Signed Obama speech stolen from vehicle

BATON ROUGE - Police said a thief who broke into cars at a McKinley High School basketball game didn't know what he had his hands on, and threw a speech signed by President Barack Obama into the trash.

Officers arrested 17-year-old Keondrae Ricks after investigators said he and a juvenile broke into the vehicles Friday night looking for valuables. One of the things they grabbed, according to police, was a textbook containing Che'dra Joseph's speech introducing Obama at his town hall event Thursday.

"It was in a textbook, so nobody really knew that it would be in there, and I really doubt that he would go through my books, because it was my schoolbag that he took," Joseph told News 2.

Joseph had the president sign her speech after spoke in Baton Rouge Thursday morning. When the McKinley student of the year realized it was gone, she tried to contact the White House to get another copy.

Baton Rouge Police officers said they found the bookbag, speech inside, when they were digging through a dumpster in the area as part of their investigation.



"They called me when I was getting my window done, and they told me they found your bag, and they found your speech, so everything as good by then." Johnson said.



After getting her window fixed, Johnson picked up the speech from Baton Rouge officers.

Police said Ricks was caught after he used a credit card stolen from one of the vehicls to buy T-shirts from a Family Dollar store and tried to get cash back from the card. The cashier said they noticed his named didn't match the name on the card, and surveillance video from the store helped authorities identify and arrest Ricks.

Ricks faces multiple charges including burglary, contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, and unauthorized use of an access device.