Home-invasion robbery on Broadway may have targeted high-profile Tulane football player

A Thursday-afternoon home-invasion robbery at the busy Uptown intersection of Broadway and St. Charles may have been targeting a high-profile player on the Tulane football team, authorities say.

The athlete — whose name is being withheld by Uptown Messenger because we do not identify crime victims — was inside the apartment in the 600 block of Broadway visiting another student when two men burst in, forced the woman who lives in the apartment to the floor at gunpoint, and robbed her of a number of belongings, police and witnesses said. The robbers showed up at the house about 15 minutes after the player had gotten there and said his first name during the robbery, said Sgt. Warren Keller of the NOPD Second District investigative unit.

The player told police he didn’t know them, but that they may have recognized him from his football career, Keller said.

“I don’t know if they were targeting him because he’s a university football player or what,” Keller said. “He is a high-profile victim.”

The home on Broadway may have been selected intentionally, Tulane University Police Superintendent John Barnwell told reporter Scott Satchfield of our partners at WWL-TV.

“There’s information there that I can’t go into too much detail in, that we feel that was a targeted act of violence and that there’s no potential ongoing random threat to our students or the Uptown community,” Barnwell said in an interview with WWL.

Investigators are continuing to question the athlete, Keller said. While the female victim ran after her attackers and ultimately got her phone and laptop back from them, the athlete went out to his truck, Keller said. He asked if she had gotten his phone back from them as well, and when she said no, he drove to another friend’s house elsewhere, and did not return until police were on the scene, Keller said.

The athlete had previously been involved in an altercation the night before at the Shamrock bar on South Carrollton, and police are also investigating whether the robbery may have some connection to that incident, Keller said. There are some differences between the account the female victim gave of the robbery and what the student told them, Keller said, so police are continuing to speak to both of them.

The female victim said Thursday afternoon that even if the football player was the target, she doubted that he involved her intentionally.

“He’s a smart, hardworking guy and a great athlete,” she said. “He has too big a heart to pull that nonsense on anyone.”

Police are continuing to look for surveillance video that may have captured images of the robbers either before or after the attack, so anyone in the area who knows of any cameras is urged to call Second District detectives at 658-6020.