city government

General Pershing Street in Broadmoor to get new sidewalks, repaved road

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New, wider sidewalks with handicapped ramps at the corners and a resurfaced road with better crosswalk markings are all headed to a four-block stretch of General Pershing Street through Broadmoor in a $250,000 project that broke ground this week, city officials said. The project, which runs from Andrew Wilson Charter School to Broad Street, is estimated to be finished this winter. For details about the project, see the city’s official news release:

This week, the City of New Orleans broke ground the Broadmoor Streetscape Project that will enhance the street and surrounding roadway along General Pershing Street from South Broad Street to South Miro Street in the Broadmoor neighborhood. This project will create a more pedestrian-friendly neighborhood and help create additional and continued private investment. There are a total of 24 streetscape projects currently underway or planned by the City of New Orleans.

business

Uptown robbery surge brings ill tidings for holiday season

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Two robberies at gunpoint were reported within minutes in the Carrollton area Wednesday night, following an armed robbery on Magazine Street in the Garden District and a carjacking in Broadmoor the previous night and a carefully planned business holdup earlier this week, a crime spree that investigators say often intensifies as the holidays approach. The most recent robberies were reported at 12:05 a.m. and 12:14 a.m. Thursday in the Carrollton area. In the first case, two victims on Cherokee Street just off Freret were approached by a man with a silver semiautomatic who demanded their property, then left in a red truck, said Sgt. Chris Billiot of the NOPD Second District persons-crimes division. In the second case, a victim standing at the intersection of Spruce and Broadway streets was robbed by a man with a black handgun, who then left on foot, Billiot said.

crime

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

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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.

crime

Bicyclist crashes into parked car, then shoots at laughing crowd, police say

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A bicyclist crashed into a parked vehicle in Broadmoor, then shot a gun at people sitting on a nearby porch who laughed at him, police said. A group of four people — two women in their 20s, a 30-year-old man and 45-year-old woman — were sitting on a porch on Louisiana Avenue Parkway near South Dorgenois Street shortly before 5 p.m. Saturday when a teen on a black bicycle hit a parked vehicle and fell down, said Lt. Mike Montalbano, interim commander of the NOPD Second District. All four people on the porch began laughing, and the teen got back on the bicycle and pedaled off down Delachaise, leaving a red-and-white baseball cap behind where he’d fallen, Montalbano said. Not long afterward, the teen returned, and one of the people on the porch tried to get his cap for him, Montalbano said. Instead, the teen said, “Y’all think it’s funny?”

crime

NOPD: Man, 27, threatens to light himself on fire before sexual attack on woman in her 80s

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A 27-year-old man poured gasoline over himself and threatened to set himself ablaze if a woman in her 80s would not have sex with him, and then forced himself upon her anyway, police said Wednesday. Duglas Begarano remains in jail on charges of aggravated rape and extortion after his March 19 arrest, though police said the incident happened several days earlier in the 3600 block of Napoleon Avenue in the Broadmoor neighborhood. Begarano was apparently known for doing work for people in the neighborhood, said Lt. Mike Montalbano of the NOPD Second District investigative unit. The case was handled by the NOPD rape squad, so further details about the case were unavailable at Wednesday’s meeting of the Second District ranking officers.

crime

NOPD: Man shot to death at edge of Broadmoor, near Claiborne

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A man was fatally shot on Louisiana Avenue Parkway early Sunday morning, police said. The man was found lying in the street with a gunshot wound to the chest about 3:20 a.m. in the 3000 block of Louisiana Avenue Parkway, the first block on the lake side of Claiborne Avenue, police said. Paramedics pronounced the man dead at the scene, according to a news release from the NOPD Second District. The Orleans Parish Coroner’s office identified the victim as 27-year-old Melvin Yovany Montes on Monday, according to The Times-Picayune. No suspects or motive in the shooting has been described.

crime

Uptown police battle wave of muggings

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An aspiring chef was stabbed just off Prytania and a bank manager was robbed in his car while driving through Fontainebleau in a wave of seemingly unconnected muggings around Uptown New Orleans over the last week, police said Wednesday.

business

Late-night armed robbery reported on Freret Street; shooting in Carrollton

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An armed robbery in the early hours of Thanksgiving Day was reported on Freret Street near Jefferson Avenue and a man was grazed by a bullet in Carrollton over the weekend, police said Tuesday. The robbery victims were walking in the 5300 block of Freret around 1 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 25, when they were approached by two men with a silver handgun who demanded their belongings, according to a news release from the New Orleans Police Department. The victims gave the robbers what they wanted, and the robbers then left, and the victims called police the next day, the release states. Anyone with information on the robbery is urged to call Detective Jerry Baldwin at 658-6020.

crime

Police attacked while investigating gun crime in Broadmoor

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Undercover police officers trying to bring an end to a string of gunpoint robberies in the Broadmoor area were ambushed and fired upon Tuesday night, police said Wednesday. In the past week or so, at least four armed robberies in various locations have been reported, including that of an elderly woman lured out of her home late at night by robbers who shut off her electricity, police said. In response, Capt. Darryl Albert of the NOPD Second District assigned two officers to an unmarked car to look for possible suspects on the streets, with a cadre of backup nearby, he said at the district’s weekly meeting Wednesday morning. Near the intersection of Fontainebleau and Vendome, they saw a bicyclist who seemed agitated by their presence pull over and make a cell phone call, Albert said. Within seconds, a blue Nissan Maxima was “on their bumper,” flashing its lights at them and honking its horn, Albert said.