Thursday, August 01, 2013

MPD Makes Major Burglary Arrest in Trinidad

Typical Trinidad

Our area has seen a significant number of home burglaries recently, and many of them appear to be the work of a small number of individuals. Thanks to alert neighbors, one man was arrested recently in the 1400 block of Morse (he was arrested while committing a burglary). MPD has now made an additional arrest, and they are saying it is a big one.

One thing they note in the press release is that they believe this person invaded other homes, or attempted to do so. But they think that these burglaries, attempted burglaries, or break-ins in which nothing was taken, may not have been reported.  If you were a victim of such an event, please get in touch with MPD. If you know of a neighbor who may have been a victim, please urge that person to reach out to MPD. Only by reporting all of these crimes (all of which would certainly be reported in upper NW) can we get the police attention that we deserve.

MPD's press release appears below:

TRINIDAD COMMUNITY ALERT: A Significant Arrest has been made in a number of Burglary Cases within our Trinidad Community

The Fifth Police District has made a significant arrest of an individual involved in a series of Home Break ins that occurred in and around our Trinidad community.

This suspect turned himself in to 5D Detectives late last evening on an outstanding First Degree Burglary Arrest Warrant from the 1100 block of Morse Street Northeast, Washington, DC, which occurred on Monday, June 17, 2013.

Based upon evidence recovered in this case, we firmly believe he’s responsible for terrorizing our Summer Crime Initiative Area in PSA 506/Trinidad.  We are compiling additional information concerning homes that were broken into in the Trinidad community that will be closed out with this arrest.  This case will be presented to the United States Attorney's Office this morning for prosecution.

We believe that there are a number of homes that may have also been victimized that did not come forward or in some cases, entry was made into your homes but nothing was taken, thus no report was made to MPD.

Should you be the victim of such acts concerning your home or place of business, or if you are aware of a friend or neighbor that may been victimized, we ask that you contact Fifth Police District Detective Anthony Commodore immediately.  Detective Commodore can be reached on 202-698-0660 (Office), 202-698-0130 (Desk) or at Anthony.Commodore@dc.gov

We now have in custody a major Burglar who has prayed on the Trinidad area putting our homeowners in fear.  Based upon the aggressive police work performed by members of the SCI Trinidad Team in concert with Fifth Police District Detective Anthony Commodore and Fifth District Detectives, we can celebrate a success.  Their hard work and relentless follow up on information and intelligence is paying great dividends.  Great work by all!  

11 comments:

pat said...

Good news, everybody.

MPD arrests another burglar.

Now hopefully he is fairly tried and if guilty, convicted and locked up for a while.

2-5 years would be good.

Anonymous said...

/over it/

I hate to say it, but given the revolving door justice in DC, the perps (if adults) will be back on the street in 6 months. If they are fine upstanding neighborhood youths, probably 6 days.

Until DC juries/the US Atty/citizens force a linkage between crime and punishment, all you are doing is giving free cop car rides and a few free meals with their hommies.

Cary said...

Anonymous, you are out of your mind. I work in D.C. courts, I've seen an attempted (and failed) purse snatching end up with a 15 year sentence. I've seen unarmed possession of drugs (dealing a few baggies of crack) end up with 25 years. And we don't need to do this anecdotally, D.C. has an astounding percentage of its population locked up for periods of time that would be unheard of in most countries. Whatever our many problems are, "not enough prison time" is not one of them. But the people spinning narratives about "revolving door" justice are the ones who scare the public into putting more and more people in jail for longer and longer. You're just propagating an already ridiculous police state.

As for the arrest, sounds good to me, if they got the right guy.

Tom A. said...

So, Burglars are now praying on us?
I guess that's nice of them.:-)

We don't even capitalize the word president, so why do we capitalize Burglar? :-)

Anonymous said...

@Cary,

You'd be more convincing with some stats to back up your anecdotes. Because the cases I've followed demonstrate the exact opposite. People who commit "non-violent" property crimes in DC usually get a slap on the wrist. Until that one time someone is actually at home and they stab or shoot them to death.

Anonymous said...

Where can we score pictures of these guys so that we can 1. Report if we saw them do anything suspicious in the past and 2. Keep an eye out for them in the future when they are out of custody.

-W

pat said...

we don't need meaner sentences we need faster sentences.

If a case is good, and there is Probably cause, i'd settle for a fast plea bargain, offer the perp, if they cop a plea now, a short stint, minimum sentence, but they have to plead guilty within a week of their arraignment.

if they want to drag out the trial, then ask for a heavy sentence.

It' s just my theory but a rapid punishment is better then a severe punishment.

Cary said...

@5:31. You call for stats from me, and then without a hint of irony, respond with an "the cases I've followed"? Then, to demonstrate that you don't know what you're talking about, you start in on these "non-violent property crimes," when burglary IS A VIOLENT FELONY under the D.C. Code. (see S 22-1331). I'm not citing stats because I'm not combatting stats. And stats will make no headway for somebody as uninformed as you. If I tell you that 5% of the D.C. population is in jail or in some form of supervised release (and about 2% nationwide), you'd say they deserve it and it should be more. If I told you the sentences here are, crime for crime, about 5x higher than in most other industrialized country, you'd say those other countries don't have the same demographic problems, or that they're even more excessively lenient.

In other words, I can't combat false platitudes ("revolving door justice") with stats because you're not claiming anything that can be debunked. The only thing approaching a fact that you mention is that non-violent property crimes are often met with leniency (true, depending on priors, and rightfully so); but you do it in a context that reveals your ignorance, because burglary is, by law a violent crime. You're just trying to paint a picture for everyone and you're doing it based on (a) nothing, (b) platitudes you've heard spew out of others' mouths, or (c) some non-representative experience you've had that makes you feel like an authority. If having 5% of the D.C. population in jail or parole is lenient to you, then there's a canyon between our perspectives that can't be bridged by statistics.

Anonymous said...

These people are in prison because they broke the law. Why is it the criminal has suddenly become the victim. when they choose to break the law. Yeah life is not fair some people get away with crime and some recv a harsh sentence. Dont break the law if you dont like it.

Chris said...

Cary: I'm not the anonymous poster earlier, and I have no stats regarding this discussion (I'm not even sure where I'd go to *get* such stats). However, as someone who has helped to organize and participated in my immediate area's Orange Hat walks, I've had numerous opportunities to speak at length with the police from my PSA. Perhaps the single most common complaint I hear from them pertains to the reluctance of the USAO to paper some arrests and judges' reluctance to assign strong penalties after convictions -- with the result that the police arrest specific offenders for similar offenses over and over and over. And my understanding is that street robberies, which I think we'd all agree are violent crimes even when no weapon is used, were included in that expression of frustration; so they weren't simply talking about non-violent offenses.

One of the officers that brought this up, who has since left the MPD, indicated that he was leaving to be a police officer in a different jurisdiction because it was too discouraging to be an officer in DC: he was tired of arresting the same people for the same types of crimes all the time.

Obviously that's purely anecdotal; so I don't expect it to be persuasive. But the fact that all the cops I've talked to seem to have this opinion does carry some weight with me.

happy camper said...

Chris,

Of course police are arresting the same people, only a handful of people in this town are committing the lion's share of the crimes: the career criminals. That officer might want to lobby the Council for more effective alternative sentencing options, like better funded drug rehab programs (most money to those proven most effective). Jail is clearly not a deterrent for some people. Time for new tactics.