Update on recent crimes

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Update March 5:

Several pursuits and auto thefts have been made in the last week:

• SUSPECT FLEES FROM POLICE AFTER ANOTHER CARJACKING IN PENTAGON CITY (FEB 21)
• Foot Chase Leads to Arrest of Three Vehicle Tampering Suspects in Pentagon City (FEB 29)
• Two Arrests in Pentagon City from Car Stolen Out of DC (MAR 1)

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Several officers from Arlington County Police Department (ACPD) came to Wednesday night’s Aurora Highlands Civic Association meeting to provide an update on recent crimes in the area. The following is a summary of the information provided.

The civic association is very appreciative of the outreach effort and the time ACPD has taken to listen and respond to questions. Thank you!

Assault incident

As previously reported, there was an assault around 18th & Joyce / 18th & Ives on Tuesday the 11th. A young woman, paying attention, heard someone coming up behind her. She thought it was a friend playing a joke on her, turned around, and was tackled. The suspect produced a knife, put a hand over mouth, unknown if anything was said, and tried to force the woman’s legs open. She was screaming, got the attention of passerby who also screamed, a call went out immediately, and police caught the guy.

The suspect is a homeless guy, has been all over the country, and has no violent crimes except for this one, just minor drug offenses. He is schizophrenic and claimed he was having an episode where he thought he was chasing down a terrorist. He has been charged with abduction with intent to defile and possession of weapon, and is being held with no bond, so won’t be getting out anytime soon.

Police were asked about how the suspect will be treated as far as mental health. That’s out of police purview, but they indicated prisoners are screened for mental health and identify if services, counseling, medication, is needed. All officers are CIT trained, so that can help divert people who need medical/addiction help into other county programs.

Carjackings

Three car jackings have occurred in the last two months. The last one was Feb 4. Two were at the mall and one was in underground Pentagon Row parking. Two cars were recovered in DC: One was recovered in DC where the suspect bailed out and tried to jack another car while the police chased. Another was recovered with four people in it; all were arrested. They do have to connect suspects to the crime, so if the car is recovered afterwards, there is additional forensic evidence, etc to connect people with crimes. Third car has not been recovered yet, but they are working on it and have lots of leads.

Larceny from autos

Majority of crimes are cars with doors left unlocked. They have noticed a difference from one person committing crimes; they now see car full of 3-4 people driving down street slowly, stopping, people getting out and walking neighborhood trying door handles. Criminals are looking for money, but also looking for keys – key fobs, valet keys, etc and take the car if they find them.

Most are not sophisticated attacks; not broken windows, broken doors, or high tech clickers, just doors left unlocked. Yes, if there is something valuable visible, thieves will break windows. But majority of incidents are unlocked cars – walk up to car, try door, quick in and out. 

Stolen cars

Other than keys in cars, another issue is with rental cars at mall. Companies like getaround leave cars at mall; leave keys in car or lockbox that are unattended for months. Seven of those have been stolen that police are now trying to recover. 

Also had similar instances from cars taken from dealerships where key boxes were left unattended. Have made arrests in those cases. Many are juveniles so can’t disclose a lot of information. Caught one kid who confessed to dozens, suspected maybe even hundreds of attempted thefts, who confirmed they look for unlocked doors.

Burglaries

Not seeing any spike in burglaries lately; been fairly quiet. 

Motives

The area is currently considered a hotspot; just means there’s more crime in the past few weeks than recent past. The reasons are debatable, but generally this is a hot area. The mall has always been an attraction for people from all over the DMV. May be younger kids, maybe up later, looking for mischief. With car full vs one person, will have more instances. Cars are convenient. Hotspots are common, word spreads where crimes are easily accessible. So to prevent, use police or residents to hyper vigilant and don’t make it easy for people to commit crimes. 

Increased police presence

People have asked what police are doing. There is a huge push right now from ACPD, getting lots of extra officers out. They have overtime details all around the mall. Also have undercover officers that you will intentionally not notice, some of which helped in assault incident on the 11th. Police are working with the mall, who is increasing their profile in the parking deck. The mall is also hiring off-duty officers to patrol garage.

More patrol cars are being deployed at mall, but not necessarily surrounding neighborhood streets; question of staffing; trying to bring staffing up but have to allocate the resources they have. Practicing hotspot policing; it is clear the mall area is a current hotspot, so they are adjusting resources accordingly. Police teams work all over the county, so if they can nail down dates/times where specific crimes are happening, they will deploy uniformed and plain clothes.

Cannot provide stats on how many crimes prevented, but shared that undercover officers have observed crimes in progress. Provided example of suspicious individual in Harris Teeter parking lot, used “punch” to pop window of car, steal backpack, and was apprehended a minute and a half later on the Metro platform.

Recommendations

Practice the 9pm routine. Lock up. Lock cars and take valuables out of vehicle. Take garage door, extra key fobs, valet keys, house keys, etc out of car. Search #9pmroutine for tips and reminders.

Make it more difficult. Be aware of surroundings. If someone is lurking around, they’re probably up to no good; be aware, go back inside, report, etc. Don’t sit in car and read texts. Don’t give extra opportunities to be a victim. 

People need to report all offenses so they know where they are going and number of times being hit, so police know where to focus efforts and how to allocate resources.

Regarding self-defense, police aren’t experts in self-defense advice; don’t currently offer personal-defense classes, although do a form of it for young kids. But several companies can provide services, just look them up. As far as what’s legal, that’s complicated, suggest googling concealed weapons laws in virginia. (Example: https://www.vsp.virginia.gov/Firearms.shtm)

If you have an emergency, call 911. For non-emergencies, call 703-558-2222. Add that number to the contact list on your phone now so you have it handy in case you need it.

Staying updated

To keep up with all activity, ACPD publishes daily crime report on the Arlington web site: https://newsroom.arlingtonva.us/category/daily-crime-report/

Police also suggest following them on twitter, @ArlingtonVaPD since they make an effort to provide real time updates on events. https://twitter.com/arlingtonvapd

Join Nextdoor to stay up with community news. The county will occassionally post news, and can be contacted here as well.

ACPD strives to to be as transparent as possible with what’s going on. Arlington also uses community crime map; check out communitycrimemap.com to map your own stats. 

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