By ROBIN SHANNON

Staff Reporter

LAPLACE – St. John Sheriff’s deputies have arrested a 24-year-old man who shot and wounded a LaPlace teen during a physical altercation outside a housing development.

Maj. Mike Tregre, a spokesperson for the SJSO, said Gavin Vinetta, 24, 159 Joe Parquet Cir., turned himself in to deputies around 7 a.m. Wednesday. Tregre said Vinetta confessed to the shooting during questioning, but Tregre said investigators had obtained several tips that pinpointed Vinetta as the shooter.

The victim, 16-year-old, Calvin Riley, was transported to River Parishes Hospital, and later to Ochsner Hospital in New Orleans where he remains in extremely critical condition.

Tregre said the shooting took place around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the 200 block of Joe Parquet Circle. According to a Sheriff’s Office report, Vinetta and Riley had gotten into a verbal altercation outside Riley’s home due to an ongoing feud that stretched back to December of 2007.

Tregre said when the confrontation got physical, Vinetta produced a .40 caliber semiautomatic handgun and fired on Riley several times. Riley was hit once in the arm and once in the face.

Tregre said Vinetta was charged with attempted second-degree murder in the shooting. He was booked into the Sherman Walker Correctional Facility in LaPlace, and is being held on $500,000 bond.