NEW ORLEANS — The man who set what appears to be a somewhat harmless but definitely memorable "flash bang" explosive inside of his truck to give thieves something to remember, won't face any charges related to the incident, the NOPD said in a statement Thursday.
Police said the attempted burglary is still under investigation and that there are no identified suspects at the present time.
Brendan Batt said that he had to replace his truck's window 7 times this year alone as thieves would smash them out in an effort to see and get what's inside.
Batt said he set up a "flash bang," that shouldn't hurt the thief, but would certainly startled them and that's just what happened this past weekend.
A vehicle drove up to Batt's booby-trapped truck and smashed the window before hoisting the upper part of his body into the truck, presumably to see if there was anything worth taking.
Just seconds after the thief gets into the vehicle, the flash bang goes off and the thief, clearly surprised, jumps out of the truck, gets back into the other vehicle and takes off.
“It’s so frustrating and there’s nothing you can do about it,” Batt, a Metairie veterinarian, said. It’s the eighth time since January he’s had to replace the window in his truck.
The glass repair shop near his office knows him so well by now, Batt jokes that he doesn’t even have to introduce himself when he calls.
The flashbang was rigged up on a tripwire in the truck, which explodes when the center console is opened. It’s a 12-guage round with no projectile, but it does shoot gunpower and is very loud.
Batt says he did test runs with the device to make sure no one would be severely injured, and he’s been unapologetically booby trapping his own truck for two months.
“Every single night, yeah. I set it up religiously,” he said. “Because I don’t want to walk out to a broken window and not have it detonate.”
“The way I’m setting it up, nobody’s going to get like really badly hurt. And that’s important to me because I don’t think blowing someone up fits the crime of someone breaking into my window,” said Batt.
He is not encouraging others to set up similar rigs, but says he’d like to see more people set up security cameras to catch criminals. He’s confident this video, which has been seen tens of thousands of times, will help police make an arrest.