A man who allegedly tried to rob an Uptown drugstore early Monday before a shootout with police left him and an officer wounded has been moved from the hospital to jail.
Richard Sansbury, 26, faces counts of attempted murder of police officers, armed robbery and false imprisonment with a weapon, according to Orleans Parish Criminal District Court records.
A usually tranquil stretch of Prytania Street in Uptown awoke to gunfire Monday morning after New Orleans police got into a shootout with two …
A second suspect who was arrested after being wounded in the shootout, an 18-year-old man, apparently remained at the hospital Tuesday morning. He has not been publicly identified.
Police allege that Sansbury and the other man walked into the 24-hour CVS in the 4900 block of Prytania Street just after 6 a.m. and demanded store items at gunpoint.
Three officers arrived at the store within four minutes to investigate a 911 call about the robbery there and ended up exchanging gunfire with both attackers, Police Superintendent Shaun Ferguson said.
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An officer was hit in the upper left shoulder, Ferguson said. Sansbury and the second man were hit as well. All three were taken to a hospital.
One of the suspects was arrested near the store, where at least two employees appeared to be working inside. But the other managed to run into a nearby residential neighborhood while limping and wielding what at least one officer described as a “submachine gun.”
Officers equipped with helmets, body armor and rifles worked with police dogs to capture that suspect near a home at Coliseum and Upperline streets almost three hours after the shootout.
Sansbury appears to be from out-of-state and does not have a history of prior arrests in the New Orleans area. He is expected to appear at a bond hearing Tuesday morning in Criminal District Court.
Both men would face decades in prison if convicted of armed robbery or attempted murder.
Ferguson said the wounded officer was expected to make a full physical recovery and had been in good spirits during a visit later Monday morning.
"He's happy to be alive," Ferguson said.
