MINNEAPOLIS — For Sahil Nandwani, having his 2007 Dodge Charger stolen was just the beginning.
Someone took the car near her apartment in Uptown, Minneapolis earlier this month. He’s one of 980 people whose car has been stolen in Minneapolis this year. Statistics show that on the day his car was stolen, 21 other people in the city also had the same thing happen to them.
“Oh my God, I was going crazy,” Nandwani said. “I was like what am I going to do next?”
But just days after reporting her car stolen, she got a call. The Minnesota State Patrol found him, abandoned, along Interstate 94.
To retrieve it from a confiscated Brooklyn Center lot, he owed $390.
“My heart was, it just sank. I wasn’t expecting that much cost,” she said.
When he opened the car door inside the lot, he got an idea of the gravity of the situation.
Inside were hundreds of pills, half a dozen knives, a ski mask, several license plates, tools and other drug paraphernalia. Also inside, another person’s ID, phone, wallet and keys.
“We were freaking out,” he said. “We called three different lines, 311, 911 and then the sheriff. And they all told us the same thing, just to throw it all away.”
Nandwani said she couldn’t believe it. How could he dispose of drugs and weapons? Not to mention leaving the lot with them in the car? What would you say if you were stopped by the police?
Sahil Nandwani
“I was so upset and so confused,” she said. “Honestly, I was too scared to throw it away. I thought that anyone who saw me throwing away all this suspicious stuff would probably call the police on me.”
Eventually, he says he got off the pills. As for the other stuff, he says he threw bags and tried to throw them away.
Days later, he found a new clue. Someone had installed a dashcam in his car. There were images of the person, which matched the ID, making alterations to the interior of the car.
Nandwani called the police again, along with his girlfriend’s father.
“They have all the evidence, right, to put it together,” said Ken Iverson, the father of Nandwani’s girlfriend. “And you’re fine, that seems like a no-brainer.”
Minneapolis police say they took Nandwani’s evidence and plan to investigate. The burden on the police was clear, however, he says, from the way the police interacted with him during the process.
“I guess he was hoping to go through this process with the police,” said Nandwani’s girlfriend, who asked not to be named. “I was really confused honestly that they didn’t seem to care at all.”
The couple say they were given no indication of what would happen next, or if police had any intentions of confronting the person they believed stole the car.
“[This person] he knows where we live and he knows we have things he wants back,” Nandwani’s girlfriend said. “Can you do something? And they tell you ‘no’. It bothers me, because they are here to protect you. I don’t feel protected.”
Police say they are still investigating the case. Nandwani says she has lost thousands of dollars in items stolen from the car. He estimates that the car has thousands of dollars worth of damage that insurance won’t cover.
He says while police investigate, he is considering finding a new place to live.
“I don’t feel comfortable,” he said.
