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Sunday, September 18, 2022
Assault at Bethesda gas station
Montgomery County police responded to a report of a 2nd-degree assault at a gas station in Bethesda Friday evening, September 16, 2022. The assault was reported at a gas station in the 10300 block of Old Georgetown Road at 6:03 PM.
12 comments:
Anonymous
said...
That's why I conceal carry a firearm and pepper spray, and just blend in. You don't want to try this on me.
@6:01am I don't think building a bunch of high-rise apartments that start at $2k/month is attracting criminals to move here -- they can't quite afford it. I do agree crime is going up, and something needs to be done.
@6:01 AM: No, this is what MoCo gets when the MoCo Council is unwilling to adequately fund and staff its police department, and then allow them to do their jobs effectively. In the absence of effective policing, it'll fall to people like 11:23 AM to protect themselves with carried firearms.
Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, replied, "Because that's where the money is."
In response to your facile observation, @9:53, it is not being suggested that fellow residents of the "luxury" apartments and condos sprouting like kudzu around Bethesda are suspected in [the majority] of crimes against people and property taking place in the area. Rather, (and I'm willing to bet a Coke you know this full well,) it is criminals traveling to Bethesda, "where the money is." More people who can afford it are living here, (as property developers try to pack in ever more to the community.) More of the residents wander the streets in these --now waning-- warm weather days and nights, and probably they are strolling about with a decent wad of cash, a nice watch, or some other easily-obtained-at-knife-or-gunpoint valuables. Similarly for vehicles left unsecured in driveways or on the street. It's too enticing a prospect to pass up when several zip codes around here prove such fertile soil for harvesting treasure.
All that said, I agree entirely we should have more cops on the street. MCPD's FY22 allocation is 1.2:1,000 sworn officers to residents --a ratio unchanged in the last 20 years. And that's what I mean about trying to turn Bethesda into a mini-Manhattan. It's all well and good to play at being a big-boy city by building lots of sun-blotting high-density developments, and to salivate at the prospect of Thrive Montgomery getting rammed through, but along with all that comes the big-boy responsibility to recognize this jurisdiction's development and urbanization require additional infrastructure not only for electricity water, and schools, but for law enforcement, as well.
@1:14 PM Very well said. These criminals are cruising Downtown Bethesda looking for easy targets. I'm not one of those easy targets. I've taken the necessary steps to protect myself because the MoCo Council hasn't and won't.
"MCPD's FY22 allocation is 1.2:1,000 sworn officers to residents --a ratio unchanged in the last 20 years."
What you just said is that the number of police officers has kept pace with the growth in population during the past two decades - how is that a problem?
@6:09 Because the type of environment has changed. As Bethesda has morphed from what once it was --a commercial area that offered goods and services to Chevy Chase and Kenwood-- into a city in its own right, the types of crimes have changed, too. It was one thing to have that 1.2:1,000 ratio when the environment being policed was more strictly segregated between primarily commercial crimes in Bethesda proper and property crimes in the surrounding single-family home suburbs. Not too long ago, opportunities for crimes against people--strong-arm robberies, assaults, armed robberies-- were fewer in Bethesda-proper. People came here to do their marketing, get their dry cleaning, and to pick up paint at Strosneider's, but the "downtown" commercial area was just that: commercial. There was not a high concentration of residential units in the Triangle or Wisconsin Avenue corridor.
That has changed in the last twenty years. Now, our streets fill daily/nightly with pedestrians "sampling all Bethesda has to offer," (as the cheap dating profiles might put it.) Restaurants abound, as do boutiques. With very few exceptions, no place in Bethesda is what you would call "cheap." A 15-second Google search for cost of living in the area coughs up this, which says, "The average cost of living in Bethesda is $2800, which is in the top 0.6% of the most expensive cities in the world, ranked 55th out of 9294 in our global list, 44th out of 2202 in the United States, and 1st out of 23 in Maryland."
All of which is to say that, unlike 20 years ago, the formerly commercial-only areas of Bethesda now host an abundant community of permanent residents who are sufficiently well-heeled to invite criminals to the area to prey upon the abundance of these walking ATMs. The type of policing that was sufficient to respond to crimes against property 20 years ago is inadequate to address crimes against people today. It's a different type of policing. If an alarm goes off at a business after hours, it may require multiple units if police arrive in time to catch someone inside. Of course, it may more likely be a simple matter of a sector car and its backup checking the perimeter, finding nothing amiss, and clearing the call. If someone is held up at knifepoint, it always requires multiple units, because police know they've got a nutter out there who has demonstrated he doesn't care about jeopardizing the public's safety. Police can't afford to shrug and say, "M'eh, you weren't actually wounded or killed, so we'll just write this one off." It requires significantly more police resources to set up perimeters, (like a half dozen units,) which draws officers from other duties, which in turn leaves those unpatrolled areas ripe for other crimes to be carried out with greater impunity.
As Bethesda has evolved from sleepy commercial district to nationally-recognized rich-people-live-here mecca, so too has the type of crime that takes place in the area. What has not evolved during this time is the allocation of police resources to address the transformation in criminal activity.
12 comments:
That's why I conceal carry a firearm and pepper spray, and just blend in. You don't want to try this on me.
I hope it wasn't over the air compressor hose at the Liberty station...
Big city living, big city crime. This is what Montgomery gets for trying to turn Bethesda into mini-Manhattan.
@6:01am I don't think building a bunch of high-rise apartments that start at $2k/month is attracting criminals to move here -- they can't quite afford it. I do agree crime is going up, and something needs to be done.
The ridiculous prices at that gas station are an assault on all of us.
@6:01 AM: No, this is what MoCo gets when the MoCo Council is unwilling to adequately fund and staff its police department, and then allow them to do their jobs effectively. In the absence of effective policing, it'll fall to people like 11:23 AM to protect themselves with carried firearms.
Willie Sutton, when asked why he robbed banks, replied, "Because that's where the money is."
In response to your facile observation, @9:53, it is not being suggested that fellow residents of the "luxury" apartments and condos sprouting like kudzu around Bethesda are suspected in [the majority] of crimes against people and property taking place in the area. Rather, (and I'm willing to bet a Coke you know this full well,) it is criminals traveling to Bethesda, "where the money is." More people who can afford it are living here, (as property developers try to pack in ever more to the community.) More of the residents wander the streets in these --now waning-- warm weather days and nights, and probably they are strolling about with a decent wad of cash, a nice watch, or some other easily-obtained-at-knife-or-gunpoint valuables. Similarly for vehicles left unsecured in driveways or on the street. It's too enticing a prospect to pass up when several zip codes around here prove such fertile soil for harvesting treasure.
All that said, I agree entirely we should have more cops on the street. MCPD's FY22 allocation is 1.2:1,000 sworn officers to residents --a ratio unchanged in the last 20 years. And that's what I mean about trying to turn Bethesda into a mini-Manhattan. It's all well and good to play at being a big-boy city by building lots of sun-blotting high-density developments, and to salivate at the prospect of Thrive Montgomery getting rammed through, but along with all that comes the big-boy responsibility to recognize this jurisdiction's development and urbanization require additional infrastructure not only for electricity water, and schools, but for law enforcement, as well.
@1:14 PM Very well said. These criminals are cruising Downtown Bethesda looking for easy targets. I'm not one of those easy targets. I've taken the necessary steps to protect myself because the MoCo Council hasn't and won't.
@ 1:14 PM:
"MCPD's FY22 allocation is 1.2:1,000 sworn officers to residents --a ratio unchanged in the last 20 years."
What you just said is that the number of police officers has kept pace with the growth in population during the past two decades - how is that a problem?
Everyone's talking about inflation these days. We've had crime inflation without sufficient police funding and staffing to keep pace with it.
@6:09 Because the type of environment has changed. As Bethesda has morphed from what once it was --a commercial area that offered goods and services to Chevy Chase and Kenwood-- into a city in its own right, the types of crimes have changed, too. It was one thing to have that 1.2:1,000 ratio when the environment being policed was more strictly segregated between primarily commercial crimes in Bethesda proper and property crimes in the surrounding single-family home suburbs. Not too long ago, opportunities for crimes against people--strong-arm robberies, assaults, armed robberies-- were fewer in Bethesda-proper. People came here to do their marketing, get their dry cleaning, and to pick up paint at Strosneider's, but the "downtown" commercial area was just that: commercial. There was not a high concentration of residential units in the Triangle or Wisconsin Avenue corridor.
That has changed in the last twenty years. Now, our streets fill daily/nightly with pedestrians "sampling all Bethesda has to offer," (as the cheap dating profiles might put it.) Restaurants abound, as do boutiques. With very few exceptions, no place in Bethesda is what you would call "cheap." A 15-second Google search for cost of living in the area coughs up this, which says, "The average cost of living in Bethesda is $2800, which is in the top 0.6% of the most expensive cities in the world, ranked 55th out of 9294 in our global list, 44th out of 2202 in the United States, and 1st out of 23 in Maryland."
https://livingcost.org/cost/united-states/md/bethesda
All of which is to say that, unlike 20 years ago, the formerly commercial-only areas of Bethesda now host an abundant community of permanent residents who are sufficiently well-heeled to invite criminals to the area to prey upon the abundance of these walking ATMs. The type of policing that was sufficient to respond to crimes against property 20 years ago is inadequate to address crimes against people today. It's a different type of policing. If an alarm goes off at a business after hours, it may require multiple units if police arrive in time to catch someone inside. Of course, it may more likely be a simple matter of a sector car and its backup checking the perimeter, finding nothing amiss, and clearing the call. If someone is held up at knifepoint, it always requires multiple units, because police know they've got a nutter out there who has demonstrated he doesn't care about jeopardizing the public's safety. Police can't afford to shrug and say, "M'eh, you weren't actually wounded or killed, so we'll just write this one off." It requires significantly more police resources to set up perimeters, (like a half dozen units,) which draws officers from other duties, which in turn leaves those unpatrolled areas ripe for other crimes to be carried out with greater impunity.
As Bethesda has evolved from sleepy commercial district to nationally-recognized rich-people-live-here mecca, so too has the type of crime that takes place in the area. What has not evolved during this time is the allocation of police resources to address the transformation in criminal activity.
@11:33AM Great response summation.
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