U.S. Park Police had little to go on to track down the young men who had turned the National Mall into their personal hunting ground, robbing and sexually assaulting unsuspecting tourists.
As the attacks brought increasing national attention to crime in D.C. during the height of the summer tourist season, pressure built to put those responsible behind bars. Critics claimed the U.S. Park Police couldn’t get the job done.
“It was a slap in the face,” said Detective Todd Reid. “It hit us hard. We were embarrassed that this stuff was going on under the Washington Monument.”
Within a month of the last robbery on July 11, police had arrested five young men. All of them have since pleaded guilty, including the final one onTuesday: 17-year-old Ryan Newman, whom authorities say was the group’s ringleader and now faces 83 years in prison.
Police on Wednesday told The Examiner that the men also were involved in two other robberies that had been unreported by the victims.
Detectives started their investigation with records from stolen credit cards and a stolen cell phone. The credit cards were used to buy an Xbox video game. Police traced the purchase to Tarnell Ward, 21, and arrested him on unrelated charges.
Ward stated that he was not involved in the Mall attacks but said that Newman and Zachary Bright, 19, split the spoils at his house.
A cell phone stolen in one of the attacks was used to call a 16-year-old girl in Northern Virginia, who told police Bright was the caller.
Police also learned that one of their suspects, 18-year-old Trayvon Thomas, had assaulted a person with a baseball bat. They arrested him on that charge.
At the station, detectives walked Zachary Bright by Thomas and made sure the two saw each other, Reid said. Detectives told each of them that the case had received national attention and heads were going to roll, but there might be leniency for the first to confess.
“We played one against the other,” Reid said.
Thomas was the first in, Reid said, and the others soon followed — Michael Bright, 16, Marcus Brown, 22, Zachary Bright and Newman.
