On the night of July 30, 2016, 51-year-old Norris Brister finished a shift as a food runner in the French Quarter and caught a bus toward his home in New Orleans East. After alighting at his usual stop at Morrison Road and New Castle Street, he walked the final leg home. Shortly before 1 a.m. on July 31, gunfire rang out and Brister was found shot in the middle of the 7700 block of Keats Street, the block where he lived with his daughter and her three children. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

His daughter, Kentrell, arrived after the shooting and saw her father’s backpack and shoes in the street; she was initially told the victim was too young to be her father and only received confirmation three hours later. Norris Brister was a father of eight and grandfather to seventeen, remembered for his smile and love of football and family. The New Orleans Police Department has not publicly identified suspects or a motive and the murder remains unsolved.

If anyone knew Norris, saw him that night, or has information about the shooting on Keats Street, please come forward.