NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) - The father of the toddler fatally shot Monday in an Algiers apartment was arrested after New Orleans police determined he bore responsibility for his daughter’s death.

The NOPD said Tuesday (Oct. 24) that 26-year-old Virgil Ordon had been booked with negligent homicide and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.

Court records show Ordon received a two-year suspended sentence in 2019 after completing a diversion program for a 2016 burglary conviction. A judge imposed another three-year suspended sentence upon Ordon in 2019 after he pleaded guilty to theft, drug possession and illegal possession of a firearm by a felon.

Relatives of the slain girl -- identified to Fox 8 as 3-year-old Promyse Ordon -- said Ordon was taking care of the girl Monday afternoon while the girl’s mother was at work. The NOPD said the toddler was reported shot at about 2:47 p.m. and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The shooting occurred inside the Parc Fontaine Apartments in the 3100 block of Rue Parc Fontaine in the Old Aurora area.

Girl, 2, shot dead in Algiers, NOPD says

“I don’t know what happened,” the child’s great-grandmother Ventresse Degree told Fox 8 on Monday. “My concern is my grandbaby, that’s all. I just want to see what happened.”

Police said Tuesday that Ordon was the person detained for questioning.

“As the investigation progressed, NOPD homicide section detectives determined Ordon to be responsible for the incident and obtained a warrant for his arrest,” the department said in a statement. It did not elaborate on how the girl was shot or how Ordon was determined to be responsible.

Melina Williams, a neighbor with two children of her own living in the complex, said she was coming home from work when another resident told her of the fatal shooting.

“I’m just tired of it all,” Williams said. “I just want New Orleans to go back to the way that it was, where you can be outside and playing with your kids and enjoying the day, instead of worrying about if your house is going to get broken into or if there’s guns that are going off and another child is going to get murdered.

“When do we say enough is enough?”

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