A teenager sitting in a stolen car parked outside a restaurant in Gentilly late Monday was confronted by the vehicle’s owner and shot in the chest, according to New Orleans police.

Terrance Johnson, 45, faces a count of aggravated second-degree battery in the shooting of the 17-year-old youth, who remained hospitalized Tuesday.

It was not clear whether New Orleans police would book the teenager with a crime, such as illegal possession of a stolen auto. But the St. Bernard Parish Sheriff's Office issued a statement saying he was wanted on a count of vehicle burglary and theft of a firearm following a series of car break-ins in Arabi a few hours before he was shot.

New Orleans police have spent the past year grappling with a spike in car thefts and break-ins — crimes frequently blamed on young people.

According to police, surveillance video from the Waffle House in the 4600 block of Old Gentilly Road showed Johnson walking across the restaurant’s parking lot to his car. He pulled out a pistol and began arguing with the 17-year-old, who got out of the car, police said in records filed at Criminal District Court on Tuesday.

Johnson and the boy then began fighting outside the vehicle, and the boy was shot in the right side of his chest. Johnson waited until police arrived and was ultimately booked.

Paramedics took the teen to the hospital. His condition wasn’t available Tuesday.

Police also booked John Stevenson, 41, on a count of obstruction of justice in connection with the case. It wasn’t clear Tuesday what he is alleged to have done.

A magistrate commissioner set Johnson's bail Tuesday afternoon at $25,000. Stevenson's bail was set at $3,000.

Asked to analyze the case, defense attorney Craig Mordock said there are laws in Louisiana which allow people to use deadly force against anyone intruding on their personal property. But, based on the details in court records, those laws don’t appear to apply in this case because the teenager who was shot had been in the car at a time when Johnson was not in it.

Mordock said Johnson should have called police and given them a chance to recover the vehicle for him.

“The law doesn’t allow you to just shoot someone" for being in your car, he said.