Armed CVS Robbery Ends in a Gunfight With New Orleans Police

An Early-Morning Pharmacy Robbery Turns Into a Gunfight

At 6:06 a.m. on June 17, 2019, a 24-hour CVS pharmacy on Prytania Street in New Orleans became the scene of an armed robbery that would end in gunfire outside the store, an injured police officer, two wounded suspects, a federal prosecution and lengthy prison sentences.

The body-camera video begins after New Orleans police officers have already been dispatched to the CVS at 4901 Prytania Street. Inside, two armed men are carrying out a coordinated robbery. Federal prosecutors later identified them as Richard Sansbury and Alan Parson, both residents of Indianapolis, Indiana.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, both men entered wearing hooded sweatshirts and blue medical gloves. Sansbury drew a firearm, moved behind the front counter and restrained a cashier with zip ties. Parson went toward the pharmacy area, forced another employee to the ground and restrained that employee's feet. He then filled a large bag with prescription pill bottles taken from the pharmacy safe.

The robbery was still unfolding when responding New Orleans Police Department officers reached the store.

The footage supplied for this article matches the incident closely. Its AXON overlay shows June 17, 2019. The opening body-camera sequence places officers at a CVS. Later portions show officers positioned outside the storefront while the suspects remain inside. Store surveillance footage included in the video shows the robbery from another angle.

Then the suspects move toward the exit.

What follows lasts only seconds. The two men encounter police as they leave and gunfire erupts. One NOPD officer is struck in the shoulder. Officers return fire, wounding both suspects.

One suspect is captured nearby shortly afterward. The other remains at large for several hours before officers find him hiding in the neighborhood.

Unlike many older body-camera cases, the legal outcome here is well documented. Both defendants later pleaded guilty in federal court. Alan Parson was sentenced in October 2021. Richard Sansbury was sentenced in February 2022. Their sentences transformed a few minutes of chaotic body-camera footage into a case with a clear judicial ending.

The Location Can Be Identified Precisely

The robbery occurred at the CVS pharmacy at 4901 Prytania Street in Uptown New Orleans.

That location appears repeatedly in federal court and Justice Department records.

Contemporary local reporting described the store as a 24-hour pharmacy in a normally quiet commercial area surrounded by neighborhood businesses.

The date also provides a decisive match. The body-camera overlay in the supplied video reads June 17, 2019, the exact date documented by NOPD records and federal prosecutors.

A New Orleans Police Department major-offense log records an “officer needs assistance, life in danger” incident at the 4900 block of Prytania Street at 6:07 a.m.

That is approximately one minute after federal prosecutors say Sansbury and Parson entered the pharmacy.

Taken together, the date, location, CVS interior, police response and shootout make the identification conclusive.

Two Men Enter the Store With a Plan

Federal prosecutors later reconstructed what happened before officers arrived.

Sansbury and Parson entered the store armed.

Both wore hooded sweatshirts and blue medical gloves.

The clothing and gloves were not incidental details. Surveillance footage shows the men moving through the store while attempting to control employees and access the pharmacy.

Sansbury went behind the front counter and restrained a cashier with zip ties.

He then moved the cashier away from the counter.

Later federal sentencing records specify that Sansbury forced the cashier into a restroom and tied his hands.

Meanwhile, Parson moved toward the pharmacy area.

There, prosecutors said, he forced another employee to the floor and secured the employee's feet with zip ties.

The Target Was the Pharmacy Safe

The robbery was not simply an attempt to empty a cash register.

Parson went to the pharmacy safe and filled a large bag with bottles of prescription medication.

That detail later made the case a federal prosecution involving robbery of controlled substances.

Sansbury joined Parson in the pharmacy area and continued restraining the second employee.

The store surveillance portions of the released video help explain the physical layout. The pharmacy is deeper inside the building, while responding officers approach from the front.

This creates the central tension in the body-camera footage.

Police know armed suspects are inside.

The suspects know the front entrance is their most direct route out.

Eventually those two movements converge at the doorway.

Police Arrive While the Robbery Is Still Underway

NOPD officers Chad Clark, Everett Route and Shanda Charles were among the officers responding.

The Office of the Independent Police Monitor later summarized the case in its use-of-force review.

According to that review, officers responded to an armed robbery in progress at the CVS. The caller remained in contact with communications while the robbery continued.

That ongoing information allowed police to arrive while the suspects were still inside rather than after they had escaped.

Body-camera footage shows officers taking positions near the store entrance.

At first, the scene is tense but relatively quiet.

Officers cannot simply see through every aisle and wall inside the pharmacy.

They know there are armed people inside, but they do not know exactly when the suspects will move toward them.

The Doorway Becomes the Critical Point

The front entrance becomes the most important physical feature in the encounter.

The suspects have to pass through it to leave by the front of the building.

Officers are positioned outside and around that same exit.

As Sansbury and Parson begin leaving with the stolen prescription drugs, they encounter the responding officers.

The Independent Police Monitor's later summary states that the two men told officers to back up.

Then the encounter changes instantly.

The suspects exit and fire at police.

Officers return fire.

The quiet standoff becomes a close-range gunfight in a public commercial area.

An NOPD Officer Is Shot

Officer Chad Clark was struck in the shoulder during the exchange.

Contemporary reporting described his injury as a gunshot wound.

The body-camera footage becomes especially chaotic during this portion because officers are moving, seeking cover, communicating and returning fire almost simultaneously.

A body camera does not behave like a stationary surveillance camera.

It turns with the officer's torso.

It can be partially blocked by arms or equipment.

The image can blur during rapid movement.

Those limitations are visible here, which is why the store's fixed surveillance footage and other officers' cameras are important for reconstructing the event.

Three Officers Return Fire

The Independent Police Monitor identified Officers Shanda Charles, Everett Route and Chad Clark as officers who returned fire.

Both Sansbury and Parson were wounded.

The monitor later reviewed the shooting and classified the officers' gunfire as justified and within policy.

That administrative finding is distinct from the criminal prosecution of Sansbury and Parson.

There were therefore two different legal and institutional questions after the scene was secure.

The first concerned the robbery and gunfire attributed to the defendants.

The second concerned whether the officers' use of deadly force complied with law and NOPD policy.

The available official review concluded that the officers' shooting was justified.

The Suspects Flee Despite Being Wounded

The exchange of gunfire does not end with both suspects immediately in custody.

After the shooting, both men flee from the store area.

Police records later described one suspect collapsing in the front yard of a residence less than two blocks away.

That suspect was Alan Parson.

He was taken into custody and transported for medical treatment.

Richard Sansbury got farther away.

For officers, the situation therefore remained active even after the gunfire stopped.

One armed-robbery suspect had been located.

Another wounded suspect was somewhere in the surrounding neighborhood.

Richard Sansbury Is Found Hours Later

Police searched the area for Sansbury.

Local reporting based on court records said he was discovered hiding a little more than a block from where Parson had been captured.

His arrest came nearly three hours after the initial confrontation.

He also had a gunshot wound.

The search period matters because a short viral edit can create the impression that the case ended at the CVS entrance.

In reality, the shooting was followed by a neighborhood search, medical treatment, arrests and an extensive investigation.

The criminal case then continued for years.

The First News Reports Capture the Immediate Chaos

Local television stations reported the shooting within hours.

Early coverage correctly established the basic outline: an armed robbery at the CVS, a gunfight with responding officers, an officer wounded in the shoulder and two suspects shot and arrested.

At that stage, many details were still developing.

The suspects were initially described by their ages rather than through the complete federal case that would later emerge.

As investigators processed surveillance video, officer footage, firearms evidence and witness accounts, a more detailed picture became available.

That is why later federal court records are particularly valuable for reconstructing the robbery itself.

Federal Charges Follow

A federal grand jury later indicted Sansbury and Parson.

The indictment contained three counts.

The first alleged conspiracy to commit robbery involving controlled substances.

The second charged armed robbery involving controlled substances.

The third charged discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

At the indictment stage, these remained allegations.

The Justice Department explicitly noted that an indictment is a charge and that guilt must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The legal status changed later, when both defendants entered guilty pleas.

Both Men Plead Guilty

In May 2021, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced that Sansbury and Parson had pleaded guilty to all three counts.

That development is crucial because it allows the case to be described differently from an unresolved arrest.

The defendants were no longer merely accused of participating in the robbery.

They admitted guilt in federal court.

The plea covered conspiracy, armed robbery involving controlled substances and discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence.

The firearm count carried a mandatory consecutive prison component.

Sentencing would determine how long each man would ultimately serve.

Alan Parson Receives a Lengthy Federal Sentence

Alan Parson was sentenced on October 19, 2021.

Federal prosecutors said the court imposed 120 months on the conspiracy count and 121 months on the armed-robbery count.

Those two terms were ordered to run consecutively.

The court then imposed another 120 months for discharging a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, also consecutive to the other terms.

Taken together, the sentence structure amounted to 361 months, a little over 30 years, in federal prison.

Parson was also ordered to serve four years of supervised release after imprisonment and pay the mandatory special assessment.

The sentencing record gives the case a concrete outcome that was unavailable when the body-camera video first circulated in 2019.

Richard Sansbury Is Sentenced in 2022

Richard Sansbury was sentenced on February 22, 2022.

His sentence was structured differently.

The court imposed 121 months on the conspiracy count and 121 months on the armed-robbery count, with those two terms running concurrently.

A separate 120-month sentence for the firearm count was ordered to run consecutively.

That produced an effective prison term of 241 months, just over 20 years.

Sansbury was also ordered to serve four years of supervised release after imprisonment and pay the mandatory special assessment.

His later appeal challenged a sentencing enhancement, but the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in 2023.

The Court Record Adds Context the Video Cannot Show

Body-camera footage is powerful because it captures the urgency of the police response.

It is weak at explaining what happened before officers arrived or what happened years afterward.

Court records fill those gaps.

They establish that the defendants traveled from Indiana to New Orleans.

They document the employees being restrained.

They explain that controlled substances were taken from the pharmacy safe.

They establish the guilty pleas.

And they document the sentences.

When the video and court record are combined, the incident becomes much more than a dramatic exchange of gunfire outside a store.

Why the Surveillance Footage Matters

The CVS cameras captured the robbery from inside the building.

That footage provides a stable counterpoint to the moving body cameras outside.

Inside, viewers can see the suspects' movements through the store.

Outside, officer cameras capture the uncertainty of waiting for armed people to emerge.

The federal government specifically noted that surveillance video recorded both the robbery and the subsequent shootout.

Multiple camera systems therefore documented different phases of the same crime.

That overlap makes this case unusually well recorded.

The Employees Were at the Center of the Robbery

It is easy for the gunfight to dominate retellings of the incident.

But before police arrived, two CVS employees were already facing an armed robbery.

One was restrained after Sansbury went behind the front counter.

Another was forced to the ground in the pharmacy area.

Zip ties were used to restrict their movement.

The robbery therefore involved direct control of employees, not simply theft of unattended merchandise.

Those facts later mattered in federal sentencing proceedings, particularly in Sansbury's challenge to an enhancement connected to the movement and restraint of a victim.

The Officer's Injury Was Serious but Not Fatal

Officer Clark survived the gunshot wound to his shoulder.

Contemporary reports said he was expected to recover.

The fact that he survived can make the outcome seem less severe in hindsight, but the body-camera sequence shows how little margin existed during the exchange.

Gunfire was occurring at close range outside an occupied commercial building.

The defendants were wounded.

An officer was wounded.

Other officers were firing while trying to maintain awareness of the suspects, one another and the surrounding public space.

The encounter could easily have produced a different outcome.

Why the Independent Review Matters

The Office of the Independent Police Monitor provides an important source beyond the police department itself.

Its annual report lists the June 17 incident as an officer-involved shooting.

The summary identifies the robbery, the tied employees, the stolen controlled substances, the suspects firing at police and the officers returning fire.

It records the Use of Force Review Board's conclusion that the officers' shooting was justified and within policy.

That does not replace a court proceeding.

It does, however, provide an independent oversight record concerning the officers' actions.

The Video's Timestamp Matches the Official Timeline

The supplied footage shows the date June 17, 2019.

The robbery is documented at approximately 6:06 a.m.

NOPD's offense log records the emergency involving an officer at 6:07 a.m.

Those times are remarkably close.

The first minute of the official timeline contains the key transition from robbery to police confrontation.

That temporal match is another reason this video can be confidently linked to the Prytania Street CVS case.

The Robbery Was About Controlled Substances

The contents of the pharmacy safe changed the legal framework of the prosecution.

Federal law specifically addresses robbery involving controlled substances.

Parson filled a bag with pill bottles retrieved from the safe.

Because the robbery targeted controlled substances and involved firearms, federal authorities became involved alongside NOPD.

The FBI and New Orleans Police Department investigated the case.

Federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of Louisiana ultimately handled the charges that produced the guilty pleas and sentences.

A Viral Shootout Clip Becomes a Multi-Year Federal Case

When PoliceActivity and other channels circulated the body-camera footage, viewers primarily saw an intense police encounter.

But the legal story was still developing.

In 2019, Sansbury and Parson were indicted.

In 2021, both pleaded guilty.

Parson was sentenced later that year.

Sansbury was sentenced in 2022.

Sansbury then appealed an aspect of his sentence, and the Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment in 2023.

The distance between the four-minute video and the multi-year court process is a reminder that footage captures an event, not the entire case.

Why the Story Holds Attention Without Exaggeration

The natural structure of the incident already contains multiple unanswered questions.

What are the suspects doing inside the store?

Will they surrender?

Which exit will they use?

What happens when they encounter police?

Who is hit when gunfire erupts?

Do both suspects escape?

Are they captured?

What happens in court?

Each answer leads naturally to the next question.

That is a stronger retention strategy than adding unsupported claims or sensational language.

The verified facts are dramatic enough.

The Body Cameras Show Different Perspectives

No single officer's camera gives a perfect view.

One officer moves toward the entrance.

Another changes position outside.

The building's columns and walls block portions of the scene.

The suspects appear and disappear rapidly as the confrontation unfolds.

This is normal for body-worn footage.

The camera is attached to a moving person who is reacting under pressure.

For analysis, it is therefore better to compare the body cameras with the store surveillance and official investigative summaries than to treat one frame as the complete truth.

What Happened to the Two Defendants

Alan Parson and Richard Sansbury both survived the gunfight.

Both were arrested.

Both eventually pleaded guilty in federal court.

Parson received consecutive terms totaling 361 months under the sentence structure announced by federal prosecutors.

Sansbury received an effective 241-month prison term, followed by supervised release.

Those outcomes are verified, so this case does not need the vague ending common to many older body-camera stories.

The court record tells us where the criminal prosecution went.

What Happened to the Police Shooting Review

The officer-involved shooting was also formally reviewed.

The Independent Police Monitor's annual report states that the shooting was found justified and within policy.

That finding concerned the actions of the officers who returned fire after the suspects fired as they exited the store.

It should not be confused with the defendants' federal guilty pleas.

The two processes addressed different conduct and used different review mechanisms.

Together, they provide a fuller ending to the incident.

The Most Important Distinction in Retelling the Case

There are three different evidentiary stages in this story.

First are the events visible in video.

Second are the allegations and investigative findings that followed.

Third are the facts established by guilty pleas and sentencing.

Keeping those stages separate prevents common errors.

For example, it is accurate to say the men were initially charged in 2019.

It is also accurate to say they later pleaded guilty.

And because federal sentencing records are available, it is accurate to report the prison terms imposed.

The later court outcome strengthens the article because it replaces speculation with documentation.

From the Pharmacy Door to Federal Prison

The confrontation outside the CVS lasted seconds.

Its consequences lasted years.

Two employees were restrained during the robbery.

Controlled substances were taken from the pharmacy safe.

An NOPD officer was shot in the shoulder.

Both defendants were wounded.

Both were captured.

Federal charges followed.

Both men admitted guilt.

One received a sentence structure totaling more than 30 years, while the other received an effective term of just over 20 years.

The footage is memorable because of the gunfire, but the complete story is about the chain of events before and after those shots.

Watch the Full Sequence With the Timeline in Mind

When watching the body-camera video, begin with the knowledge that the robbery is already underway before the officers reach the front door.

Inside, employees have been restrained and prescription drugs are being removed from the pharmacy safe.

Outside, officers are trying to contain an armed robbery in progress.

The suspects then approach the same doorway the officers are watching.

The moment they emerge, the situation accelerates dramatically.

After the gunfire, continue following the story beyond the video. Parson is captured nearby. Sansbury is found hours later. Both men eventually enter guilty pleas, and federal judges impose lengthy prison sentences.

That complete timeline is what turns a chaotic body-camera clip into a documented criminal case with a verified beginning, middle and end.