NEW ORLEANS — The NOPD announced on Wednesday that they have charged two 16-year-olds with eight counts of burglary after a spree of car thefts in the CBD earlier this month.
The break-ins happened on January 8 and police say the suspects were driving a stolen Kia as they made their way through a flock of parked cars.
A total of 404 cars have been broken into in 2023, as of Tuesday, less than three weeks into the year. In December 2022, over half of the cars involved in break-ins were Kia or Hyundai models. NOPD has since recommended drivers buy steering locks for those cars.
There were 4400 car thefts in all of 2022, according to NOPD.
Some of the other break-ins have also involved juveniles who are high-school or even middle-school aged. At the beginning of the year, NOPD arrested two juveniles, who were 12 and 14-years-old respectively, after 62 cars were broken into in the River Ridge and Elmwood area and they were traced back to Orleans Parish.