UPDATED: Bank Robbery Reported on Lee Highway

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by ARLnow.com August 9, 2011 at 2:24 pm 9,478 120 Comments

(Updated at 5:00 p.m.) Police are investigating a robbery at the United Bank at 5335 Lee Highway.

The bank was robbed just before 2:15 this afternoon. The suspect is being described as a 5’9″ white male, possibly of “Hispanic or Middle Eastern background,” about 50 years of age. The suspect implied, but did not display a weapon.

Armed police officers surrounded the bank for a few tense minutes while they awaited word on whether the suspect was still inside the bank. As it turns out, the suspect fled on foot before police arrived on scene.

The bank is located at the corner of Lee Highway and N. Harrison Street, next to a Harris Teeter supermarket and two blocks from a BB&T bank that has been robbed twice this summer. This is the seventh bank robbery in Arlington since the beginning of June.

Arlington Police issued the following statement about the robbery this afternoon.

ARLINGTON, VA. – The Arlington County Police Department’s Robbery Unit is seeking the public’s help to identify a man who robbed an Arlington bank this afternoon.

The suspect entered the United Bank in the 5300 block of Lee Highway at approximately 2:10 p.m. on Tuesday, August 9, 2011. He implied that he had a weapon and demanded money. After receiving cash, the suspect fled on foot.

The suspect is described as a white male, possibly of Hispanic or Middle Eastern background, brown hair, approximately 50 years old and 5’9” with a thin build. At the time of the robbery he wore a dark striped polo shirt, khaki pants, a light colored “driving” hat and sunglasses.

Anyone who has information about this robbery or the identity of the suspect is asked to call the Arlington County Police Department Tip Line at 703 228-4242, or Detective Donald Fortunato at (703) 228-4197. Det. Fortunato can also be reached by email at [email protected]

Aaron

BAM. The arrow strikes again. Beginning to think more and more of a previous commentators idea of having cops in every bank ..
- LP
  
  Whoa, whoa, whoa Aaron.
  
  You’re the same guy who called me out for saying this. Being a bit hypocritical, aren’t we?
  
  Quote from August 3rd bank robbery.
  “Do you think before you comment LP? How would you like a limited number of resources (officers) to be posted at each branch — there are probably 10 banks in Ballston alone. Think of the rest of county.”
  -Aaron
  - PCity
    
    owned.
    - Lou
      
      Changing your mind is not allowed anymore?
      - YoBimbo
        
        Let no change of heart go unpunished.
      - Lou
        
        Got to keep your anonymous internet forum rep up there.
      - Aaron
        
        Pretty sure there is more than one Aaron in this country. Wasn’t me in the first post. Bam.
      - Aaron
        
        Wasn’t me either.
      - Aaron
        
        Sorry I’m late. It was me.
      - V Dizzle
        
        Yeah, this proves that 2 out of 3 Aaron’s aren’t dicks 🙂
      - Erin
        
        Imposters
  - Greg
    
    Isn’t he saying he is starting to think you might have been right? I’m thinking you probably are the other commenters he mentions.
    - LP
      
      Yes, he is saying I’m right. However, he felt quite the opposite way a week ago and his comment was more negative than anything else.
      - cmon now
        
        relax internet person, everything will be ok
Mike

whew…was having some serious withdrawals yesterday
Rosslynite

Safest city for driving and the place voted most likely to experience a bank robbery on any given day.
Homeowner

Just drove by and can confirm police sharpshooters on site.
- Queenie
  
  4:00 no sharpshooters, but they had blocked off the entrance to the underground parking for Harris Teeter. Perhaps he ran through the parking lot, into the “lower shop” level, and lost himself among the crowds of Tae Kwon Do / Dancing/ Play Gym / Kumon Tutoring parents who congregate there.
  - Dan
    
    Could result a scene reminiscent of the old Sienfeld episode where Kramer is pummeled by his fellow classmates.
ArlSouthie

Crap! Cancels my plans for tomorrow! Guess I’ll go hit some jewelry stores. I can get alot of cash for the gold…
Sandra

Wow! My bank (Suntrust) is not too far from there, on Lee Hwy by the entrance to 66. Hope I’m not there when Grandpa on the Lam tries to knock it over.
Oh. My. God.

And to think I had ALMOST posted to one of the recent articles some dumb comment to the tune of “Aren’t we overdue for our bank robbery”?

Unreal.

Oh, FBI? Hello? Anybody left working the boring crimes?
steve86

Who cares? Any trees get cut down today?
steve87

Anothere borinh articel about jehosphat mopnery being stolen. all you peepl onluy care about money. what about human sheep?
- Dezlboy
  
  Please learn to spell. We folks over 30 have no frigging idea what you are writing.
  - steve85
    
    “We folks over 30”. Wow did you graduate middle school.
    - Dezlboy
      
      And the grammatical issue is what?
      - steve85
        
        You write is if you talk like you’re from Alabama. Do you talk with hay in your mouth.
      - KalashniKEV
        
        “You write IS if…”
        
        Seriously?? Can we stop being stupid on purpose, b/c I’m not sure if you’re for real…
      - steve85
        
        As if what….. finish the statement since you want to come off hard
      - steve85
        
        Don’t talk about your family like that. Its ok everybody isn’t like them
      - Josh S
        
        After much careful consideration of the matter, I think he is for real. If he is punking us, he has WAY too much time on his hands….
    - Dezlboy
      
      Oh, and you forgot to add a question mark after your question.
    - steve99.99999
      
      They don’t talk funny like that over at Greater Greater Washington.
      - steve85
        
        What’s up with all of the 9’s. Is that your weight.
      - PikerShorts
        
        Can the real steve85 get a registered account please? I look forward to your funny posts and want to make sure steve85 wisdom and disdain for apostrophes doesn’t get watered down by impostors.
      - Maria
        
        +1
      - steve85
        
        I laugh at myself sometimes.
      - Josh S
        
        I believe it, steve, ol’ boy. I believe it. I just think perhaps you should occasionally leave the house. The thought of your maniacal laughing while sitting in your basement in a house that all the neighbors assume has been abandoned really gives me the willies…..
- steve85
  
  LMAO. Steve86 and steve87. Steve 87 who types like that? Check out Greater Greater Washington to read people comments that make sense.
  - PikerShorts
    
    What’s a ‘people comment’?
- arl-lady
  
  What’s the point of purposely misspelling words anyway? I’m not always spot on with my grammar, but I just don’t see the point of it.
SaveDaveMcKenna

This is nickel and dime stuff. Let’s see ’em knock over the FDIC.
- Dezlboy
  
  Agreed. Afterall there is no point in knocking over the stock market.
  - Tre
    
    Forget the FDIC… how about Georgetown Cupcake, with their numerous bouncers. CUPCAKE SECURITY!!!!!
    - steve85
      
      Cornball!!
      - Tre
        
        Agreed.. I just haven’t had enough time to come up with new material
robber

OK Motherstickers this is a f— up
O.C.

Sharpshooters on the rooftops = Security Theatre. If a patrol officer is going to catch a robber before the barn door closes, said patrol officer has to actually, you know, patrol. If you’re sitting in a static place like a speed trap or DARPA or a Fire Station or a Corner Bakery, it takes time to get into your cruiser and rush over to the location.

On the other hand, if you’re actually driving your patrol car and doing some patrolling, then by random chance you might encounter the criminal soon after the crime occurs. You also lower the robber’s sense of certainty that he will get away. You can’t accomplish those things that if you’re parked (to save gas), and then have to start your car and drive to the incident.
- KalashniKEV
  
  +1000
  
  ACPD doesn’t understand PROACTIVE community policing… only revenue enforcement. Someone is eventually going to get killed or injured in one of these bank robberies, and their negligent attitude will be to blame.
OX4

Maybe we should send firefighters in to combat bank robbers. The police don’t have a clue.
- KalashniKEV
  
  That would be too much time away from their new pimp pad…
  
  Plus, the game is coming on in a few and Marty just went out for a keg of light beer and some meatball heroes…
ARLrez

I was beginning to think bank robbers had taken the rest of August for vacation. Proven wrong once again.
Sam

“Armed police officers surrounded the bank for a few tense minutes while they awaited word on whether the suspect was still inside the bank. As it turns out, the suspect fled before police arrived on scene.”

I mean seriously guys either I’m telling you ACPD is on these bank robberies or they are just totally incompetant and need a top down review of personnel and procedure…Time to clean house over there..This bank robber (s) is making a mockery of the Arlington Police Force b/c they obv know they can get away with it..time to bring in some people who know what they are doing over there.
NOVApologist

There is no need to berate ACPD for not being on the scene and catching the robber in the act. Unless of course you want to berate police everywhere. The number of times the robber is caught at the scene or while fleeing is incredibly small. Most times they are caught after the fact either spending the loot or because they get picked up for something else.
- Timmy
  
  Thanks NOVApologist for a bit of a reality check…. As for Sam and his ilk… we all know how fun it is to criticize the police, but let’s take a step back and consider… With all the wealth of policing experience amongst us here, how do we propose that the police actually “solve” this series of bank robberies? The simple answer is that it’s not simple. Bank robbery is a horrendously easy crime, thanks to a multitude of factors. All you have to do is go into a bank and literally say to any teller “Give me money” (or some variation thereof)… You do not need to display or threaten a weapon or force of any kind. By policy, tellers will give you money. You run out the door, and they either hit their hold-up alarm and/or call 911. Either way, by the time the information is passed and filtered to the actual officers on patrol, the robber has already had several minutes to make good on their escape (which in an urban area, generally means they are gone – especially if no one reports a description of a getaway car). Presuming it was not a spontaneous robbery with no pre-planning (which they RARELY are), the offender is *usually* long gone before police even know a robbery occurred. Unless an identified witness gets a definitive license plate or some other such hard ID, there is generally no real evidence to go on. Recoverable fingerprints are rarely left behind (and even if they are, are only of pre-suspect use if they match someone already on file in a criminal database), and most robbers do not use the backs of their own deposit slips or customized stationary. Most bank cameras provide poor quality images, which are further compromised by robbers’ disguises. What DOES eventually get most serial bank robbers caught is slipping up, by either being spotted by an alert citizen who catches a tag and gives it to the police, or someone thinks an image looks familiar, and/or other documented behavior begins to add up. It is RARELY a situation where the police roll up on a robber just as they make their getaway. That is Hollywood. In an (sub)urban area like Arlington, anyone can very quickly melt back into the general crowd of people passing thru an area without detection. Lookouts for descriptions of suspects and vehicles, if they are even given, usually turn out to be incorrect upon further analysis, or just generally useless on initial response (“a 40 year old white male wearing a light shirt” at the same time as another caller says “a 60 year old hispanic male in a black shirt”). When you have a robber who is intent on continuing a series until caught, then the robberies will continue until one of the breaks above occur. Unless actionable information is willfully ignored by investigators, there isn’t anything more police or the FBI can do to “catch” a specific bank robber (or any other criminal) until actual information/evidence comes to light to give them a suspect. These aren’t homicides where suspects can be developed sometimes based on motives and relationships, etc. Bank robbers rarely have a connection to their victims that can be established, if ever, until after they are otherwise identified. It’s not magic, just reality. Based on the reports here and elsewhere in the media, there currently appears to be a middle aged or older white or hispanic guy who is intent on hitting banks in north Arlington until he either gets caught, or gets the amount of $ he wants. (FYI, the typical “give me the money” bank robber does not walk out with very much cash at all… thus the reason why you see series of these petty robberies by the same person… They don’t get the million-dollar heists of Hollywood)… Does anyone have any constructive educated advice on how to solve these robberies? I personally can’t think of any magical Columbo or CSI tricks, and I doubt staffing and general reality will permit police officers to be stationed at every bank every day as a deterrant. We call that a “police state.”
  - Evil
    
    Kudos to both of you!
    I’m tired of reading everyone’s comments that it’s the police force who’s at fault for these continued robberies!
    Unless you are one of the said officers and you are personally sitting on your duff and not doing your job, then you have NO idea what the ACPD is or is not doing to solve these continued robberies.
    And based on the amount of comments, we can deduce that these same people, who are criticizing the ACPD for not doing their jobs, are hypocrites – instead of doing their job, whatver that may be, their spending their time on this blog complaining about the ACPD not doing their job
    - MC 703
      
      Thanks Timmy and Evil
    - Cop
      
      Sitting here in my patrol car playing Angry Birds. There was a bank robbery? Oh, s–t….
    - Arl-Lady
      
      +1
      - arl-lady
        
        ^that was supposed to be +1 for Timmy and Evil, not the angry birds comment.
  - Frmer Fed
    
    Well Timmy, 99% of all bank robberies are solved. It’s the least successful crime out there besides kidnapping. Just sayin’
Tre

Can we get an official nickname for this guy for heaven’s sake??? The guy has earned … well … deserves it.
- John Fontain
  
  Yu Nokatchme.
  
  Well, it’d work better if our robber was Japanese.
  - KalashniKEV
    
    THE GINGERBREAD MAN.
    - steve85
      
      Wow. Is that what you came up with. You’re wack. LMAO
    - Lou
      
      Do you think he’s an android?
- ARLnow.com
  
  The initial description suggests this guy may not be the serial bank robber we’ve reported on before.
  - Lou
    
    Just one of the 3 or 4 random guys who have robbed local banks lately.
JimPB

— How about a clock, ARLNow, that shows the hours and minutes until the next bank robbery?
- Tre
  
  Maybe hours and minutes *since* the last bank robbery…. unless you’re implying that ARLnow is behind the string of perfectly timed, sequenced and reported robberies.
Rosslynite

Does the Washington Post even report on bank robberies anymore? I do not reecall seeing anything about the prior six crimes.
steve85

WUSA9 did a report about the robberies on Friday.
- Lou
  
  Really, I missed that. Did they get anybody from ACPD to talk to them?
  - steve85
    
    ACPD official did speak. I don’t remember what he said. You might can go to the news website to find the video
Sam

Arlnow should put up a counter on the banner with the weather and latest news.
- KalashniKEV
  
  What’s the count? 10, right?
- Southeast Ben
  
  That would be awesome. Or maybe a separate page with multiple counters (FroYo – 15, Burger Places – 11, Stolen Vehicles – 76, etc…)
Sam

@NOVApologist…There is a need to berate ACPD, this is like the 7th robbery in a month and believe they have struck out on all 7 and all suspects still remain at large..When the job is not being done and the mission not being accomplished, action needs to be taken…unfortunately action is NOT being taken, business as usual for ACPD..
- Timmy
  
  Really Sammy? “Berate”? Are you a parent scolding their child? What proposals do you bring to the table, with your wealth of experience? You clearly have an inside scoop, as you seem to know that “action is NOT being taken”…. What job is not being done? What mission is not being accomplished? Exactly what is it you think the police are not doing that they should be? Do you suggest the FBI be replaced in this investigation by the RCMP? If you are going to suggest that they are willfully not investigating the robberies, well, we’ll just stop the discussion because there’s no way to argue with that position. Perhaps, rather, you are frustrated(?) that police & the FBI haven’t yet been able to identify and arrest a suspect who is clearly on a spree… Understandable (though your emotional investment is suspect), but not realistic. The reality is that, until someone provides solid evidence, there’s nothing much more any investigators can do. No amount of keyboard hacking on your part will change that. I don’t think with the general crime rate in Arlington that you can accuse your police force of a “do-nothing” routine approach. I for one do not want to see police taking unjustified risks racing to what is, in the end, a property crime.
BoredHouseWife

it’s only money people.
- R
  
  Good call, we should just stop enforcing laws and ignoring criminal activity because “it’s only money people”. It is not a victimless crime, as I’m sure it is quite traumatic for the teller involved. And even if a weapon is not displayed, I still would consider it a dangerous and violent situation over the potential should there actually be a concealed weapon. But your right, it’s only money so in that case just let me know where you live and I’ll come rob your ass when you don’t expect it and see if it’s only money then.
Don Ager

Let’s put a name to the guy…

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003168951_nicknames02m.html

but not sure today’s guy is the same on as the last guy in the neon green shirt. The guy in the previous robbery no where near looks in his 40s
Sam

@ Timmy
no im a concerned local arlington resident scolding the people whom I am paying $ to protect & serve
while its not my job to develop proposals to prevent this from continuing to happen (im paying tax money for that) and no Im not in the field but few common sense ideas may include staking out banks or scattering some undercover officers inside or maybe having some reserve cash inside each bank to hand over that has tracking on it so they can follow?? ya know just common sense police stuff.

As for whats job is not being done, i think that is pretty obvious..

As for what mission is not being accomplished, refer you to the below..7 robberies have occurred in the last month w/o one arrest and seem to be one pace for about 1 a week..

“•The prevention of crime and disorder through the use of problem-solving tactics embedded in a community-oriented policing strategy which emphasizes collaboration with other county agencies as well as partnerships with advocacy groups and neighborhood associations”
- John Fontain
  
  Since you aren’t tweeting, why not write “Timmy,” instead of “@ Timmy”?
  - Duder
    
    Yes! The @ is so annoying. He should also learn to use an apostrophe and capitalize. What is this, middle school? (Amazingly, he got “whom” right.)
    - Josh S
      
      +100
- Mick Way
  
  Common sense is to let them go. Why put people in harm’s way? Give the little man the money and catch him later. I for one would berate the ACPD for posting cops in banks. Bank robbery is one of the most solved crimes of all.
- The real Sam
  
  Yeah, because Arlington has enough police officers (especially undercover officers) to sit in every single bank branch in our area. If we had that many, people like you would be screaming that we have too great a police presence and their staffing indicated that we had a “police state”.
  
  And, knucklehead, do you really, in the real world the rest of us live in, believe that a bank teller has one drawer full of regular money, and one drawer full of “reserve cash” with “tracking on it” just in case someone decides to rob the bank? OR, that any bank would have the resources right now to train every single employee in their branches for the “now when you are confronted with a bank robber, please get up, walk to the “reserve fund drawer” and give him/her only that money because it has “tracking on it””.
  
  Have you ever been to a bank?
Sam

geez Timmy I dont know what reality you are living in and I hope that the ACPD does not have the same philosphy or approach as you to just sit around and wait for someone to provide solid evidence..
- Evil
  
  If you have all the answers maybe you should go apply to the ACPD…. then you can solve these crimes and be a local hero
  - KalashniKEV
    
    I have the answer to the plague of Criminal Aliens and Vagrants… do you think they’ll hire me?
    
    I can only do nights and weekends. 🙂
irony not lost

So, does everyone have a banner ad for Arlington Community Federal Credit Union to the right of the bank robbery article?
Greg

Nice pic. The banks are being robbed by a French mime. The banks just need to deploy an invisible holding cell and he’s toast.
Librarina

This bank robber is definitely not fashion conscious…that striped shirt, hat and glasses…so not cool. It’s hard for the police to be where the action is when they are so diligent at their speed trap duties!
CSI

A few leads…
aptsguy

Arlington is the new Charlestown, MA!
J

I don’t understand all of the cop hating on this site. Everybody wants the cops to do something, yet when Timmy (kudos, by the way) asks for advice on what they should do, silence.

Since nobody on this thread has identified themselves as an Arlington police officer, I’ll assume that no cops have posted, which means that nobody knows what the police are actually doing (or not doing) to catch these guys, and more importantly, what they do when there aren’t bank robberies. Also, we don’t know what they’re doing when there aren’t bank robberies.

The mission of any police department is to protect and serve, and in speaking to an Arlington cop, I learned that the most common citizen complaints relate to speeding motorists. And since speeding motorists contribute to fatal crashes, speed traps are actually fulfilling their dual-pronged mission, by protecting innocent folks who drive and walk according to the law, and serving the citizens who complain about speeders. Judging by the story earlier today about our traffic-related fatality levels, I applaud their efforts.

Regarding the “security theatre” claim, if there’s concern that the bad guy is still inside the bank, then the police are right to arm themselves to the teeth and wait for enough backup. One cop waltzing into the bank with the bad guy inside could lead to a shootout in the bank, a scenario that nobody wants.

As for scattering undercover officers around the county to protect the banks, I did a little math. There are 70 banks in Arlington, so assuming one cop at each bank at ACPD’s starting salary, that would cost the taxpayers $1514.42 per hour, $12,115 per day, $72,692 per week (six days), and $3.78 million per year. To catch three bad guys! That’s a story that would get even more comments than the Green Valley Wal-Mart.

And what about when ACPD does catch the guy? Let’s say, for argument’s sake that the guy does have a gun, and decides to shoot it out with the police, like the guy did near Williamsburg Middle School a couple of years back. To take an oft-used joke from the comment threads on this site, WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN?!

Let’s get some perspective. These guys are going to get caught. In the meantime, I’m just thankful that we have a professional police force here, unlike some other jurisdictions in the area where cops routinely get arrested for misdeeds committed both on and off the job. Our violent crime rate is very low, something for which I’m also thankful.

Oh, and not to beat a dead horse, but for the umpteenth time, the police officers at DARPA are not patrol officers. They’re hired by DARPA to provide security. If they weren’t at DARPA, they’d be at home.

Last, but certainly not least, for the people here who have such a good handle on law enforcement, visit the link and the end of my post and put in an application. As a taxpayer, I’d love to have some new folks out there on patrol who already have a great handle on how to catch bad guys. I, for one, would feel safer.

http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Police/careers/PoliceCareersPoliceOfficer.aspx
- Evil
  
  Nicely stated!
  
  *applause*
- JimPB
  
  A needed and well founded and articulated posting.
MomOfTeens

Waiting for ARLnow to have an Onion-esque story headlined “Breaking news: Arlington Bank Not Robbed Today” – Arlingtonians were shocked today when no banks were robbed by closing time, and police are asking for any information about this situation…
Just Me

Sam and the other cop critics,

My guess is you know little about police work. You must want to pay a lot more taxes because that is what will happen if banks guarded by ACPD. The county does not have that many officers. If all of our officers were sitting in the banks for the robber to come in they won’t be around when you need them, the cop that is not sitting in the bank might be the one that notices someone looking around your house and stops them from robbing you.

I would be interested on how much bank robberies have gone up around the country.

I think ACPD does a great job. Unless you want to full their shoes please keep your negative comments to yourself.

I am not a cop.
- Burger
  
  I think Sam is a little more concerned with the fact my of Arlington’s finest sit out on speed traps like on Lee Highway during the day to drive revenue up and not enforce some of the more legitimate crimes…like say a bank robbery crime wave.
  
  If this was a city that held people accountable the Arlington Co. Sheriff would be seriously in jeopardy of losing their job if in fact they hadn’t been canned by now.
CW

I am not going to engage in cop-bashing, but I can say that if at my work, my boss told me to prevent X from happening, and X kept happening, and all the other guys around me didn’t have the same problem with this happening over and over, I’d probably be out of a job.

That said, I know people are going to accuse me of being a “wannabe rambo” or whatever, but seeing as to how these are just clearly down-and-out people looking for easy money, and how not one of them has ever actually shown a weapon, when is it ever going to occur to someone to FOLLOW one of these guys as they escape on foot. I mean, jeez, even if they’re carrying a pistol, sight range is longer than pistol range. Follow him at 75 yards. It’s not like we’re in the North Vietnamese jungle here. Can you really lose someone on Washington Boulevard? I’m no track star, but I’m pretty sure that I could keep up with these 50-year-old French mimes and potbellied guys with fluorescent green t-shirts.
- Just Me
  
  Go sit in the banks and do just that.
  - CW
    
    I am not saying anyone should sit in the bank. All I am saying is that I am surprised that not one p*ssed-off customer has followed one of these old, fat, weaponless robbers down the street.
    - Maria
      
      I get your point, though it seems like, since they’re NOT brandishing weapons or making big scenes, most customers wouldn’t even know it was happening.
Clarendon Cruiser

D’oh, picked the wrong time replace my fall wardrobe with horizontal stripes!
PikerGirl

I wonder why putting dye packs with the money has not been used.
Sam

CW you hit the nail on the head…facts are if your job states that you are supposed to do XYZ in this case prevent and PROBLEMS SOLVE (know that may actually require some real police work and thought) and XYZ is not being done, than action needs to be taken accordingly.

I give ACPD serious kudos for being excellent at writing speeding tickets and nailing traffic violators…may I suggest a shiit of focus and resources to preventing robberies from occurcing once a week??

I know ACPD are not the best problem solvers in the world and Justme and J and everyone else is thinking very narrow minded. Again, I am paying tax dollars to ACPD for them to do some problem solving to develop a solution to prevent these robberiess from happening, shoot I’d be happy if they were able to reduce robberies to once a month.

Its not rocket science here, hmm maybe a good idea would be to break down the region in quadrants have a few unmarket cars driving around each, maybe have a specific focus on the banks in the local vicinity that have not been robbed yet?? Would suggest maybe that they call up Advanced towing to ask them what they do to survey parking lots, they do a great job, you see them driving around constantly..

All I am asking the ACPD to do is to do their job which entails preventing and problem solving not just generating revenue..
Sam

I think a way to light a fire to get some problem solving done would be for ACPD to take a % paycut until the suspect is apprended everytime a bank is robbed
- Evil
  
  So, go apply if you think it should be so simple to handle.
  Actually, you wouldn’t even need to quit your current job, ACPD has a volunteer program you could apply to.
  Go on – go teach these veteran cops what they’re doing wrong.
  - CW
    
    Look, while Sam’s suggestions may fall on the more extreme end of the spectrum, your comments and those of all the others defending ACPD don’t make a whit of sense either. You’re defending a police department that has let 10 bank robbers go without a mention of leads, or a wanted poster, or anything? Really? And you’re ok with that? No, seriously, answer that question. I know that you and others can make this and that calculation, oh it would cost X dollars to have the cops do this or that or the other, but at the end of the day if it costs too much for the police force to do any policing, then why do we have them?
    
    It’s about PR too, and image, and making an efforts. If they were beating the pavement and putting up wanted posters and writing press releases and updates and they STILL didn’t catch these guys, then the view would be “Ok, they’re just turning up dead ends, but they’re trying.” The vibe they’re giving off now is that ACPD just does not give a sh*t. “We’ll announce the bank robbery and then do nothing”. And look what it’s doing…it’s inviting a ton of copycat crimes. People will say “oh, the money is insured, it’s not worth it to worry about it”. Well, when will it be? 10 robberies? 100? 1000? At some point it becomes nontrivial.
    - Lou
      
      I agree, the apologists are the most annoying part. Trying to downplay the crime just diverts from the messy arguments.
      
      Do some looking around on the county police website. Our force is underfunded (according to their strategic forward-looking plan most objectives have no funding assigned), and understaffed relative to other urban areas in the northeast.
      
      I hope nothing I’ve posted on here comes off as “hating on the cops”, and I don’t think anybody really is. It’s unfortunate they have so little to work with when dealing with this crime spike, and just what goes on in the county in general.
    - Evil
      
      Do you know for a fact what they are or are not doing? Do you have some inside source that is informing you of their lack of work on solving these crimes or preventing future ones?
      Not only that – aren’t bank robberies largely handled by the FBI? So maybe ACPD is just assisting where they can.
      
      The police force doesn’t always go to the media to keep the public abreast of their investigations…. they have good reasons and motives for this too. So just because News Channel 7 isn’t bombarding us with updates of leads the ACPD is following… doesn’t mean they’re just sitting on their duffs doing nothing.
      
      My whole point is that people are quick to blame and point fingers in areas that they likely have no expertise.
F. TUCK

I SAW THIS GUY WALKING INTO SHERWOOD FOREST
Tater

These Remy videos are really getting out of hand.
O.C.

This is why I don’t take the apologists’ word for it that the Arlington County Police Department works hard and effectively:

Remember last year where the Arlington Coalition of Police pushed to change the County’s form of government? The group they helped form and manage contracted with a signature collection firm whose head, Shawn Wilmoth, was ultimately indicted for his activities in Arlington.

Lt. Ken Dennis, head of the Arlington Coalition of Police, did nothing but simply trust the results of a “background check” handed to him. Lt. Dennis, a trained law enforcement professional, did not even bother doing the 10 minutes of Googling that would have uncovered questions about Wilmoth’s work on other drives (in Colorado, for example).

Let’s review, courtesy of ArlNow:
““That would be a shock to me,” said police union president Ken Dennis, upon learning of Simmons’ criminal background last night. “We just hired a company that had good references… I’m disappointed that they had this person on their staff.””
http://www.arlnow.com/2010/07/29/paroled-felon-helped-police-fire-unions-collect-signatures/

And then they had “this person”, Wilmoth, who was subsequently indicted. With police officers like these…you get bank robbers who target Arlington as an “easy score”.
JimPB

The police aren’t perfect, so there are opportunities for improvements. But in making suggestions, take into account two things:
— that there is a fixed total amount of money, so doing more (and spending more) for one thing will mean doing less (and spending less) for another thing(s) UNLESS there is an increase in the total amount of money available.
— whether the likelihood of danger for others will be meaningfully increased, e.g., escalation of a hold-up without violence to a hostage situation with a high-risk of violence and of innocent persons getting hurt or killed.
omg

Was OC going to comment on the bank robbery or dig up one mistake by the police union? Boy that change thing must have got your back hairs up….. Go Democrats! Screw public safety……#1 complaint by citizens is traffic related….#1 is speeding…. With the cuts and difficulty hiring…..short staffing doesn’t help for extra patrols other than calls plus……banks can pay extra for added security….. They’re just cheap, like you……OC.

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