Crime Report: Indecent Exposures
Police are looking for a man who was allegedly masturbating while following a woman with his car.
The incident happened last Friday night in the Douglas Park neighborhood. From this week’s Arlington County crime report:
INDECENT EXPOSURE, 03/15/13, 1300 block of S. Monroe Street. At 7:30 pm on March 15, a victim observed an unknown subject masturbating while seated inside a vehicle with the door open. As the victim walked away, she noticed the subject following her in his car. The subject then parked and proceeded to exit the car and follow the victim by foot. The victim then ran into a Post Office to escape the subject, and the subject fled the scene. The subject is described as a 40-year-old black male, approximately 5’8” tall and 200 lbs. He had dark skin, short black hair, no facial hair and a muscular build. At the time of the incident, he was wearing a beige long sleeved shirt and dark pants.
Last Thursday, police say a man was arrested for exposing himself to a woman at Arlington Central Library.
INDECENT EXPOSURE, 03/14/13, 1000 block of N. Quincy Street. At 5:30 pm on March 14, a subject exposed himself to a female victim inside the Central Library. The suspect was located a couple hours later in the area. Patrick Robert Rooney, 67, of no fixed address, was arrested and charged with indecent exposure. He was held with no bond.
The rest of this week’s crime report, after the jump.
Board to Vote on Douglas Park Traffic Circle Plan
The Arlington County Board is set to vote this weekend on a plan to add three landscaped traffic circles to 16th Street S. in the Douglas Park neighborhood.
The $132,000 project — which also calls for the addition of curb extensions, textured pavement crosswalks and painted parking edge lines — is being recommended by the county’s Neighborhood Traffic Calming Committee, as a way to slow down traffic on 16th Street.
The street has “documented speeding problems,” county officials said in a staff report. According to county data, the average speed on 16th Street between S. Monroe Street and S. Quincy Street is 24 miles per hour, with 48 percent of traffic traveling faster than the posted 25 mile per hour speed limit and 15 percent of traffic traveling at 31 miles per hour or higher.
Speed humps were not considered for the traffic calming project, because the “85th percentile” speed required by law for speed hump projects is 32 miles per hour.
This summer, residents of homes along 16th Street were polled on the plan — to add “mini-traffic circles” to the intersections with S. Nelson, Oakland and Pollard Streets. Of those surveyed, 66 percent supported the plan, just above the 60 percent threshold for the project to proceed.
County Board Chairman Chris Zimmerman was likely among those who were polled. Zimmerman’s house is one block away from one of the proposed traffic circles.
(Residents will be asked to maintain the landscaping of the traffic circles.)
One 16th Street resident who opposes the project says she’s worried about the ability of emergency vehicles to navigate the traffic circles.
“My concern is that it’s an emergency response route,” the resident told ARLnow.com, adding that the county should “stop punishing 95 percent of the population for 5 percent — the speeders.”
The stretch of 16th Street in question is located south of Columbia Pike and just west of Glebe Road. The board is expected to vote on the traffic calming plan at its Saturday meeting.
Also on the board’s Saturday agenda is a traffic calming plan for 26th Street between N. Sycamore Street and N. Quantico Street in the East Falls Church neighborhood. The $92,000 project — for a stretch of road that has 71 percent of vehicles traveling above the speed limit — will include curb extensions (numbs) and one “speed cushion.”
BREAKING NEWS — Barricade Situation in Douglas Park Ends Peacefully
Update at 2:35 a.m. — Command has been transferred from the Arlington to Alexandria Police Department for the night (the two departments have a mutual assistance agreement). Police say the man has stopped communicating with them.
Update at 8:55 a.m. — The standoff has entered its 14th hour.
Update at 11:50 a.m. — The standoff has ended peacefully. Police fired tear gas cannisters into the house around 10:00. The suspect turned himself in at 11:20. He will be charged with assault and brandishing a firearm, police said. Other charges may follow.
Update at 6:30 p.m. — Police have identified the suspect as 58-year-old Thomas Amshey (read more).
Arlington police have surrounded the Douglas Park house of a man believed to be intoxicated and heavily armed. The man barricaded himself inside his house at South Nelson and 14th Streets after threatening a neighbor with a rifle during a dispute, police said.
Dozens of Arlington police officers including the department SWAT team are on the scene, along with a mobile command center and an armored vehicle.
Police are in contact with the man and trying to negotiate a peaceful resolution to the standoff. Several streets in the area have been blocked off due to the police response.
