SHARPSTOWN – A Texas man is sharing his girlfriend’s fear and his frustration after she was followed by thieves who busted into her car and stole her belongings.
The thieves followed her from a coffee shop in the Houston area last Monday night to a restaurant about 15 minutes away.
While she was in the restaurant, they broke into her car and took her laptop and AirPods.
“Very traumatizing for her,” her boyfriend Jeffrey said.
His girlfriend’s too afraid to talk about it on camera, and he doesn’t want to use his last name, but Jeffrey does want to get the word out so people know about jugging and also because Houston police, he says, aren’t doing enough to help, even with video evidence and a tracking device that gives them a location for the laptop.
“Zero confidence in them right now and it’s going to be hard for them to regain my confidence in this community,” Jeffrey said. “This is happening on a daily basis, and it needs to stop.”
Another woman was paralyzed from the waist down last year when she was followed to a parking lot right across the street, beaten and body-slammed.
In Jeffrey’s case, security footage shows a dark-colored Jeep pulling into the parking lot where she became a victim. The SUV parks next to his girlfriend’s car. After a few seconds, the thieves are seen pulling and tugging on the back passenger window before bashing it in.
“There were three assailants two of them threw the other perpetrator in the vehicle. He grabbed all the stuff, and they pulled him back out,” Jeffrey said.
They drove off with the laptop, AirPods and other valuable items.
“She’s an immigrant so they took a lot of stuff that she worked very hard for,” he said.
After calling Houston police and waiting several hours, the couple filed a report at a substation and followed up with an officer the next day.
“The guy basically said, ‘Push you to the back. You’re not a murder, you’re not a rape case. You’re not important basically. It’s just a laptop,’ That’s exactly what he said.”
To make matters worse, Jeffrey and his girlfriend know where her stolen goods are, at least the laptop. They tracked it to a home in Stafford, Texas about 20 minutes away.
Jeffrey even notified the police there.
“They had given us the run around with answers, basically kicking the can back to Houston police, saying that’s their case, that’s their investigation. When we contacted HPD again they said no that’s their territory so it’s back and forth back and forth,” he said.
With no cooperation from either police department, Jeffrey says he and his girlfriend are going through the insurance process to get the car fixed.
Turner reached out to Houston Police and so far, hasn’t heard back.
Here’s what Stafford police told KPRC 2 in a statement:
On March 19, 2024, at approximately 3:45 AM, the Stafford Police Department made contact with a complainant, who stated their vehicle was burglarized in Houston, and stolen items were pinging at an address in Stafford.
The criminal offense occurred in the Houston Police Department’s (HPD’s) jurisdiction; therefore, all information should be forwarded to HPD for follow-up investigation.
The Stafford Police Department will not interfere with HPD’s investigation; however, we are more than willing to assist HPD in any way necessary should they require our support or resources.