This June 29, 2014, photo provided by the New Orleans Police Department shows the scene during a shooting on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.NEW ORLEANS – The 21-year-old who died after being shot on Bourbon Street over the weekend was a sunny, hard-working woman who kept in touch for years with the school where she got her high-school equivalency diploma, an official there said.
Brittany Thomas of Hammond, Louisiana, died Wednesday at University Interim Hospital in New Orleans, where she was taken after Sunday’s shooting, Mayor Mitch Landrieu said Thursday.
“Everybody that knows Brittany knows she’s such a sweet girl, so full of energy,” Donika Garner, program director at Quad Area Community Action Agency, told the Hammond Star. “She was very studious. She was a hard worker, very bright. She was always helping her classmates.”
She said Thomas, who got her GED in 2011, was a cheerleader for two years, before the program was phased out, and was in the Spanish and yearbook clubs. Garner said she last saw Thomas about six months ago, but until then she had stopped by regularly.
“She didn’t stay far from the school, so she came back and visited about once a month,” Garner said. “I’d ask her if she was in school yet, and she’d say she’s working on it, trying to figure out what she wanted to do.”