County Police Crack Down on Burglaries

Alert Neighbors and Officers Working With Detectives Are Credited in Quick Arrests

Nine people have been arrested in Prince George's County since mid-November, in connection with at least 60 burglaries over roughly 10 miles, and police said more arrests are expected as part of a sweeping initiative aimed at reducing property crimes across the county.

Deputy Police Chief Roberto Hylton attributed the rapid succession of property-crime arrests to his department's recent efforts to encourage residents to alert police to suspicious behavior and enhanced cooperation between patrol officers and detectives under a new initiative.

"Tactically and strategically, patrol officers are making substantive arrests," Hylton said. "These people are not just responsible for one or two burglaries but a whole series of break-ins."

Police received their first solid tip about the series of home invasions in mid-November after a resident reported seeing two men acting suspiciously near his townhouse complex in Landover. The resident, whose name police withheld because the investigation is ongoing, was working at home Nov. 13 when he saw two men knock on a neighbor's front door and then walk to the back of the townhouse, said Detective Allyson Hamlin, one of three Prince George's investigators who worked on the case.

The resident, who had recently attended a police-sponsored neighborhood watch seminar after a spate of home invasions in the area, called 911. He then grabbed a digital camera and began taking pictures of the burglars at work, Hamlin said.

Patrol officers arrived within minutes and saw two people emerge from the townhouse with a flat-screen television, shoes and jewelry, Hamlin said. The officers arrested Brian L. Tucker, 27, Daniel H. Taylor, 20, and a 16-year-old boy, all of Landover, officials said. Officers identified the suspects immediately from the pictures the resident took, Hamlin said.

"If he hadn't have done that, we might not have got those guys. That was huge for us," she said. "These crimes are hard enough to solve to start. That kind of information is what makes it possible to put these guys away."

Hamlin said she and other detectives spent the next 33 hours grilling the suspects and sifting through information about a string of similar break-ins from September to November in the Landover area and elsewhere in the county. Investigators found that the burglars usually employed the same method, targeting in various complexes end-unit townhouses with back doors that lead to wooded areas, Hamlin said.

In many cases, the burglars knocked on the front door of a target house first. If no one answered, they proceeded to the back, where they frequently used a screwdriver to pry open the door, Hamlin said. They typically took small items, such as jewelry, money and clothes, that were easy to carry. They also stole flat-screen televisions and other electronics, hiding them in woods behind the houses and returning hours later to retrieve them under cover of night, Hamlin said.

Most of the houses targeted were unoccupied during the break-ins, but homeowners reported encountering the burglars on at least two occasions. "It was just terrifying for some of the homeowners," Hamlin said. "One woman was in the shower when they entered the house; another had been sleeping."

Hamlin said the three suspects in the Nov. 13 burglary were behind at least 40 break-ins that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars in property from houses in Landover, Clinton and Oxon Hill. Investigators in Anne Arundel County are exploring whether the three suspects are linked to a string of burglaries there, Hamlin said.

A day after the arrests in Landover, police arrested five men and a teenage boy in a separate series of burglaries in the Fort Washington area, said Sgt. John Buffington, who is in charge of the area's investigative unit. Officials said the six broke into nine upscale houses and are thought to be linked to 11 other home invasions in which flat-screen televisions, computers, stereos and other electronics were stolen and then loaded into a rented U-Haul truck. Witnesses also reported seeing a black Lexus in the vicinity of the break-in.

Police charged Kennez R. Motley of Accokeek, 20; Clarence D. Abbott, Andre D. Kates and Antonio L. Sanders, all 19; and two unidentified teenagers in the Nov. 14 burglaries.

They were caught within hours of a break-in after a patrol officer saw a black Lexus in the Accokeek area with the same tags as those noted by witnesses. "It just so happened that we had an alert neighbor," Buffington said. "If that neighbor hadn't called, we might never have caught them."

All the arrests occurred a little less than a month after county police Chief Melvin C. High and County Executive Jack B. Johnson (D) announced plans to increase police patrols and deploy more investigators in an effort to reduce burglaries and commercial thefts by 50 percent.

Property crimes in the county were down slightly, by about 1.5 percent, in the first nine months of 2007, according to police data.

Break-ins continue to be a persistent problem in Prince George's. More than 9,200 property crimes were reported there in the first three quarters of last year, down from slightly more than 9,750 for the same period in 2006.

High said police will increase patrols in commercial areas and near apartment complexes to tackle the problem. Meanwhile, community outreach officers are working closely with residents to build more neighborhood watch programs, High said.