Crime Watch in Silver Spring

Shortly after 10 p.m., Merryman slipped his cruiser slowly through the parking lot of apartments near Dexter and Georgia avenues, just north of the Beltway, which have been targeted by thieves. He didn't catch anyone, admitting that doing so at that time at night is difficult because there are a number of innocent people walking about. Merryman and other officers call car break-ins a largely preventable crime, if people would take valuables such as MP3 players and GPS devices with them, keep their car interiors empty and lock their doors.

As for robberies, weekly crime reports reveal the violence that underlies some of the robberies: Several suspects on Castle Boulevard on March 7 forced a victim into a vehicle, drove him around, beat him and dropped him off; March 21, three suspects, one armed with a baseball bat, beat a victim and took his belongings; at 6:55 a.m. March 30, two assailants in downtown Silver Spring, one carrying a gun, robbed two women of their purses.

Merryman had responded to a robbery the night before, near Springvale Road and Pershing Drive north of Silver Spring. A man walking to a restaurant, listening to an MP3 player, was surrounded by a group of about eight young people, who pushed him to the pavement and stole the music player and his wallet.

Now, taking a break from patrolling the roads, Merryman returned a call from the man's wife.

"Neither of you walked alone in the dark again tonight, did you?" Merryman asked.

They hadn't, she told him, and in fact she had gone door-to-door in the area of the robbery, letting people know what had happened.

Later, around 11 p.m., seeing a man walk down Georgia Avenue, seemingly oblivious to the world around him, Merryman observed: "We call that a robbery waiting to happen."

Burnett, the assistant commander, advised people walking at night to do so in pairs, and on the lighted side of the street. "I don't want to say walk with your head on a swivel," he said. "But walk like you have some meaning in your step."