.

“As much as we’ve met some amazing people, at the end of the day, downtown Baton Rouge is not worth dying for. So you know, our thing is yeah we’ll find a new home and place to invest, that can probably reinvest into us,” said Curtis.

Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome released a statement on the shootout this past weekend:

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