Business owners in Lee Drive shopping center upset with lack of police patrols after repeated burglaries

BATON ROUGE – Four separate businesses in the Duplantier Place shopping center on Lee Drive have been burglarized — some of them multiple times — and business owners say there have been no proactive police patrols to discourage crime in the area. 

Light House Coffee owner Amber Elworth says her cafe has been hit three times, most recently on Friday night. Elworth says a thief threw a brick through the front door, then stole their cash register and safe.  

“We’ve already spent hundreds of dollars updating our security cameras, and it’s just extremely inconvenient. It’s scary,” Elworth said.

Saturday night, the same thing happened to neighboring business BellyFire Studios. Owner David Rollins says police should have done more to stop the burglaries, especially after several crimes at the same place.

“Over and over again we’ve been robbed at this strip,” Rollins said. “It’s not right, the cops should have been here. They should have been here after the second one, they should’ve been here after the third one, after the fourth one. What about the fifth one? Nah, let’s give it six. Maybe after six, maybe after today there will be a cop here.” 

Elworth agreed and said that there is no excuse that the businesses were burglarized on back-to-back nights with no apparent police concern. 

“I am surprised because they threw a rock. Just last night our neighbors, Bellyfire, were robbed so you would think a cop car would’ve been camped out here.”

Both Rollins and Elworth say they believe it’s the same guy coming back every night. 

“I’m just kind of infuriated, and I want it to stop, I want this guy caught,” Elworth said.

The Baton Rouge Police Department said officers can not stake out buildings waiting for burglaries to happen.

“These guys are steady proactive policing as well as answering other calls to service,” BRPD Spokesperson Darren Ahmed said. “Unfortunately they can’t always be everywhere at one time, but they do patrol their subzones as they’re assigned to them.”

Ahmed said the businesses can hire an off duty officer to stay in the parking lot overnight.