My Suitcase was Stolen from LAX — Here’s What I Learned
By Donal Buckley
January 12, 2025. It was the day before the spring semester was supposed to begin. Taking extra classes and working multiple jobs had made my fall term less than ideal, so my goal this spring was to enjoy a stress-free semester. I was optimistic about the new year, despite all that was happening in LA at the time. My flight came in from Portland with little turbulence and I shuffled through LAX without problems. Baggage carousel 26, which had my city listed on it, was empty and static. But I had no reason to look somewhere else — it said “Portland, OR,” clear as day, typed right up on the rectangular screen.
So I waited for my bags. But passengers, the very same ones from my flight, began to waddle over to baggage carousel 23. This new belt’s screen had Atlanta on it, not Portland. I was confused, and so was another lady, so we followed the crowd to carousel 23. She found her bag; I assumed I would do the same. I waited, and waited, and grew impatient waiting for my muted blue suitcase. I had stuck a tracker in it the night before, in case of an emergency, so I opened the app just to make sure my case would be out soon. And what I saw next was, indeed, an emergency.
My bag was not at the airport anymore — it was on the freeway, speeding away from LAX. It could’ve been a WiFi issue, right? Or just a mistake? I didn’t believe it was happening to me. I mean, who does? We always hear about bad things that happen to people on TV, but we don’t expect them to happen to us. But after filing a claim with the less-than-friendly Delta agents, attempting to file a report with LAX police, and calling a robot at Delta corporate who was supposed to help me, it was becoming clear that this situation would not be resolved overnight.
I kept an obsessive eye on the tracker, praying whoever had my case would turn around, come back to the airport, and apologize profusely for snagging the wrong bag. But that never happened — instead, I watched as my poor suitcase was taken from Marina del Rey to San Fernando before settling in Hollywood. So, I was finally able to file an actual police report, but was still in denial about my case being stolen.
The tracker didn’t leave Hollywood for the entire next day, instead moving back and forth across Franklin Ave. I figured someone would’ve called me if they took my bag by mistake; after all, my contact information was literally on the outside of the case. I had been calling the Hollywood Police Department all day in hopes someone could investigate for me, but no one answered. And keep in mind, it was also the first day of classes, so as my 5pm class approached and I still hadn’t heard anything, I had no choice but to call the hotel nearest to the tracker and explain my situation. The receptionist at the Magic Castle Hotel looked outside, said she saw a man with a case that matched my description, and sent me a photo. My heart dropped: it was my case, and it was stolen.
Immediately, I went into panic mode. My favorite clothes were in that case. My treasured jewelry, gifts for friends, gifts from other people, and much, much more. What’s worse, I’ve been sleeping with the same stuffed animals every night since I was born. Those two bears, my Noukies, were in that case. It wasn’t just physical items that were lost, but objects that held real sentimental value. I had a life inside that suitcase, and now it’s gone.
I had called 911, who sent me to LAPD, who then said they couldn’t do anything unless I was close enough to point out who the person who had my case was. I was at USC and my case was in Hollywood, so I snatched my roommate and went to catch a criminal. But by the time we did show up in Hollywood — and, of course, the tracker had changed locations twice so I had to change our drop off location twice, much to the chagrin of the Uber driver — LAPD told us they actually couldn’t do anything about non-life-threatening emergencies because the city was on tact alert due to the fires. Which was fair, but why would they send us out there, forcing us to drop $50+ on a single Uber ride if they weren’t going to help us anyway? We were pissed, but couldn’t do anything about it. We went back to the airport to see what we could do, but were met with the same results, so we went back home and accepted defeat.
The next few days were rough. I had already skipped my Monday class and I was in and out of my Tuesday class calling the police. I was a mess. This was not the good start to the semester I had been hoping for, in fact, it had been the exact opposite and I wished I never came back. I couldn’t focus on anything else because I just wanted my teddies, my clothes, my Christmas gifts back. But there comes a point in these situations where you can only do so much. I’m not the police, nor am I the detective that was supposed to reach out to me, so even though this was my property, it wasn’t my job to put myself at risk by chasing it down. It was a hard thing to accept, but at that point, my belongings were gone anyway. I’d be lucky just to get the case back.
If your things go missing, the most you can get from Delta is $3,800, but it’s an extremely tedious process. My parents helped me put together a list of everything that was in the bag — including sizes, colors, materials, receipts and more — to send to them. The total came out to over $4,000. We’re still waiting for next steps.
Losing a lot of things you have a lot of attachment to is obviously hard, so expecting someone to just pick themselves up and move on feels unreasonable. But there was nothing else I could do. Thankfully, I had friends who made this situation much better than it could have been. Two of them accompanied me on a day out to the mall to buy new clothes, and two more offered their employee discounts to make purchases easier. If this experience taught me anything, it’s that I’ve chosen the right people to keep in my life. Beyond that, I had to spin some more of this positively. Even though I didn’t necessarily want to, I was able to buy new clothes and try new styles I had been meaning to for a while.
It’s hard to give advice on a situation like this because it’s largely out of your control. I found out a week later, from when an officer called me about the case, that I was in the terminal when my case was taken — just at the wrong carousel. I couldn’t control Delta mixing up the carousel names or my suitcase being the one that got swiped. And I had a tracker in my bag. I was prepared for the off chance my bag went missing, but given the circumstances there was nothing I could have done to prevent this. And that almost makes it worse. I will say, though, that even if the tracker didn’t help me get my case back, it helped confirm it was stolen. I’d probably still think there was a chance I could get it back had I not put the tracker in it. But honestly, the only thing you can really do is file a claim with the airline, file a police report, and let them deal with the rest — I did way more than I should have
Another piece of advice — and this is especially relevant to those of us who fly back to school — is to stay vigilant at LAX. When you’re at baggage claim, stay off your phone until you get your suitcase back. One of the officers told me that some people will be at the correct carousel and still not see their suitcase get stolen. Apparently, this is an issue LAX has been dealing with for a very, very long time, and recently it’s only gotten worse. They told me that they arrest people every day for stealing suitcases, and even more get away with it. I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I had to go through. So please, keep your belongings safe and take every precaution you can to make sure it doesn’t happen to you.
My biggest takeaway from this experience was that bad things can happen when you least expect them, and unfortunately, they’re largely out of your control. Just look at the fires. I’m still distraught over my suitcase, but I can’t imagine losing my home. Nobody could have prevented that from happening to them. But it’s something you become so detached from until it happens to you. Life can really suck sometimes, and moments like these remind us exactly of that. But moments like these can also remind us that there’s some light in dark situations — in my case (no unfortunately timed pun intended), it was my friends who went out of their way to make my situation easier.
Unfortunately, there isn’t quite a happy ending to this story. The tracker stopped working about two weeks in and the police haven’t called me in nearly a month. My bag, and all my belongings, have simply become a statistic in whatever crime ring is running through LAX. But to honor my fallen stuffed animals, I framed a photo of myself as a newborn and command-stripped it above my bed. So even though I don’t have them physically, I can still appreciate their presence.
