A man masturbated in front of a woman in an apartment laundry room, then tried to convince the victim not to call police by paying her cash, according to this week’s Arlington County crime report.
The alleged incident took place around 9:00 a.m. near the western end of Columbia Pike in Arlington. Police have identified the suspect as a 34-year-old Arlington resident. From the crime report:
Aman Singh Lail, 24, was traveling eastbound on Lee Highway when his Jeep Wrangler slammed into the car of 24-year-old Saqlain Chowdhury at 2:09 a.m. Chowdhury was transported to George Washington University Hospital, where he died.
The accident happened a block away from where Lail’s friend, Sami Ullah, died after driving 90 mph over Key Bridge 10 months earlier.
Two men allegedly stole cigarettes from the Clarendon CVS store early Monday morning and an employee chased after them. The employee’s suspect description helped police make two arrests shortly after.
From this week’s Arlington County crime report:
The good: No homicides were reported in Arlington County in 2013 — a 100 percent drop compared to the five cases in 2012. Rape cases decreased from 31 to 26, a 16 percent drop. Reports of burglaries were also down 16 percent and motor vehicle thefts experienced a 14 percent drop.
The bad: reports of aggravated assaults were up 34 percent in 2013 and robbery and larceny reports also increased slightly compared to last year with 8 and 5 percent increases, respectively.
Both incidents took place on the 500 block of 15th Street S. Both involved two suspects in their twenties. One robbery was committed at gunpoint. The cab driver was assaulted during the other robbery.
From this week’s Arlington County crime report:
William Couch pleaded guilty to abduction with intent to defile and object sexual penetration in the cases, according to an Arlington County Police Department press release.
According to police, Couch admitted to the May 9, 1989 sexual assault and robbery of a woman whose home was broken into as she slept, and the Sept. 11, 1989 rape of a woman who was forced into a maintenance room by a man after she arrived early for her shift at work.
“So many people already got in trouble,” Shamim Naseer, who received one of these calls, told ARLnow.com. “One of my friends said he paid them $6,000.”
Naseer said that at least four people she knows, including her son, got a call from someone claiming to be an IRS agent. One of her friends, Naseer said, got a call six months ago. The caller in each case told them to add money to gift cards within 10 to 20 minutes or else they would “get in trouble.”
Police are looking for a man who allegedly used his iPhone to photograph a woman using the bathroom.
The incident happened Tuesday night on the 4200 block of Columbia Pike. Police say the woman looked out the window, saw a hand holding an iPhone and screamed, scaring off the suspect.
Police say the 27-year-old victim was taking out the trash last Friday night in the Arna Valley View neighborhood near S. Glebe Road. When he returned to his apartment, four alleged, would-be robbers forced their way in.
As two of the suspects rifled through his things, the victim said there was a brief struggle and he was able to draw a pistol. The suspects then reportedly dropped everything and ran off.
The Arlington County Police Department announced yesterday that 74 bicycles have been reported stolen this year, compared with 124 at this same point last year.
The report comes less than a year after ACPD declared bike thefts to be at an “all-time high,” and just seven months after one bike thief was sentenced to 12 years in prison in the middle of a bicycle thief crackdown.
A man with a gun allegedly tried to rob a woman in the Hilton Garden Inn in Courthouse, just a half block from Arlington police headquarters.
The incident happened around 11:20 a.m. this past Thursday. From this week’s Arlington County crime report:
A woman was reported carjacked Saturday afternoon near the Arlington Ridge and Arna Valley View neighborhoods.
Police say the woman was sitting in her car, talking on the phone, when two men approached. They implied a gun, ordered the woman out of her car and drove off. The victim was shaken but uninjured, police say.
