Authorities have arrested two New Orleans men accused of robbing bank customers at gunpoint at ATMs across the region.
Slidell police took 26-year-old Vondell Newsome into custody near Old Spanish Trail Wednesday after a police chase that started in Jefferson Parish.
The vehicle Newsome was riding in crashed into a ditch, and he and another man fled.
Authorities used dogs and drones to track Newsome and found him in the woods nearby Wednesday night. He was booked on counts of armed robbery and misdemeanor flight.
The second man in the car, Leonard Howard, 20, turned himself in Friday afternoon to the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office. Howard was booked on counts of armed robbery, aggravated flight, aggravated obstruction of a highway and resisting an officer.
The St. Tammany Sheriff's Office said the men robbed a man using an ATM outside of a bank on Louisiana 21 near Covington on June 28. Mandeville police also issued warrants for the pair, accusing them of armed robberies at a Mandeville bank ATM on June 26 and June 28. The men are accused of similar crimes in Jefferson Parish.
Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office deputies saw a vehicle Wednesday similar to one used in a robbery outside of a Jefferson Parish bank and tried to pull the car over. When the driver wouldn't stop, authorities chased the vehicle into Slidell, where it crashed.
St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Randy Smith said the Sheriff's Office worked closely with detectives in Mandeville and on the southshore to apprehend the suspects.
"It is because of these good working relationships that detectives are able to share information and resources, which results in criminals like these being identified and subsequently arrested," Smith said.
After they are adjudicated in St. Tammany Parish, the men are likely to be extradited to Jefferson Parish to be prosecuted for their alleged additional crimes.