CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Police said they have arrested a man who robbed a 16-year-old this week along the light rail in uptown Charlotte.
Around 8:20 p.m. Tuesday, the teen was at the light rail platform by the transportation center on East Trade Street when a man jabbed an object to the teen’s back, according to a Charlotte-Mecklenburg police report. The teen believed that object was a weapon.
The suspect forced the teen to buy a train ticket, police said, and then took him to an ATM to check his account balance. But the man wasn't able to get any money.
Police soon arrested Eric Dale Zakobielski, 34, of Charlotte, and charged him with armed robbery and second-degree kidnapping. He remained in Mecklenburg jail Thursday evening under $115,000 bond.
Zakobielski, who also goes by the name Eric Dale Wheeler, is a felon who was released from state prison in November after serving eight months for a drug conviction in Mecklenburg County, according to the N.C. Department of Correction.
Zakobielski has a lengthy criminal record in Mecklenburg and Union Counties. His other convictions, which date back to the mid-1990s, include assault on a female, felony drug possession, larceny of guns and common law robbery.
