GARLAND – Residents of the Landmark at Lake Village West apartments filed into a private room at nearby restaurant Thursday evening to share stories that sounded remarkably similar.
Each say when they returned to their apartment days after the EF-4 tornado, more was missing than simply what the storm swept away.
Rachel Yoes went back to her apartment one week after the Dec. 26 tornado.
"That was hard to see my things in front of me and not being able to take them," Yoes said.
She said security at the complex told her no one was allowed to take anything, so she returned a few days later.
"I went back up there — the boxes I had seen were gone," Yoes said.
Three tenants filed suit against the property management and the security company hired to protect the complex after the storm, claiming valuables like electronics, credit cards, jewelry, and cash were looted.
Attorney Justin Nichols toured the complex with tenants earlier this month and filed the civil suit.
"They could tell that the apartment they left the night of that crisis was not the same apartment they returned to when they were finally let in," Nichols said.
Landmark at Lake Village West says it can not comment on ongoing litigation, but will "vigorously defend the allegations in court, at the appropriate time," according to a statement.
Those allegations aren't just levied in civil court.
Garland police confirmed to News 8 there have been ten reports of "habitation burglaries" at the complex since the tornado struck. Nine of the reports were filed this month, well after the fence surrounding the sprawling complex was erected to keep looters out.
"Over acres and acres of property, various residents that had never met before tonight had the same story," Nichols said.
The number of tenants committed to joining the lawsuit had risen to eight by the beginning of the evening, and stood at least a dozen afterwards.
