(New York Post) An incoming California college student and his family were robbed of all their belongings, including $3,000 and their passports when thieves broke into their rental car as he was being dropped off for school.
The teen’s parents have since planned to disenroll him from the school over safety fears in the state, according to KTVU.
Rhomel Crossman and his family had flown into the Bay area from Coconut Creek, Fla. on Saturday to register for classes at Lincoln University in Oakland.
Crossman, who had just graduated from Coconut Creek High School, committed to play football as a defensive tackle at the independent California-based university, according to an X post from February.
Once they arrived in the Golden State, the family got into a white Nissan Rogue that they had rented from car rental Thrifty and drove to Oakland.
hey parked the SUV a block from the private university around 6:15 p.m. before heading to a nearby Jamaican restaurant to pick up food, leaving their five suitcases inside the car.
The family returned 15 minutes later and discovered the SUV’s windows were smashed out, glass scattered around the ground and all of their belongings inside gone.
“In Oakland, California, you just gotta be careful,” Crossman’s mother, Nerissa Murray Watson told the outlet. “Everything is totally gone.”
A witness told the family they saw masked men driving around in a car without any license plates in broad daylight, an increasingly common occurrence in the Bay Area.
“I didn’t know that these things happen in America so it’s really strange to me,” Murray Watson added.
The missing possessions not only included clothing but also very important and personal documents.“Three thousand dollars in a bag my husband put under the seat with three passports, social security cards, and my son’s high school diploma and birth certificate,” Murray Watson said of the stolen items
A sleep apnea machine was also taken from the car.
“Now, I start feeling my heart like it’s pounding in the morning instead of feeling rested,” said Coren Leslie-Green, Crossman’s aunt.
