Among the victims in a recent rash of carjackings and robberies in the Lower Garden District, Irish Channel and East Riverside was the owner of the beloved Stein’s Market & Deli on Magazine Street.
Dan Stein left his Lower Garden District shop, carrying a bag with a sandwich inside, and got in his Toyota SUV on Thursday (July 6) at about 12:45 a.m., the New Orleans Police Department stated. At first, he didn’t think much of it when four men drove up in a dark-colored vehicle
Instagram photo
Dan Stein at the hospital on Thursday
The gunmen ordered him out of the SUV, and he complied. Before fleeing in Stein’s car, one of the carjackers struck him in the head with a handgun. Stein collapsed on the sidewalk and stayed there for a while, surveillance video obtained by WWL-TV shows.
Stein was taken to an emergency room, where he received several stitches above his eye and was released.
The stolen car is a light blue 2005 Toyota Forerunner with Louisiana license plate 260 CDN. It “probably smells a little like pastrami,” according to a Stein’s Deli Instagram post.
At 11 p.m. on Wednesday (July 5), about two hours before and 10 blocks away from Stein’s carjacking, another local resident was beat up and robbed. The 30-year-old victim was entering his home on Magazine near Louisiana Avenue when he was struck from behind.
The two assailants continued striking him with closed fists until he handed over his property, police said.
Earlier on Wednesday, two men tried to take a woman’s car a few blocks away in the East Riverside area. The victim, 40, was getting out of her vehicle in the 800 block of Aline Street at about 4:10 p.m. when she saw a man standing at her front door with a gun.
He and another man demanded her keys, then fled after she screamed.
About 15 minutes earlier in the Irish Channel, a 36-year-old woman was carjacked. She was in her car in the 2600 block of Laurel Street, near Third Street, at about 3:50 p.m. when two armed men approached her.
Brandishing guns, they demanded she turn over her keys. She complied, and they fled in her car.
The downriver areas were not the only Uptown neighborhoods experiencing crime this week. About the same time Stein was pistol whipped and carjacked, a woman was robbed at gunpoint in the 3000 block of Nashville Avenue, near South Claiborne Avenue.
The victim, 23, was pulled from her car by three men at about 12:35 a.m. They took her cellphone and tried to take her vehicle but could not start it. They fled on foot.
Stein, 50, known for a gruff manner belying a kind heart, was back behind the counter before the deli’s lunch rush on Thursday, according to media reports. How the day’s other victims were recovering was not as well publicized.
Further details were not immediately available. Anyone with information on any of these incidents is urged to call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.
