The three Loyola students arrested earlier this week in connection with several attempted robberies in Uptown likely held up a fellow Loyola student as long as two weeks ago, according to a student who says he was a victim.

On the night of Sept. 26, a Loyola student wishing to be identified only as “Jay” came forward to The Maroon and reported that he’d been the victim of a bizarre stick-up drawn up by a group of males driving an “older model, black Nissan” with “Texas license plates,” on the corner of Freret Street and McAlister Drive in the late-night hours of Sept. 22.

According to Brendan McCarthy of the Times-Picayune, court records show that finance junior Chukwuemeka Anigbo, management freshman Mohamed Diakite and biology freshman John A. White had been driving around Uptown neighborhoods by the university in a black Nissan Altima with Texas license plates, demanding money from several people at gunpoint “in a misguided hoax.”

Whenever the victims handed their wallets or purses over, police reported that the trio refused the money and said, “We are just playing,” as they sped away in laughter.

Although New Orleans police arrested them during the early morning of Oct. 4, in connection with the several stick-ups they reportedly orchestrated on Oct. 3, something similar happened to Loyola student Jay two weeks ago.

Jay, as he “was just walking” down Freret towards Broadway Street, sensed a car pulling over on the side of the road toward him. He noticed it was an “older model, black Nissan” with “Texas license plates,” but other than that, tried to avoid eye contact with the driver and passengers.

The front passenger rolled the window down and shouted at him, “Hey! You got any money?”

Jay, still looking forward, responded, “No, I’m broke.” He then said he kept walking, trying to “ignore them.”

“They kept yelling, ‘Hey!'” he said. Finally, Jay turned his head and saw someone take out a pistol and point it in his direction.

He said, “Then (the passenger) said, ‘Let me repeat the question. You got any money?’ I told him, ‘I’ll give you what I got.'”

Jay reached for his wallet, and in the middle of reaching out, the passenger fired “two rounds.”

“But the pistol made a hissing noise, not a bang. It sounded like an AirSoft gun,” Jay said.

He saw the pellets zip across him, hit the sidewalk, then ricochet into the bushes behind him.

“If you can see a bullet go from point A to point B, I knew it wasn’t going fast enough to kill me,” Jay said. At that point, he told the driver and passenger to get lost, and they drove off towards Broadway as he walked on to his destination.

Jay later filed a police report with Officer Elmer Johnston of University Police, he said.

SIMILAR PATTERN

Brendan McCarthy of the Times-Picayune reported that at 11:30 p.m. on Oct. 3, the car Anigbo, Diakite and White were driving pulled up alongside a pedestrian where Freret and Audubon streets intersect. One of the three drew a gun and pointed it at the pedestrian, asking for money, but they sped off before they got any.

Later, White pointed a gun at a group standing on the corner of Maple and Pine streets while driver Diakite pointed another at a woman and demanded her purse.McCarthy wrote that, according to the police report, the woman denied handing it over, so one of the stick-up crew members said, “Ha, ha, we are just playing.”

The third incident unfolded near the corner of Lowerline and Hampson streets, the Times-Picayune reported. A rear seat passenger waved a handgun at a man walking on the street and demanded his wallet, court records said. The man then hesitated, and “again one of the students demanded his wallet,” McCarthy wrote.

As he handed the wallet over, the rear seat passenger then said they were “just joking” and sped away.

“That sounds very similar to what happened to me,” Jay said the afternoon of Oct. 6. He also confirmed again that the car was “a black Nissan with Texas plates.”

A judge set Anigbo, Diakite and White’s bonds at $250,000.

He scheduled a preliminary hearing for Oct. 18.

All three face prison sentences from five to 48 1/2 years long for each of the several counts police charged them with.

Ramon Antonio Vargas can be reached at [email protected].