Katie Moore / Eyewitness News
NEW ORLEANS -- New Orleans police are investigating an attempted burglary that sounds like something straight out of a movie.
A downtown jeweler got quite a shock last Saturday when he found someone trying to break into his store through the wall.
But how the would-be cat burglars got in and out of the building next door is still a mystery.
“They had a big idea but not the best plan,” said Robert Normann, owner of the jewelry store wedged in the CBD.
His store is bookended by the Whitney Bank Parking Garage and a building that’s currently being used by contractors.
Two doors down, civil attorney Stephen Barry has his office. Barry said he got a call from one of the contractors on Saturday morning.
“He said he apparently approached [the contractor’s building] doors and tried to open them, but they were chained from the inside,” Barry said.
The contractor had arrived before 7 a.m. early Saturday morning and found the windows in the front covered with brown paper.
Once inside, they found a hole in wall in the back of the building, on the side that abuts the jewelry store.
“Somebody had cut, not only through the plaster, but they also cut through the studs in the wall. Then they started to chip away through the bricks in the wall,” Barry said.
The would-be cat burglars left three bags of tools after the contractor apparently scared them away.
“They had cutting tools and sledge hammers, things like that, so I guess they were gonna try and break the safe. But I think it would've been futile,” Normann said.
The contractors who work out of this building said it had to be more than a one-person job. The hallway where the hole was cut had piles of lumber and flooring blocking access to it.
Barry's surveillance cameras on Gravier Street caught the contractor on camera, and even caught police when they arrived Saturday morning.
But what they didn't catch was anyone entering or exiting the building.
“Certainly took a lot of planning,” Barry said.
“I mean, I think they might have been watching too many movies,” Normann said.
It was a foiled attempt at a real-life caper with a lot of alarms and no Pink Panther on the other side.
Police said Normann's alarm was triggered simply by the vibrations on the other side of the wall, but the security company didn't call police because no one had gotten in the store yet.
