Trebor Blanton (opcso.org)
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.
In the Dublin Street cases, Blanton followed his victims as they walked down the street before approaching them with a knife and threatening to stab them if they didn’t give up their belongings, investigators have said. On Pine Street, Blanton brandished a machete-style knife and demanded a woman loading her SUV give him the keys, and he then stole the vehicle and the bags she had loaded into it, police said. Blanton was spotted by a gas station’s video surveillance camera in New Orleans East the next day trying to use her credit cards, and the SUV was found abandoned in New Orleans East a day later.
After police released images of Blanton at the gas station, no other robberies fitting his pattern were reported for about two weeks. This morning, a detective with the NOPD Violent Offenders Warrant Squad received a tip that Blanton was staying in an apartment complex in the 14600 block of Chef Menteur Highway in New Orleans East, assembled a team that found Blanton there and arrested him without incident, said Sgt. Chris Billiot of the NOPD persons-crime division.
Blanton confessed to the robberies and told Second District detectives that he would take them to the location where he had been stashing the property he had stolen, Billiot said. When they arrived where Blanton directed them, however, nothing was there, suggesting either that it was stolen by someone else or that Blanton was lying, Billiot said.
Blanton will be charged in all four robberies, Billiot said.
