KIPP on South Carrollton headed to Gentilly, Banneker to Hollygrove, RSD says

KIPP Believe College Prep on South Carrollton is headed to a new school building in Gentilly, and Benjamin Banneker Elementary in the Riverbend is slated for a new campus in Hollygrove, according to school assignment plans being aired publicly by the Recovery School District this week. Those two changes are the most significant for Uptown campuses among the recommendations that the RSD will be hosting public hearings on this week. Many other RSD schools around Uptown will essentially be unaffected, and some of the higher-profile schools run through the Orleans Parish School Board are not included in the list. KIPP’s highest-performing middle school, KIPP Believe College Prep, is slated for the old Stuart Bradley site on Humanity Street just off Interstate 610, where one of the city’s new $22.5 million school buildings will be constructed from FEMA money. The move will leave its current site, the McNair High School campus on the corner of South Carrollton and Birch, as an “opportunity” campus — suitable as a temporary site while another campus is being renovated, but not slated for any renovations or long-term assignments itself.

Trio in pickup truck sought in two Carrollton-area robberies Sunday

Three young people in a dark-colored pickup truck cruised through the Carrollton neighborhood Sunday morning and committed two armed robberies, police said. About 10:45 a.m., a man was walking in the 8100 block of Willow when the pickup pulled up next to him and stopped, and two men got out and robbed him at gunpoint, police wrote in an email alert Monday. About two minutes later, the truck drove past people working on a car in the 1300 block of Adams Street, then stopped and backed up, and two men got out again and robbed the victims at gunpoint, police said. The gunman in both cases is described as a 5-foot-7, 145-pound black male between 15 and 21 years old, with a short faded haircut and a blue-steel semiautomatic handgun. He was with another young man of about the same age and build, but with a mark under his right eye, and a younger teen between 12 and 16, described as slightly smaller and with dreadlocks.

Costco plans receive warm reception from Hollygrove neighbors

After planning, permitting, design and construction, Costco could open in spring of 2013. “With every meeting, we keep checking the boxes,” said company vice president Jackie Frank. “It seems very very positive to us. We haven’t found a fatal flaw. Everything about this site and community has been very positive.”

House fire in Carrollton displaces family of four, upstairs tenants

The lights went out in Rob Krzenski’s living room just before 9 p.m. When he saw an electrical socket glowing, he knew something was very wrong. “I yelled at my wife to get the kids out, I banged on the door so the tenants would get out, and I grabbed the garden hose,” Krzenski said. The fire quickly climbed the entire height of the stately two-story house at the corner of Cohn and Dublin, said Ken Rayes, who fled from his own house next door and locked his cat in the van, just in case. Firefighters arrived on scene and managed to get the blaze under control before any adjacent structures were threatened, but the flames left long open wounds in the house’s frame. No one in the house was harmed, Krzenski said, watching the last wisps of smoke drift from the attic and water pour out of the holes in the house, down the front porch.

Six weekend shootings around Uptown wound eight victims, all following separate personal feuds, police say

A string of six shootings in the Broadmoor, Carrollton and Hollygrove neighborhoods over the weekend injured a total of eight people — including a woman eight months pregnant with twins — and led to two arrests, but all stem from a series of separate personal feuds, police said Wednesday. Broadmoor| Two shootings were reported this weekend — Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon — near the same intersection, Louisiana Avenue Parkway and South Roman. In the Friday afternoon incident, a 17-year-old was found with a gunshot wound to the right arm, and said he was shot by a stranger while walking near that intersection, police said. In Sunday’s case, a 37-year-old victim was found with a gunshot wound to the leg, police said. He told police that his son and another man, both in their early 20s, got into an argument, and that he broke it up but was shot while trying to get his son back home.

Armed robbery reported at Oak and Adams in Carrollton

Three college students waiting for the Tulane University shuttle at the intersection of Oak and Adams streets in Carrollton were robbed at gunpoint about 12:40 a.m. Tuesday, police said. The robber held a black handgun at his side, demanded their money and threatened to shoot them, then left on foot down Adams Street with about $25 of their cash, police said. He is described as a 6-foot-tall, 180-pound black man with a gold tooth wearing a dark grey or black hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans. A number of officers were on the scene very quickly after the robbery was reported, and the suspect was nowhere to be found, said Second District officer Brandon Singleton, which suggests he may live very close to the robbery scene. Anyone with information about this case is asked to call Second District detectives at 658-6020 or, to leave an anonymous tip that could be eligible for a cash reward, call CrimeStoppers at 822-1111.

Police capture suspect in four Carrollton-area robberies at knifepoint

The suspect in four recent robberies at knifepoint in the Carrollton area was arrested early Wednesday morning after a CrimeStoppers tip led police to his hideout in New Orleans East, authorities said. Trebor Blanton, 23, is accused of three robberies along Dublin Street between Aug. 25 and Sept. 2 and a Sept. 12 carjacking at Benjamin and Pine streets, all in broad daylight, police said.

New images released of suspects in robberies at knifepoint, Rite Aid holdup

Investigators have released new images of a pair of men who held up the Rite Aid pharmacy on South Carrollton Avenue during Tropical Storm Lee and of a man now believed to be responsible for at least four robberies at knifepoint around the Carrollton neighborhoods. Trebor Blanton, 23, was already wanted in connection with one of a series of three similar robberies along Dublin Street in Carrollton, has now been linked to a fourth robbery and auto theft that took place Monday about a mile away in the Black Pearl neighborhood, police said. Shortly after 4 p.m., a woman was loading her computer bag and purse into her vehicle, when she was approached from behind by a stranger with a large, machete-style knife, police said. The man forced the woman to give him the keys to the vehicle and took off in it, and investigators located her cell phone shortly afterward at the corner of Leake and South Carrollton, police said. The description she gave the police resembled Blanton, and on Tuesday, investigators obtained a surveillance camera image of him at a gas station in New Orleans East attempting to use her credit card, they said.

Redistricting may bring changes to Uptown school board boundaries

Redistricting the seven-member Orleans Parish School Board could produce more dramatic changes than the recent reshuffling of the New Orleans City Council, even though the same population shifts are being accounted for, officials said Monday. The same broad themes are at play. The districts in the East, where population loss has been most severe, will grow geographically larger toward the west, into the Gentilly, Midcity and Lakeview area. Meanwhile, the Westbank-based district where population has held the strongest will likely give up its Eastbank territory. The effect of those changes is still unclear for Uptown, which is represented by Seth Bloom in District 5 (covering Central City, the Garden District, and the central area of Uptown) and Woody Koppel in District 6 (covering Audubon and Carrollton).