Prince George’s County officials urged residents to help police solve a string of killings that have shaken the county, and vowed to fight cultural attitudes against “snitching” on those who have committed violent acts. Police announced the arrests three people in the New Year’s Day stabbing death of a Chillum man who was the first victim in a string of 13 homicides in the county this year.
And they asked residents to play a role in closing some of the unsolved murders.
“Unless we have community involvement, it will not stop,” Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker said. “Silence will stop us from preventing this violence.”
Police Chief Mark Magaw said 21-year-old Verlyncia Coleman, 23-year-old Demarko Williams and 28-year-old David Wright were arrested for killing Ansel Donovan Whitelocke, 58, on New Year’s Day. All three were charged with first-degree murder.
Whitelocke was found dead from multiple stab wounds inside his Cypress Creek Drive apartment. Police say Whitelocke knew one of his killers.
A total of seven people have been arrested in connection to four of the year’s 13 killings.
Magaw said authorities cannot pinpoint why so many killings have occurred in so few days, saying “there is no common thread to follow” in the crimes. Additional officers from local municipalities have joined county patrol officers in conducting saturation patrols in the areas where the killings have happened. Police have arrested more than 100 people on unrelated crimes during such patrols and say it’s helping to stop future violence.
But during Tuesday’s County Council meeting, District 8 council member Obie Patterson questioned Magaw about what will happen “when the dust settles” and the extra officers are gone and the county is without “adequate protection.”
Magaw responded that he plans to give Baker a strategic plan for growing the department, currently made up of just more than 1,500 officers, “very shortly.” The police chief told
The Washington Examiner he’d like to see the department reach 2,000 officers. As for the immediate future, State’s Attorney Angela Alsobrooks said authorities have to battle “the culture we’ve created in our young people which says you should not snitch.” She said her office plans to unveil a project called “Speak Up” to encourage young students to be comfortable approaching authorities with information.
One Beacon Heights neighborhood activist, Loretta Hinton, who said that she keeps a camera in her purse in case she ever needs to capture a crime on film, said she plans to help out as much as she can.
“When I see something strange on my street, I’ll just pick up the telephone and make a call,” she said.
