Robberies have been reported all over Uptown New Orleans over the weekend. Numbers on the markers indicate the date of the robbery.
See below for a full list of the robberies.
The suspect in Friday’s robbery in the Freret neighborhood was wearing nondescript clothing other than his purple Nike Griffey tennis shoes.
- Shortly after 11 p.m., a man in the 4400 block of Clara Street was approached by a stranger who grabbed his arm and threatened to hurt him while “demanding his property,” police said. The assailant then left on Napoleon Avenue.
On Saturday morning, three people were robbed in two incidents in the Hurstville neighborhoods near Audubon Park, and the suspect in both cases was covering his face and brandishing a gun.
- Just before 7 a.m., a woman parked in the 6000 block of Chestnut and was approached by a stranger using a T-shirt to hide the lower part of his face, police said. The man robbed the woman at gunpoint, then began to leave when he saw a neighbor coming out the front door and ordered him to give up his wallet as well, police said. The second victim said he did not have it on him, so the gunman demanded the victim take him inside, where he took both the man’s wallet and a purse on a table before leaving, police said.
- A few minutes after the Chestnut Street robbery, another woman was robbed at gunpoint while sitting in her vehicle parked in the 5500 block of Perrier by a stranger with a white towel covering the lower part of his face, police said.
On Sunday morning, two incidents in the Carrollton area showed remarkable similarities: the victims were approached in their cars by men wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans who demanded property but never showed a weapon.
- Shortly before 5 a.m., a man parked in the 1400 block of Pine Street was approached by a stranger who “placed his hand behind his back and advised the victim to give him his money,” police said. The victim gave him his keys and wallet, and the suspect left on Pine Street.
- Just after 6 a.m., a man parked in the 8200 block of Hickory was approaced by a stranger who told him, “Hey, get out the car, I want your car,” police said. The victim said he wouldn’t give up the car, but got out and “took a stance as if he was going to fight,” and the suspect ran off down Hickory.
Sunday evening into Monday morning, three more armed robberies were reported within an hour’s time – two in Carrollton and a third in the Touro neighborhood. The gunmen in the Leonidas and Amelia cases were both described as wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans, while the robber on Oak was wearing a white T-shirt, the victims told police.
- At 11:45 p.m., the occupants of a vehicle parked in the 1100 block of Leonidas were robbed at gunpoint by a man in a black T-shirt with a black semiautomatic handgun, police said.
- About 10 minutes later, a woman walking near Oak and Dublin was robbed by a man in a white T-shirt with a black semiautomatic handgun.
- About half an hour after that, people walking in the 1300 block of Amelia were robbed by a man with a handgun, police said, technically around 12:30 a.m. Sunday.
I know uptown messenger can only report what the police report says, but how can they supply clothing descriptions but not race?
Travis, thanks for the comment. Following standard practice from my previous newspaper jobs as a police reporter, we don’t include race in our reporting unless it’s clearly germane to the story. Typically, if police give a description of a suspect that could lead to someone’s identification, of course we’ll print it in its entirety: a black man in his late 20s with jeans, a camo hoodie and a red cap, for example. But if the description beyond race is generic – a black man in a white tshirt or a white man wearing dark clothing – we won’t print the race, because if it not useful for an identification, it’s irrelevant.
We included the mention of shirt colors in this article, even though they are fairly generic too, because they seem to suggest the possibility of a connection between some of these cases. And, in the first case, the shoes stood out as a strong enough identifier on their own – if you saw someone with those purple Griffeys around that area that night, that’s probably enough to suggest a call to police.
So the call was ours, not NOPD’s. Thanks for raising the question, and for reading UptownMessenger.com.