Montgomery County police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda this past Saturday night, June 20, 2026. The assault was reported at the mall at 8:21 PM Saturday. This was the fifth assault recorded at the popular retail center so far this year. Last year saw a total of 12 assaults reported at the property. County police officers were visibly on patrol inside the mall this past weekend.
29 comments:
Why are you trying to scare old people? Montgomery Mall gets roughly 10-12 million visitors a year (https://getoccupi.com/malls/montgomery-mall) and you are highlighting every argument that police is called in. It's not condoning it, but on a percentage basis, 5, 12, or even dozens of police events (such as assaults or shoplifting) would be expected when this many people gather in closed spaces, and then you factor in that people are around items of value. Clutching pearls and pretending that there is an out-of-control crime wave is disingenuous at best and click/fear/race-baiting (just read your comments) at worst.
Only 12 last year? It seemed like 120. How many assaults or police related response was there at the mall in years past? Now that would be interesting to know.
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY of ROBERT DYER @ BETHESDA ROW!!! 20 years of posting !
5:30am By your logic, crime should never be reported because it may make someone uncomfortable.
When you can caught in the crossfire come back and report it.
Is it possible that he/she is a spokesperson for the Mall Management?
I'm uncomfortable with you hiding under your bed when through mid-year there are 5 assaults in an incredibly popular mall- again, 10-12 million (!!) visitors/year. This is so far below the norm statistically, it's almost absurd...yet, this website reports it as though Bethesda is facing some crime wave. Stop falling for this garbage.
9:40 - Stop reading it then.
NIH has a dense fenced in population. We don't hear of assaults here. The only time I saw NIH Police with a guy in cuffs looked like a homeless guy that breeched the gate.
Don't expect any improvement from the round robin club of rookies in charge.
Yes, we’re in a safe area. Sometimes, it seems commenters aren’t aware what other parts of the state and nation are like.
247: haven’t heard of any gunfire. At the mall.
5:40 - We are. But how many assaults took place or police calls made at the mall from the 70's thru the 90's let's say? And should we be ok with any amount of this behavior? I'm not.
5:13 What a weak analogy to an entire community. Should Bethesda be walled/fenced off from the rest of the area, resembling a German ghetto? NIH and NNMC are government compounds which need to be secured, unlike a community.
20 year old whine and it comes off like bad vinegar.
Along those lines the MCPD reports state
"The incidents span multiple police districts and do not represent every call for service received that day."
It was likely FAR more dangerous back then, as crime was significantly higher overall in the 70s through 90s. Tracking specific 1980s and 1990s assault counts at Montgomery Mall would require digging through physical county police annual reports or microfilmed newspaper archives, as address-level digital databases didn't exist then. Also, records prior to 1998 are still physical.
Today, all incidents are instantly trackable and mappable using the dataMontgomery Open Data Portal. However, directly comparing the two eras is an "apples-to-oranges" challenge due to a shift to a more rigorous crime-logging standard (NIBRS) today (basically all crime is accounted for now, where only the most egregious crime was logged per location back then), also the definitions of assault have changed massively over the past 2 decades, and the finally the enormous changes in Montgomery Mall's annual foot traffic make this impossible to nail down.
Crime is down significantly in Montgomery County since the 1970-90s (though this website has an interest in selling another narrative). It's impossible to eradicate it completely, humanity and all that, but 5 incidents in such a popular venue are the very definition of statistical noise.
9:26: I was responding the point that you can expect crime in an enclosed space. NIH is an enclosed space. True it is fenced and you need an ID. Which is the point since it pretty much excludes the wildings that plague malls.
3:44: I would disagree that crime was higher in the past. First of all, I've been regularly going to Montgomery Mall since the 1970s, and don't recall this sort of thing happening then. Secondly, I've been reviewing crime statistics on a daily basis since 2011, and I don't recall seeing assaults in these numbers until after 2020 at the mall. I would hasten to add that I do not feel unsafe going to Montgomery Mall today, but that public awareness is one factor in staying safe. As I say, you can gaslight me about Baltimore. I don't live there. But you can't gaslight a lifelong resident of Bethesda about crime in Montgomery County.
And besides, this chronic comparison to dubiously worse numbers and how 'thankful' we should be is pathetic. We should all expect better, and do what's right to improve, not rationalize and blithely accept imported crime.
@8:17: The reason you see a noticeable shift in numbers post-2020 comes down to how police departments changed their data reporting. On January 1, 2021, the FBI mandated a nationwide switch to NIBRS (National Incident-Based Reporting System). Before 2021, the old system used a 'hierarchy rule,' meaning if someone shoplifted and pushed a guard, only the theft was counted. Today, every single offense is logged separately. Furthermore, the modern definition includes simple assaults (minor shoves) and verbal intimidation under the same broad heading. We are seeing highly transparent, granular data mapping that didn't exist in the 70s, 80s, or 90s, making direct comparisons impossible. That's not gaslighting...that's fact.
I'm not "hiding under my bed". I regularly visit the mall. It's called situational awareness.
Let's put it this way - the police opened a special Mall outpost. They've never done that before. I don't recall the police making a show of force with patrols in the mall.
Situational awareness always. I'm going to the mall tonight for the new Spielberg movie. I always park on that level and am sweeping with my eyes because it's dark up there in that lot. All that said, I bet these incidents didn't happen decades ago at least not with the current frequency they're occurring today.
@8:17- One more thing, you mention "regularly going to Montgomery Mall since the 1970s, and don't recall this sort of thing"- it literally takes a 10-second Google search to highlight several records and news reports regarding crimes at Montgomery Mall during the 1980s and 1990s that include:
1984 Abduction & Sexual Assault Case: A high-profile case occurred in 1984 when a woman walking home from her job at Montgomery Mall at night was abducted, beaten, and sexually assaulted near Democracy Boulevard. The case remained a mystery for decades until cold-case detectives solved it using modern DNA evidence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2010/11/23/decades-old-dna-leads-to-arrests-in-rapes/10817296-f6a6-11df-a418-19c210d82b3f/
1988–1991 Legal & Liability Records: Federal court records from the era (Doe v. Montgomery Mall Ltd. Partnership) preserve a historical police log of crimes committed on mall property between 1988 and October 1991. These archival logs document numerous occurrences of fourth-degree sexual offenses and simple assaults on the premises.
https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/962/58/2311164/
1997 Parking Lot Carjacking and Rape: In February 1997, a 35-year-old woman was carjacked, kidnapped, and raped by a man who ambushed her as she was loading shopping bags into her vehicle in the mall parking lot. The suspect was convicted later that year.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/1997/07/26/man-convicted-in-attack-that-began-outside-mall/e3acd2ec-8fa3-43a2-9513-021c3192ba96/
Pretending that crime at Montgomery Mall is some new phenomenon is not being upfront with your audience.
Really, go read 1:38
The po po in Bethesda are unnecessary, crime is no worse than it ever was, there is no need for a presence in the mall just as there is no need for police presence near Apple/Nike/Lululemon. We are statistically the same, or less than SS, PGC, and even DC. Not to worry, the PL will be even safer!
Wow, do you really believe crime today is at the same level and degree it 'always' was? What are you smoking?
Montgomery Mall is a Hot Topic!
Not to worry, the new XO will see to that.
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