NEW ORLEANS — A series of car break-ins in the Gentilly area of New Orleans led to gunfire early Tuesday morning.
Rene Truxillo was letting his dog out around 3 a.m. He heard a car coming down Burbank Street near his home and went inside.
“I peeked out the window and I saw one of the people was up to no good,” Truxillo said. “I just opened the door and said, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’”
Truxillo says there were two young men on the street breaking into cars and another driving a vehicle next to them.
“I stopped them from breaking into my car when I scared them, and they were running back to their getaway car and that’s when they fired shots.”
He wasn’t injured.
Neither were his wife and daughter who were still sleeping at the time.
But bullets did hit their home, going through walls, and breaking a front window.
“Five shots fired,” Truxillo said. “Five casings found in the street. I’ve got four holes in the house. I’ve got one on the step.”
Earlier, what appears to be the same crew was spotted walking down the street breaking into vehicles on nearby Chamberlin Drive.
They were caught on security video, smashing a window on Max Gruenig’s Chevy Suburban.
“They come in less than three minutes, they break the window, they grab a backpack they think has stuff in it, really it’s a Mardi Gras bag with kid’s clothes in it and then they run off,” Gruenig said. “They are willing to shoot people over that kind of stuff because they think it’s valuable and it’s not.”
This is the kind of crime that has neighbors questioning their sense of safety and security inside their own homes.
“We picked this neighborhood shortly after Katrina and we’ve been living in it for almost 11 years now and we love it, but when this kind of stuff happens it makes you think about it,” Gruenig said.
“The Lord looked out for me,” Truxillo said. “The Lord looked out for my neighbors. No one got hurt. I wish these young people would think twice before they act.”
Police are still searching for suspects.
Anyone with information about this crime is urged to call Crimestoppers at 504-822-1111.