Out of options...

[JT__]

Hi all! I really appreciate all the time the officers put into answering others questions. This is a really good idea, and I would be lost without your help..

Now, about my current predicament.

To make a long story short, my girlfriend and I went out with our friends to celebrate her 22nd birthday party (don't worry, I was DD!). After she fell asleep I went home, and came back the next morning to discover her dog missing so I spent the better half of the day looking for it. After taking a bit of a break we notice that the dog bowls are missing and that her roommate's macbook pro was missing as well. The first thing I thought of was her ex that had been nagging her about getting the dog back, and seeing as the dog and the dog bowls were missing he became my immediate suspect. It's been about a week now and I decided to see if there were any ads on craigslist matching her roommates missing macbook (it had a plastic cover and a cracked screen) only to see an ad almost word for word describing the missing one at a ridiculously low price, riddled with spelling mistakes and no specs mentioned in the whole post (I can link you to said ad if you deem it relevant)
I ran the name of the author by my girlfriend and she said her ex had a friend with that name, so now he is the prime suspect here.

My question to you all is: If I were to set up an appointment with this individual what do I do? At the moment there is no definitive proof so I cannot ask a police officer to arrest him (obviously), but I would like to know my options before the encounter.

Should also be noted: we have the serial number with us

Thanks for reading this,
JT

edit: The reason I included the first part was because I think her ex, knowing it was her birthday, believed that she would be going out to celebrate. And he was right.

[chewy]

call the police and report the incident. Then let them investigate and compile the evidence.

[JT__]

call the police and report the incident. Then let them investigate and compile the evidence.

Thanks for the feedback!

I understand your response, but the city he lives in is San Antonio. I'm not saying it will be ignored completely, but it's definitely not at the top of their list. Time is of the essence, and with a city of more than 1 million people, I would hope there is something else I could do. Hell, in San Marcos (where the laptop was stolen [with 30k population]), it took 4 hours to finally talk to someone to complete a police report.

Related: if i see the serial number matches the missing macbook, could I be in trouble for just nabbing it and taking off? I'm rather fast

[CPL1897]

If you take matters in your own hands, your only asking for
trouble. Then not only could you find yourself in a bind (danger) etc
metting a possibl burglary suspect, whatever case there may have been would be compromised.

You have no real option except to allow
LE to handle it.

[marinepilot]

You have no real option except to allow
LE to handle it.

Well, you could always buy it back from him at the ridiculously low price, but I'm guessing you probably don't want to follow that route.