Was this laptop company property? Did it have proprietary or confidential material on it? Is your company large enough to have a security department, or an IT department with a security component?

Of course it would have been ideal to make a theft report with SFPD immediately, (and most likely the laptop is gone, gone, gone), but if you get stonewalled, a corporate communication to local media might evoke some kind of action that would put pressure on this kind of checker behavior—"Warning to SFO travellers!" or some such.

Whether it was company or private property, the response you got was inexcusable.