Joe McKnight's shooter, Ronald Gasser, released from custody

[JonLP24]

11. Cops Unable to Explain Why Man Who Shot Joe McKnight Was Released

Gasser admitted to shooting McKnight according to police accounts of the incident, which reportedly stemmed from a case of road rage. During the odd press conference, Normand attempted to beat back against what he said were false rumors about the incident as well as any speculation that there was a racial component to Gasser’s release. But he struggled to explain why—when Gasser has admitted to the shooting death—the police had not at least chosen to keep him in custody.

“We felt as of last night out of an abundance of caution we did not want to get to that threshold in that point in time,” Normand said of the decision not to arrest the shooter. “People can Monday Morning Quarterback what we’ve done.”

“Mr. Gasser is not going anywhere, he has been completely cooperative with us in every request that we have made. So that’s not the issue. Simply put the issue at the end of the day is that we will do a very thorough and deliberate investigation.”
Again, this vague description of the reasoning behind the decision did not really clarify why the shooter was let go. Normand did say that he did not want to release any additional details because it might “taint” an ongoing investigation.

There are still witnesses that we are looking for and I do not want to be accused of tainting this investigation or suggesting a story about this investigation to witnesses that we have not located and talked to,” Normand said.
The details, however, that Normand did feel comfortable revealing would seem to have been beneficial to Gasser, or at least were defensive against claims that his office had acted inappropriately out of any sort of racial prejudice.
“I would strongly suggest that you stop believing what you’re reading,” he said, citing several reports that depicted the shooting as a cold-blooded assassination.

Normand directly contradicted this account, saying that the three shell casings were found in Gasser’s car, which would indicate that he fired from his automobile into McKnight’s and not when he was standing over him. The coroner Gerald Cvitanovich said McKnight was shot three times in the hand, shoulder and chest, and the wounds were inconsistent with what the witness described to Nola.com.
“We have no witness account of an apology being made by Mr. McKnight to Mr. Gasser so that did not occur,” Normand said, without explaining why this information wouldn’t potentially taint other future witness accounts.
“I’ve been already accused of dropping the ball ... because we released Mr. Gasser last evening after we took his statement,” Normand said, adding “I can’t go into the details as why that is at this point in time, but I can tell you I can’t wait for the moment so that I can set the record straight.”

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/12/02/cops_unable_to_explain_why_man_who_shot_joe_mcknight_was_released.html