Monday, July 7, 2008

Crime Mindfulness

The summer mugging season is well underway. According to information passed from Officer Mike Smith to Borderstan, robberies are up over last year and, in some cases, even last week. However, though we had four violent crimes in our PSA in June, your chances of being personally victimized are still statistically very low. Please see the text below regarding robberies taken from a June 30th Borderstan email. If you would like to be on this mailing list, contact borderstan {at} gmail {dot} com. [If you are not familiar with the term "Borderstan" it refers to the blocks near 15th Street, the dividing line between PSA 307 (east) and PSA 207 PSA 208 (west), an area that has had less attention from MPD patrols in the past due to straddling the police service area diving line.]

Theft from vehicles remains most common crime in Logan. This crime is largely preventable; please keep valuables out of sight in your cars. Please also advise your guests to do the same. You would be surprised at the crummy stuff that thieves will smash a window to access old CD players, car breakdown kits, change, SmarTrips, sunglasses.

Just wanted to let you know that there has been more robberies in the area since my last email. One in particular was unusually violent in that one victim was possibly pistol-whipped during the robbery. That incident occured early Sunday morning at approximately 4 am at the corner of 15th and Church Sts NW. The victims had just parked their car when the suspect approached and asked the driver for directions. Suspect # 1, described as a black male approximately 5'7" with a thin build, short afro hairstyle then punched the driver in the face demanding money. The driver was able to exit the car pursued by Suspect #1 who continued to strike the victim, then he produced a black handgun, striking the victim again. The second suspect was described as a light skinned black male or hispanic male approximately 5'9" with a stocky build. His hairstyle was described as somewhat unique as it was described as long black hair pulled back into a knot, th en the hair below the knot appeared to be braided. Suspect #2 held the second victim at gunpoint as victim #1 was robbed. Both suspects fled on foot on Church St towards 16th St.

Also to let you know I did arrest one suspect for attempted armed robbery at the corner of 15th St and Q St on Friday night at approximately 10:15 PM. This suspect approached two pedestrians and produced a box cutter and attempted to rob them but they were able to flag down a patrol car and the suspect was immediately arrested.

Robberies are occuring on both the 2D and 3D sides primarily between 14th and 16th Streets, mostly between R and U Streets. I have been working with the 2D detectives office to see if we can identify the suspects. Crime over the last 7 days is up over 170% from the same period last year (18 crimes vs. 6 criimes a year ago).

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, my name is Matt and I keep the Borderstan email list going. If you live in East Borderstan (east of 15th Street and roughly between P and R/S/T, you should know that the special patrols for this area were apparently discontinued last week. I found this out from our PSA 208 commander (it's 208, not 207) in West Borderstan (where I live). I will be sending out an email to the Borderstan list today. Hopefully, the residents on both sides of 15th Street can convince the 3rd District to reinstate the patrols. They are needed: I heard yesterday that there was a robbery Saturday night at 14th and R by a number of "kids" and that a handgun was involved. I will post more when I have more details. As was noted, if you want to receive Borderstan e-mails, please send me a note at borderstan@gmail.com.

Mr. Other Upper NW said...

Matt: Do you know which side of the 14th/R intersection the robbery occured?

Anonymous said...

Excellent information! I have linked to this post at The DC Feed.

Anonymous said...

Don't know which side of the intersection, but will try to find out. -- Matt

Anonymous said...

if you see me with an upset the setup shirt on the block, i'm coming for your dough. neighborhood tax

Anonymous said...

Matt - I think I'm a resident of East Borderstan (13th & R?). If so, I would like to be added to your email list. Thx! LL

SydAjax said...

Suuuuper. Well I guess I need to dig up my old throwing star and nunchuck collections again. Damn it, its so uncomfortable walking with those things in my pockets.

Anonymous said...

This is completely unrelated - but does anyone know when the YES organic market on 14th and V will open?! It said it was opening in the Spring but last I checked it still had its windows covered with pictures of vegetables!