Downtown Bethesda's smoke shops continue to be a prime target for criminals in both the daytime and the nighttime. The nighttime was the right time for one burglar who rolled up on Smoke Island at 7913 Norfolk Avenue with an entourage in a white SUV at 2:30 AM Saturday, September 14, 2024. This wasn't the first appearance by the suspect that morning, however. The ski-masked suspect first cased the store seven minutes earlier, before returning in the vehicle with passengers who remained inside the SUV.
Using an unspecified object, Montgomery County police say, the male suspect smashed the front door to gain entry to the store. Stealing unspecified property from inside the store, the suspect fled in the SUV. Detectives have released surveillance video of the incident, and are seeking the public's help in identifying and locating the suspect.
One of the Woodmont Triangle's new rat-resistant trash cans makes a cameo appearance, and the suspect slows the getaway driver's escape when part of his haul gets caught in the rear passenger door of the SUV, and is dragged scraping along the pavement alongside the vehicle as it turns onto Cordell Avenue heading east.
Police describe the suspect as a male of unknown race, wearing a black ski mask, a black sweater, gray pants and black shoes. He was carrying a green "sling bag." If you have any information about this incident, or can identify the suspect, you are asked to call police at 1-866-411-8477. Tipsters may remain anonymous.
Too darn bad we don't have the resolve to prosecute, (when we occasionally do catch them), and send a firm message. Till then just expect more.
ReplyDeleteIf they commit to use public transportation all will be forgiven...
ReplyDeleteShutter the smoke shops and the crime rate will drop like a three-foot putt.
ReplyDeleteI'm done commenting on this crap, especially since you (Robert Dyer) failed to upload here a long time consuming to type with my left thumb on-point Q&A diatribe of mine that not in any way shouldn't have been seen & commented on by all of the regulars here... It's like Robert is taking lessons from Facebook & X CEO's. Good luck with your blog and this is an airport so I am announcing my departure.
ReplyDeleteDue to the volume of comments that have to be reviewed, it's entirely possible that a well-intentioned comment may accidentally be misunderstood and not posted. There is usually a specific rules violation that prevents a paticular comment from being approved. There are trolls who monitor for any sort of politically incorrect terminology or thoughts, and then make a huge deal if such language slips through - in some cases, posting it anonymously themselves so they can claim I have allowed "racist" comments. As one of the few sites that allows discussion and commentary in this age of extreme censorship, I have to do my best to maintain a civil forum for community participation, which can sometimes result in a comment being rejected for a single questionable word - or even accidentally swept up with other deletions.
DeleteThere was a lengthy and excellent comment submitted just the other night, that I thought added a lot to the discussion about crime. But a couple of words used to describe young gentlemen seen up to no good would have been pounced upon by the MoCo political cartel trolls. I have no way to communicate with anonymous commenters, or to edit words out of their comments, so I had to reject the comment.
Please do not take personally a comment not being approved, as my intentions are to maintain this forum for discussion with as much civility as possible.
Ok.
DeleteI would like to state for the record that the 01:24 post was not written by me, even though I do sometimes have not altogether different feelings of self-reverential grandeur.
ReplyDeleteRobert, that post was mine. You have my permission to change those words to a generic “suspect.” The post involved mention of events on October 19th.
ReplyDeleteNo sir, it was mine... Unless we both had blocks from Robert. The only word I used was "feral" and merely described my discomfort watching some "kids" case out the 2 smoke shops near where I was waiting for my Fortune Cooky take-out. I also mentioned the stabbing death by the "kids" from the facility on Greentree Road. I mentioned "baby daddy" "baby momma" "guardian" etc but nothing offensive for the lurker trolls... I don't know what your comment consisted of.
DeleteRobert, not knowing what you're specifically talking about in that instance, I can say that you've occasionally not posted things I've submitted (maybe too I've experienced occasional 'hiccups' when 'publishing.') I think, with my unpublished ones you've probably shown fair discretion: far be it for me to 'second guess' your decisions considering how many must be constantly lurking to torpedo you and objective blogs such as this one.
ReplyDeleteThanks for hosting and editing us! You are doing our environs a big favor!
"Police describe the suspect as a male of unknown race,"
ReplyDeleteIf they determined his sex, surely they can identify his race as human. . .
What?!?
Delete2:57, I'm beginning to doubt the humanity portion.
DeleteNot at all,2:57. Can you tell whether the pictured subject is Hispanic, Black, or possibly Asian? He appears to be not white, safe enough to say based on the framegrab, but beyond that, one can’t be certain, whatever one’s individual suspicions might be.
ReplyDeleteIf you are looking at a CCTV video you can pretty easily distinguish between the stride and style of movement that typically characterizes a man from that which would suggest a woman. However; not all surveillance camera footage is top quality, especially when it’s from a small business like this, where not infrequently, cheaper, poorer quality video equipment is installed to save money. Being able to both see in the dark and have the high resolution needed to draw out finer details is a hallmark of more expensive equipment, although, as with most things, the cost comes down as the tech is more widely adopted. However, it isn’t surprising if a CCTV cam is not one of those better unites. Finer details of a person’s ethnicity can easily be lost in the blurriness of a poorer quality camera, and it won’t help the cops if they guess a guy is black and it turns out the suspect was actually not. All that would do is hand the defense attorney a huge gift.
And of course there's 4 seasons of wearing hoodies, and masking still not infrequent.
ReplyDelete