Captain Paul Larson, Commander of the 3rd Police District, provides this monthly report via email. You can request that your address be added to the list by emailing him at plarso@arlingtonva.us, or read it on the Barcroft Chat List.

Subject: April Crime report

Everyone:

I am forwarding you the crime statistics for the month of April. While the downward trend continues, we have had several incidents of violent crime. We had three homicides in April and a series of armed robberies that were linked to one of the homicides. Two of the homicides occurred in the general area of Columbia Pike and S. Dinwiddie St. The first was a robbery that resulted in a homicide and the second a gang fight that resulted in homicide. There is no spin I can put on these crimes and all I can tell you is arrests were made in both cases, however the shooter in the gang homicide is still outstanding.

The homicide that occurred in the 5100 block of Columbia Pike, was done by 2 young men who were tied into the series of armed robberies that were committed by a total of 5 people. All of the suspects have been arrested and are currently in our jail awaiting trial. Our Homicide Unit did an outstanding job of identifying and arresting all of the people involved.

The gang related homicide that took place a few days later next to the Arlington Mill Center is very troubling. I have been to numerous civic association meetings touting that gang violence was on the decline and had primarily moved to our western suburbs. While I still believe this is the case, I can see why people have questioned those comments. We will have spikes of gang related violent crime from time-to-time, but I sternly believe this will not be a trend over time. In this particular case, the two groups had been following each other around and happened to stop on the Dinwiddie St. side of the Arlington Mill Center. There is no doubt a confrontation was going occur, it so happened there. One of the reasons the individuals were arrested so quickly is the vast intelligence network we have on regional basis. Everything came together very quickly and it is just a matter of time until the last person is arrested.

We had devoted a great deal of resources to this area, because of the series of robberies that had been ongoing. The resources included the Tactical Plain Clothes unit, Third District team and uniformed officers from all the shifts. Unfortunately, we were unable to deter any of these events. As a result of these events, we will continue to monitor the area and pursue the last suspect.

As far as other crime trends, you will notice three sexual assaults on the map. While these are very serious crimes they are not a concern for the community. Each is a family specific incident and not a stranger type case. Over the first two weeks in May, there has been a series of cars being stolen in the Fairlington area. Most of the cars have been Chrysler products, to include Jeeps. We have dispatched our bait cars to the area and hope the criminals will pick the wrong car.

The series of vandalisms in Penrose has dropped off along with cars being broken into. We hope the trends continues on the downward turn. If anything comes up, I will alert you with the appropriate information as it becomes available. If anyone has any questions, please contact me.

Captain Paul Larson
Third District Commander
Arlington County Police Department
1425 North Courthouse Road
Arlington, Virginia 22201
703-228-4097
plarso@arlingtonva.us

Map for April (.pdf format)

For a longer perspective, here are previous crime reports. The numbers were usually worse!

This page was revised on: May 26, 2006.