NEW ORLEANS (WGNO)— Multiple cars were broken in the early Thursday morning in the New Orleans Irish Channel on Second Street.
One victim, Dr. Reena John, had her laptop with valuable documents stolen. The entire crime was caught on video with a surveillance camera (full video below).
Although John’s laptop had a locator setting on it, the NOPD couldn’t provide much help.
“I was fast asleep. I heard an alarm go off, part of me thought it was a dream,” John told WGNO’s Kenny Lopez.
But for her, it was a real-life nightmare. Her car had just been broken into right in front of her condo Irish Channel condo.
“The right rear passenger side window was completely shattered,” she said.
The thieves took off when they heard the alarm, but they got away with a bag that contained valuable items like John’s work laptop with important documents on it. John says everything is valued at around $8,000. She still feels bad she left it in her car in the first place.
“That night I had another bag with a lot of other contents to carry upstairs, so I forgot about it,” she explained.
Her laptop did have a “Find My Device” setting that showed that the laptop was located just over a mile away in Central City.
“It has an address,” John added.
John reached out to NOPD, but no one showed up, so her boyfriend went looking for cops and found one. They were told there wasn’t much police could do for them with only a GPS location.
“‘GPS locations are not enough to get a warrant to enter or look.’ He said the best thing that they could do is knock and ask if they took items,” explained John. “We keep hearing about this. I feel like we keep turning a blind eye, we don’t realize how violating it is to members of the community and how it really compromises your safety. You know this happened like 24 hours ago. I have a dog and I don’t feel safe walking around anyone in an area I felt was safe.”
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As for trying to get the laptop back herself, she said, “I wouldn’t feel safe. I don’t know what I’m up against. I’ve come to terms I may never get it back. It set me back emotionally and financially.”
FULL VIDEO: New Orleans doctor’s car, laptop stolen