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One More Citizen Armed Robbery – Could it be Stopped?

Last Saturday, at approximately 10:30 p.m., the NCP had its latest citizen armed robbery in the area of Rhode Island Avenue and Paducah Road.  According to the Police, the victim advised that he was walking home when the suspects approached him from behind.  The victim was then struck in the face with an unknown object.  The suspects then took property from the victim and fled on the area on foot towards Baltimore Avenue, making good on their escape. The suspects are described as (3) black males, 16-18 years of age, wearing a mask with dark clothing and hoodies.

Armed robberies and other violent crimes have been on the rise in the city, though number of crimes in general has gone down.

Soon after I received the news through my Nixle email alert system, I shared with a few neighbors. One neighbor got back to me with this comment:

Unfortunately the only way this sort of thing can be prevented is have the old fashion cops walking a beat. Ditto for problems in College Park and on Campus.   The police are ineffectual riding around in patrol cars. Looks like the citizens of northern college park are just not safe in their communities anymore.

This neighbor  may have  a point. But the million dollar question is how many additional police officers can we afford to put on our neighborhood streets – walking? We already have a number of county polices patrolling our streets, in addition to 3 full time and 3 part time police officers that the City hires, yet there have been concerns on the number of Police cars on our city streets. To have polices walking on our city streets would have required them to  increase the current figures even further. With the City’s and County’s budget ever shrinking, recruitment of such additional police forces are unlikely to take place – in near term.