Neighbors take action after violent burglary hits close to home

BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - “It’s sad that you’re just, you’re just not safe anywhere anymore,” Holly Whittington said.

Folks in the Oakland crossing neighborhood in Prairieville were stunned to find out a car burglary resulted in a woman being grazed by a bullet.

RELATED: Homeowner shot by fleeing vehicle burglars, officials say

“I just can’t imagine what my neighbor went through. You know, being fired at like I guess still, I choke up when I think about it, it was just It’s just so close to home, it’s it is home,” Whittington said because of this incident, she will be updating security cameras at her home soon.

“Just like any other technology they get dated so quickly and what used to be a good image is no longer and it was just really hard, like even with all the homes here, so hard for us to get a good shot of the perpetrator and a good shot of the car,” Whittington said.

Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said they are seeing more security footage showing violent burglaries.

“It’s rare, it’s very rare that you have a situation where someone breaks into a car and will also use the weapon, but we’re starting to see more and more videos where we’re seeing the car burglar himself with a weapon in his hand. Again, it’s very rare that they use it, but you never know, and you can never tell what these situations may bring,” Webre said.

The sheriff adds video from this incident will help them find the burglars.

“We’re going to put these people in jail and we’re going to hopefully go to get a high bond and hopefully they’ll stay in jail for a while, and they will be charged with attempted second-degree murder,” Webre said. “That’s serious. That’s life in prison. So, when you are 18,19, or 20 years old thinking about going around, stealing people’s cars or stealing things out of their cars and taking a gun and using a gun, or pointing it at somebody shooting, it could affect your life forever.”

The sheriff said these men are connected to a similar string of burglaries nearby and are working with other agencies to solve the crimes.

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