NEW ORLEANS — According to the New Orleans Crime Dashboard, nearly 7,000 cars have been stolen across the city this year and the Metropolitan Crime Commission says far more cars have been stolen this year compared to last.
John Malley and his wife are brand-new New Orleanians. The pair just moved to the city from Colorado a week ago.
To make some extra money Malley started doing Uber Eats. So, on the anniversary of his first week in New Orleans he headed to Chick-fil-A, at Loyola and Poydras to pick up food.
Malley told WWL Louisiana, "I put my flashes on, I pulled up behind a long line with other cars with their flashes on, I hopped out of my car, locked it, ran into the restaurant for just 90 seconds, the order was already ready, came out to no car."
His car was stolen, he says he called 911, but two days later, with no word from NOPD about his car, he took it upon himself to go searching for it.
He said, "A person in the area recommended, that's a common way people find their cars."
According to the Metropolitan Crime Commission, 6,892 cars have been stolen across the city this year. That's a 69-percent increase on last year's numbers. MCC says 20 cars are stolen daily across the city.
Michelle Foster with MCC says violent crime is down but opportunistic crimes are up, saying, "There's a relationship between auto theft and carjackings as the car jackings going down the auto theft is going up."
She went on to say, "They are stealing them and one taking the contents in the car, but also potentially using it for other crimes, and then dumping it."
She says the key to reducing these crimes, is improving the solve rate, "We need to get online with DNA capabilities because you have a small group of people committing a large amount of these auto thefts and we need to solve them and tie them together."
As for Malley, Friday night he says he got a call from NOPD, his car was recovered, and incurred no damage, and nothing in it was stolen.
Malley said, "It turned out to be just a mile away from where it was stolen."