[Editor's note: this has been adapted from an email by Captain Paul Larson of the Arlington County Police Department]
Everyone:
I am forwarding the crime statistics for the month of January 2006. There are several areas that are cause for concern and others that we have made some progress, either by an arrest or increased visibility. In the map I have forwarded, you will notice a few clusters of activity. The first cluster is in the Penrose neighborhood that I have talked about in the past. Penrose has been suffering through numerous cars being broken into and vandalized over the last few months. We have tried to address this by first deploying our tactical surveillance unit and then increased visibility of patrols. An arrest has not been made and we have continued to put our resources into this area. According to the recent police reports, I have noticed a decrease of these activities.
In Douglas Park and Claremont we have noticed a few cars that have been stolen. Early last Friday morning (Feb. 3), Sergeant Jenkins and the rest of the Third District Team were on patrol in Nauck. At the corner of S. 24th Rd. and S. Shirlington Rd. they spotted a car that had been stolen. The suspects sped away, but luckily drove into the dead end in the 2000 block of S. Lowell St. The suspects jumped out of the car and fled on foot into the waiting hands of some uniformed officers. The suspects were brought to the Auto Theft Unit and confessed to stealing numerous cars along the Four Mile Run corridor. We have confirmed 6 cars as of the date of this writing, but I anticipate they will be linked to many more. A total of 7 suspects have been arrested and generally live along Four Mile Run Dr.
As you can notice on the map, we have had three robberies. One at Four Mile Run Dr. and Columbia Pike, one in Shirlington and one in Fairlington. The only common theme in these robberies is the suspect(s) walked up behind their victims, implied they had a weapon and took money. The suspect descriptions are different as well as the number of suspects in each case. The one robbery at Four Mile Run Dr. and Columbia Pike is the typical drunk robbing another drunk. We have dramatically increased the number of Drunk in Public arrests in this area and it appears to have had some impact.
In Columbia Forest, we have seen several sheds were broken into along S. 10th Place. We made an arrest in December, but it appears it did not completely solve the problem. In talking to the burglary detectives, I am confident this mini series will come to an end.
In Glencarlyn, there is a small cluster of larcenies along Carlyn Springs Rd. This is attributed to construction tools being reported stolen from the site at the new Kenmore Middle School. These cases are very difficult to solve because construction workers never write down serial numbers of their tools. This makes it impossible to track them through our Pawn Unit.
These are the highlights, or lowlights, depending on your perspective in January. If anyone has any specific questions, please let me know.
Captain Paul Larson
Third District Commander
Arlington County Police Department
1425 North Courthouse Road
Arlington, Virginia 22201
703-228-4097
plarso@arlingtonva.us