Even though crime in Montgomery County is up more than 12 percent across the board, police are paying most attention to a rash of robberies.
During the first three months of 2006, the total number of robberies jumped nearly 10 percent over the previous year’s first quarter total, from 225 to 247.
Lt. Eric Burnett, a public information officer for the county’s police department, said it’s hard to say why but that the hope is that adding two robbery detectives will provide relief.
“We just need to get on our game, be proactive,” Burnett said Tuesday.
Germantown is the district that has seen the highest surge in robberies during the first quarter of 2006, from 25 last year to 39 this year. In Silver Spring, there also was a considerable increase, 28 percent, in robberies.
Countywide, Burnett said, armed robberies accounted for a large chunk of the robberies. Robbers brandished guns 41 percent of the time, knives or other cutting instruments 10 percent of the time, other weapons in 5 percent of the cases and strong-armed their victims the remaining 42 percent of the time, he said.
As for violent crimes, aggravated assaults climbed nearly 8 percent in the first quarter of 2006, and murders were up 33 percent.
But, Burnett said, it’s deceiving to pay attention to only the murder percentage, given the numbers themselves.
“It went up from 3 to 4, so that kicks the percentage up, but the numbers are so minimal,” he said. “People always need to be concerned about crime, but the spikes are really not out of control. We’re in really, really good shape.”
Beside enhancing the size of the department’s robbery division, Police Chief J. Thomas Manger has announced plans to create a centralized gang unit to deal with the growing problem of gangs in Montgomery County. A newly created quick-response team of officers called the Police-Community Action Team, also will take a more prominent role in reacting to specific neighborhood crimes, Lt. Burnett said.
