Ganging up?

In March, local musician Christopher DiBenedetto posted a photo of his bloody, bruised face on Facebook. Friends were shocked. Local TV stations leapt into action. Social media and message boards lit up with debate. DiBenedetto claimed he was the victim of a gang initiation on East Boyd Drive.

Officers continue to question DiBenedetto’s story.

“They didn’t believe anything I said, to be quite blunt,” DiBenedetto says. Instead, he took solace in friends who suggested the roadside attack was a gang initiation.

Based on available evidence, Sgt. Don Kelly maintains that DiBenedetto drove “too close to the edge of the road, struck a drainage grate, then ran off the road and struck the large concrete block on private property.”

Kelly says there have been no other similar incidents reported to support the gang initiation theory. Now living in New Orleans, DiBenedetto wants local residents to be aware their city is becoming just as violent as his new home.

“People don’t get that Baton Rouge is a changing city,” DiBenedetto says. “It’s not just a college town. It’s not small-town Baton Rouge anymore.”