A series of commercial burglaries unfolded over two nights in the Friendship Heights area of Chevy Chase earlier this month, Montgomery County police report. One suspect was arrested, but the others remain at large. In the early morning hours of September 10, 2024, burglars broke into Saks Fifth Avenue and T-Mobile, and attempted to break into GAP. Early the next morning, one or more burglars broke into Bloomingdales.
It must be noted that the burglaries occurred around the same time that looting took place at multiple businesses in Northwest Washington, D.C., following a Metropolitan Police Department officer-involved shooting in that jurisdiction. But none of the media accounts I have seen so far included the Friendship Heights incidents on our side of the border as being related.
Merchandise was taken from all three of the burglarized businesses. Officers responding to the scene found evidence of forced entry at all three. Mandel Greene, 27, of Washington, D.C. was arrested in connection with the Saks Fifth Avenue burglary. He has been charged with felony 2nd-degree burglary, and felony theft. Greene posted bond and was released the next day, according to Maryland court records.
A preliminary hearing in the Saks case has been scheduled for October 4 in Montgomery County District Court in Rockville. Suspects in the T-Mobile burglary are described only as two Black males, and the unsuccessful GAP burglars are described simply as one Black male, and one of unknown description. If you have any information to assist police in tracking down any of the suspects, call (301) 279-8000.
Normally, this defendant who was indicted in 2017/2019 for murder in PG County, (along with several other co-conspirators), would still be in prison. Thanks to leadership like Alsobrooks they're free to re-offend.
ReplyDelete5:45 - And a Hogan super PAC should cut an ad immediately on the Alsobrooks tax fraud claiming significant tax breaks she didn't qualify for. DNC would be furious to lose MD. The balance is close. Go Larry!!
DeleteAs Paul Harvey (late radio commenter), and now the rest of the story. You don't know why this "defendant" was not still incarcerated.
DeleteAnd in the same area, a woman was nearly killed having been stabbed multiple times as reported on local news this morning. Keep voting the same way and this is what you get. DC mayor is a total disgrace. Why on earth was Marc Elrich in the WHFS doc? He has time to do that while this is happening? He's the leader of the county but says nothing? Terrific!
ReplyDeleteWhat would you like him to say? Genius!
DeleteWho is Marc Elrich?
DeleteThe Saks call went out as a group of 11 -13 people breaking in and wandering about the store, looking for the best stuff to filch. Tracking tags, (like Apple AirTags) were apparently attached to some jewelry that was stolen. It was this that led MCPD to locate and arrest one of the suspects.
ReplyDeleteA second person was detained at another location, but I do know if he was subsequently arrested or not.
As for the stabbing, what should Elrich have said, JAC? Would it be comforting and reassuring had he engaged in traditional Kabuki, appearing before the cameras in a nylon jacket emblazoned with an oversized MCPD logo, his brow furrowed, behind him a coterie of silent, solemn looking county emergency services top brass and the ubiquitous, ever-present Will Jawando and Evan Glass? Would spirits be lifted, public confidence bolstered had he offered to viewers an assortment of boilerplate about the community's resolve to not let this type of vicious crime etc, etc; about the entire area joining in extending thoughts and prayers, etc; about the swift action of MCPD personnel resulting in capturing etc, etc; of the heroic assistance of concerned citizens who stepped in etc, etc; about his calling on the County Council to immediately pass a 100% budget increase to etc, etc. Color me skeptical that any of the above theatrics would have any effect on the public's assessment of a singularly grisly, horrific, random crime. Elrich and the Council *doing* things to address this sort of violence is another matter entirely, but count me among those who don't give a fig whether or not he appears on my television set to spew platitudes.
On the matter of the WHFS documentary, I'll point out that film was released in 2023, before the stabbing took place.
N/a: Interesting details - sounds like this was definitely a looting situation then.
DeleteN/A - 1. Elrich won't do anything including calling or visiting the innocent citizen stabbed. 2. I'm well aware that the WHFS program was filmed before this incident. I was making a broader point about priorities.
DeleteThanks, on all
DeleteApparently, the MC Police at the Friendship Village are busy playing chess.
ReplyDelete12:26 - Ha! Great question.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the tip, JAC! I must remember that rhetorical technique. "Making a broader point" by [apparently] intentionally eliding and conflating two unrelated events that took place more than a year apart.
ReplyDeleteN/A - We can do without the snark ok? If you don't get the point I was making then just say so. Be kind.
DeleteHmmm… I didn’t realize that T-Mobile had abandoned the Chevy Chase Pavilion in the District for MoCo’s greener pastures, in Wisconsin Place. Looks like The Cheesecake Factory is the very last tenant.
ReplyDeleteNobody touches Maggiano's!
Delete@ 9:28 AM - Maggiano’s is in the next building, Friendship Center. It is down a couple of tenants and will be redeveloped soon.
DeleteThe po po with their blue lights either move the crime elsewhere or later, or arrive on the scene too late then hang around the next day just reminding everyone what happened. Then it simply happens somewhere else. Sure, they can't be everywhere but why do they need to advertise where they're at? What percentage are caught? Where are those numbers?
ReplyDeleteThe answer my fiend, the answer my friend is hovering in Rockville.
Delete@10:07 -- Law enforcement's use of cruise lights --the low-intensity, solid-not-flashing end lights illuminated on the rooftop lightbars of marked police vehicles-- is not just to announce police presence to [potential] law-breakers and thus [hopefully] move crime down the proverbial block and into another patrol area or jurisdiction. They are, as well, designed to make it easier for the law-abiding or for crime *victims* to quickly spot a cop should they need one. My recollection is the practice began in the late 1980s, after U.S. law enforcement officials visited Israel, where they saw the method being employed.
ReplyDeleteRest assured, MCPD does not rely exclusively on marked patrol cars in its operations. Their burgeoning "Raven" drone program --launched last November in Silver Spring; now also operating in Wheaton, and coming soon to Bethesda and G'burg-- has an average on-scene arrival response time of 70 seconds, and in more than two-thirds of the over 1,300 calls in which they have been involved in the last year, these gizmos were actually the *first* resource on the scene. In that latter situation, the averageon-scene arrival time was just under 50 seconds. These whirlybirds have aided in sussing out scenes and in tracking "suspects" until actual human police can get to the scene. https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/pol/howdoI/drone-as-first-responder.html
As well, don't forget the county's plainclothes Special Assignment Teams, groups of plainclothes officers in each police district who drive regular, unmarked cars and trucks and set up in crime hotspots, surveilling areas and looking for suspicious behavior and people. These teams move from location to location, can be anywhere at any time, day or night, and have a long record of surprising the daylights out of crooks who thought nobody was watching.
There are a lot more police on the job than are indicated by just those blue cruise lights. You bet, a bigger budget for more resources would be better still, but MCPD's approach has more facets to it than might be immediately visible, and that's by design.
I've yet to hear anything remotely indicating "undercover' effectiveness. I detect pablum for the publi here
DeleteYeah, and none of them can catch or are willing to run after a shots fired carjacker, hence to go home safely and keep that 'ol pension in tact!
Delete"run after a shots fired carjacker", that's the best line I've seen in quit some time. Show us all how it's done.
ReplyDelete@7:24 -- Please site evidence to support your claim MCPD failed/fails to pursue weapons-firing suspects. I am curious to learn details of these events. The Google machine refused to reveal such information to me.
ReplyDelete@3:55 -- The veracity of a subject is independent of its news having reached your ear. S.A.T. has been a component of MCPD for many decades. That in itself is evidence of the program's contribution to crime fighting. As budgets have been ever further constrained and constricted, funds continue to be allotted to that team. Other effective enough police units have been disbanded --the auto theft detail, for example. That S.A.T. has endured is testament to its effectiveness.
The US Post Office can make the same claims. SAT enduring means nothing. Let's see the numbers.
Delete