NEW ORLEANS — A Lakeview family says they woke up and found their car was gone. Ryan Higgins says when he couldn't reach New Orleans Police, he decided to track the stolen vehicle and get it himself.
In the video you see people running down the street, then you see one stop and start looking through an SUV. Then you see this white truck follow. Ryan Higgins says that the suspects got into their family's 2022 Tahoe and eventually took off.
Higgins said, "I woke up around 6 a.m. Saturday morning to my wife calling me saying the car was gone."
He said during the early hours of May 4 his SUV was stolen.
He says the family did leave the keys in the car, saying, "Kinda in the chaos of getting the kids in the house on a Friday afternoon after school," they forgot to take the keys inside.
He says thankfully an air tag was inside and they were, "Able to see that the air tag pinged last at a street in New Orleans East, of the Crowder exit."
He says the family called NOPD's third district but "At that time we weren't able to get anyone on the phone," he said.
With the air tag pinging his SUV's location, he decided to go get it himself, and an hour later his SUV was back home.
NOPD says a debit card was reported missing from the SUV. The department recommends, "vehicle owners lock and secure their vehicle when not in use." NOPD also said they don't recommend "victims in criminal incidents attempt to directly recover stolen property, for both safety purposes and to preserve possible evidence for investigatory purposes."
Higgins says he's calling for proactive policing, to prevent more cars being stolen, saying, "I think you could easily catch people in the act if you had officers out there in force, you know what time they're going to come."
NOPD says this incident is still under investigation and anyone with any information is urged to contact NOPD or Crimestoppers. Higgins says before they went to get the car they called NOPD's third district. To which NOPD said, "With the exception of the Eighth District station, which is open 24 hours, the remaining seven NOPD district stations have hours of operation from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. each day. This includes the Third District station. While officers are on duty patrolling in their districts 24 hours, the stations is not open to the public during overnight hours. According to information presented in the police report for this incident, the victim’s response occurred prior to the opening of the district station for public hours."
NOPD also asked that in emergency situations, people call 911:
The NOPD urges anyone seeking to report a criminal incident at any time to either call 911 in the case of an immediate emergency, or to contact our non-emergency line for all other incidents by calling 504-821-2222. These lines are staffed and available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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