Crime Problems
From Aspen Hill, Maryland, USA
Contents
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Crime Problems in Aspen Hill
Aspen Hill is both one of the most "diverse" communities in Montgomery County, and one of the lowest-average-income communities in Montgomery County. It is also characterized by some of the highest prevalence of rentals, high-density rentals, foreclosures of housing acquired under the so-called "liar loan" and "adjustable percentage rate" mortgages.
For certain types of crime, notably theft-from-auto, burglary, robbery and armed-robbery, Aspen Hill ranks high on the list of trouble spots for both Montgomery County and the State of Maryland. Please see also the Mid-County Neighborhood Initiative.
Current Crime Trends
Please see a mapping of local crime trends from CrimeReports.Com but be advised that this is automatically generated from the logs of police dispatch systems. This only shows reported crime that was dispatched from the 911 operating center. This does not at all reflect crime reported through informal or confidential-informant channels. Also keep in mind that the vast majority of crimes are those perpetrated by criminals against other criminals, and these crimes are never reported into the system generating these maps.
Montgomery County's most serious crime problem right now is street robberies of the type in which a group of people will approach an individual and rob them of cash and/or cellphones. The number two problem -- less serious than street robberies and far more prevalent -- is burglaries of vehicles, generally resulting in loss of GPS, computer, MP3 player, or comparable equipment, according to police chief J Thomas Manger (Klepott, Freeman, "Street robberies main crime problem in Montgomery, police chief says", DC Examiner, July 21 2008, downloaded 2008 July 21).
Burglaries appear to be on the rise all across the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan Area. Illegal aliens are suspected to be contributing to the increase in burglary (Klopott, Freeman, "Washington-area police report wave of burglaries, cite illegal immigrants", DC Examiner, June 16 2008, downloaded 2008 June 16).
Due to the rising cost of fuel and the downturn in economic sectors heavily reliant on unskilled labor of immigrants (legal or otherwise), it's certain that unemployment is rising in that community.
Among other recent crime trends is a proliferation of "tagging", or street-gang graffiti.
Gangs
There are a variety of gangs in Aspen Hill.
Gang activity in Aspen Hill is characterized by "local affiliation". According to one local gang expert, a growing trend in area gangs is a mixed-race, loosely organized collections of youth that coalesce because they attend the same school or live in the same neighborhood, with the organization likely to change names over time (Aratani, Lori, and de Vise, "Youth Gang Reflects Shift In Origins, Membership", Washington Post, March 3 2007, downloaded 2008 May 27). This is comparable to the District of Columbia phenomenon of "local crews" in which typically there is no affiliation or even representation of affiliation with gangs of national or transnational scope.
National scope gangs as well as transnational scope gangs are reportedly making inroads into Montgomery County and the rest of the region, but County police characterize Aspen Hill's gang problems to be mostly "home grown".
Transnational gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha ("MS-13") are properly the province of Police and Intelligence-Community Partnerships.
Mental Healthcare Crisis / Homelessness Crisis
It is unclear how much of the crime problem here in Aspen Hill relates to, or is affected by, the general crisis in outpatient mental healthcare in the State of Maryland funding system, or the comparable crisis in the Montgomery County mental healthcare system. In any case, the current economic crisis -- as of mid-June 2008 -- is contributing to increased levels of both homelessness and home-overcrowding, both of which raise levels of stress in those affected.
Thus, there may be a very solid basis to any perceptions that Aspen Hill is overrun with the insane. When insanity becomes violence, or provokes a violent response, it contributes to our crime problem.
The vast majority of people with even severe mental illness are no more prone to violence than are those blessed with high-function levels of sound cognition and emotional stability. Yet they are frequently the victims of poorly-reasoned abuse or violence, which also contributes to our crime problem. To the degree that the government is unable to remedy this, tends to perpetuate our endless struggle against crime and violence.
There is some mostly-anecdotal evidence, and much inference, which may lead some to believe that there are people out there trying to impart a particular worldview to people who are already rather severely mentally ill, to transform them into a sort of gang with a shared delusional system. This has been known to result in Dust Wars and other situations which ultimately resolve as a sort of dialog between the opposing causes of Plausible Deniability versus Reasonable Suspicion.
Historical Crime Trends
Historically, crime trends in Aspen Hill were of fairly low incidence from roughly the time of first building until the late 1960s. Little non-domestic violence appears in the police record until the 1970s, when the first major divergence of subcultures led to interschool fighting of a rare and sporadic nature, and to disputes and fisticuffs between "jocks", "neats", "freaks" and "grits". Respectively, these were "athletic types", "academic achievers", "longhairs" and "greasers", where "longhairs" had the reputation of using illegal drugs, and "greasers" had the reputation of using hair-oil and dressing in late 1950s fashions and engaging in underage drinking. Aside from subcultural clashes mostly between whites, there was little crime other than significant amounts of drunk driving, domestic violence, burglary, and drug violations.
As time went on, increasing ethnic diversity brought surprisingly little race-based animosity. Crime continued to be mostly crimes against property and drug violations. Yet during the late 1980s and the early 1990s, talk began to circulate about increasing tensions between various US-native ethnic subgroups, and also within and between various communities of the foreign-born.
High Profile Cases
1970s
The Unsolved Murder of Kathy Beatty
Please see the comprehensive Washington Post coverage (downloaded 2008 June 13).
"On July 25,1975, 15-year-old Kathy Beatty was found unconscious in a wooded area in the rear of the Kmart department store located at Georgia Avenue and Connecticut Avenue in Aspen Hill, Maryland. The hospital examination revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and hit on the head with a blunt instrument. Kathy never regained consciousness and died on August 8, 1975.(Montgomery County Department of Police "Cold Case" website, downloaded 2008 May 26)".
As of May 2008, this case is still unsolved, although the Cold Case website states that two witnesses claim that they saw two white males, mid to late teens, crossing Georgia Avenue carrying a female eastward towards the 7-11 store and continuing onward towards a wooded area used by teenagers as a "party place".
Prior to this event, Aspen Hill had been mostly regarded as an all-American low-crime outer suburb where people left their doors unlocked and didn't worry much if the kids were out most of the night. This murder cast a shadow over the neighborhood, one which seems only to deepen as time goes on.
This investigation is ongoing. Please see the Kathy Beatty Investigation website.
Early 1980s
The "Aspen Hill Rapist"
A series of some 16 rapes in the Aspen Hill area in 1981 and 1982 led to the arrest and conviction of one Tim Buzbee, also known as "the Aspen Hill Rapist". Buzbee was sentenced to three concurrent life sentences plus 50 years, and at last report was still incarcerated at the Jessup state penitentiary. Buzbee's crimes were particularly notorious, as he frequently entered the homes of his victims ("Buzbee delays parole hearing", Parish, Warren, Gazette, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005, as downloaded 2008 May 25).
1997
Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr
Samuel Sheinbein (wikipedia article) and Aaron Benjamin Needle, killed Alfredo Enrique Tello Jr. and then dismembered and attempted to cremate his body. Sheinbein escaped to Israel where he was tried and sentenced.
2001
Sue Wen Stottmeister
Sue Wen Stottmeister was found murdered on the Rock Creek Hiker Biker Trail. Albert W. Cook Jr. pled guilty after his capture and is serving life without parole. This is a case of freakish weirdness, as Cook had been living for some years at the corner of Aspen Hill Road and Arctic Avenue without anyone in the neighborhood even knowing that he was there. Extremely reclusive, he evidently crept along overgrown fence-lines through the property of a neighboring church and school to access the wooded areas around the stream park. Ms Stottmeister was evidently a victim of opportunity rather than of planning, and a small shrine marks the place where she was found. Cook came to the attention of authorities weeks after Stottmeister's murder only because he assaulted a woman at a nearby bus-stop. (Parish, Warren, "Trail phones to be replaced", Gazette, Oct. 26, 2005, downloaded 2008 May 25).
2002
The "Aspen Hill Snipers"
The "Aspen Hill Snipers" launched into a multi-state murder spree that hit Aspen Hill on October 2, 2002. John Allen Muhammad (Wikipedia article), a document forger and identity theft enabler of an illegal alien minor, Lee Boyd Malvo (Wikipedia article), drove around town in a used police car with a hole cut in the trunk and fired on civilian after civilian. Despite the fact that I personally reported to officers that I witnessed this vehicle and the occupants and reported them as "serious trouble from out of town", then-Chief of Police Charles A Moose declared "only a white man could have done this", clearly expressing the utter inflexibility and dogma-bound nature of the County Department of Police. After spending millions of dollars stopping every single "white box truck" encountered in the County, and both surveillance and questioning of every single member of the National Rifle Association in the entire County, the killers were brought to ground by an alert motorist who observed their plates in a public InterState rest area and who promptly called police. Despite the fact that Malvo had called the FBI to turn himself in, and was ignored by the FBI, and also despite the police focus on middle-aged white males, the illegal alien serial killer child Malvo and his identity-theft enabler and Army misfit Muhammad were eventually brought to Justice. They'll soon die by lethal injection and decent people from Aspen Hill will dance in the streets at that time.
2007
Feb 24, 2007, 3700 block of Bel Pre Road, a group of youths multiply stabbed and severely beat a mentally challenged man not long after they stabbed two other youths multiple times in the back at Westfield Shopping Town in Wheaton's Central Business District (Aratani, Lori, and de Vise, "Youth Gang Reflects Shift In Origins, Membership", Washington Post, March 3 2007, downloaded 2008 May 27). Several of the youths were indicted for serious crimes (Gawgry, Kristina, "Five more indicted in gang-related stabbings", Gazette, April 18, 2007 , downloaded 2008 May 27).
2008
Botched Gang Firebombing
Jan 8 2008, an alleged firebombing in the 13800 block of Parkland Drive was allegedly perpetrated by Hugo Soto-Moran, 20, of Silver Spring; Edwin Crespo, 21, of Silver Spring; and Miguel Angel Castillo, 20, of Rockville. Allegedly this was a gang-related incident (Londono, Ernesto, "Gang Members Threw Molotov Cocktails at House, Officials Say", B3, Washington Post, January 12, 2008, downloaded on 2008 May 26).
Gerald Lacayo Murdered
Gerald Lacayo was stabbed to death in a building in the Aspen Hill Apartments, allegedly by Calvin Fitzgerald Currica, 22, of Clarksburg, Harrison Jay Bryant, 20, of Williamsburg, Va., and Randall Anthony Francis, 20, of New Carrollton (Chadwick, Melissa A., "Men indicted in carjackings, murder", Gazette, March 26, 2008, downloaded 2008 May 25).
Police Response to Crime Trends
Montgomery County's Department of Police ("DOP") Fourth District administration is responsible for the majority of law-enforcement in Aspen Hill.
Staffing
Shortly after the Aspen Hill Snipers' rampage through the Greater Washington DC Metropolitan Area, Chief Charles A. Moose "moved on" under some degree of scandal. His eventual replacement was Chief J. Thomas Manger, formerly of the Fairfax County Virginia police department, taking office in Montgomery County in January 2004. Chief Manger observed sometime after his assumption of duties that Montgomery's police force had one of the lowest number of officers per-capita of any major urbanized area. Subsequent increases in staffing have been ongoing. Yet considering both the size of the population and the diversity of that population, there is probably a significantly deficient staffing. Some 1150 sworn officers and about 550 civilian staff must cover about 950000 residents.
Operations in Aspen Hill
Partly in response to the low levels of staffing, and the prevailing trends in policing seen around the nation, Montgomery's DOP has promoted the concept of "Community Policing".
Out-of-Uniform Operations
Concurrent with open expansion of efforts to engage community groups such as condominium associations and property-management personnel, there has been a more clandestine effort which at times seems to operate at cross-purposes with the open organizational efforts. Due to the clandestine nature of these efforts, it is arguable that there is no actual association with the uniformed divisions of the DOP as administered from the Fourth District command structure. Indeed, it is arguable that there are several networks of "uncontrolled officers" and their informants and operatives stumbling through the neighborhood metaphorically tripping over each others' allegorical feet.
Absence of close-coupled command authority and accountability is a classic trap of plainclothes and undercover police operations. Rogue elements playing fast and loose with their networks of informants and "local talent" have been massively destructive to communities throughout the annals of police history. For reference, see the history of the Texas Panhandle Regional Narcotics Task Force, described by Texas State legislator Terry Keel (a former sheriff) as "brother-in-law types in ninja suits" (Blakeslee, Nate, Texas Observer, March 2004, downloaded on 2008 May 26). See also "Tulia: Race, Cocaine, and Corruption in a Small Texas Town", Blakeslee, Nate (2005) on the infamous Tom Coleman cases.
It is further arguable that given the highly "internationalized" and "diverse" nature of the community, Aspen Hill might once again be, as it was in the Cold War, a favorite operational venue for the international intelligence community (Mitrokhin, Vasiliy, "Mitrokhin Archive", Lillard, Stewart, "Aspen Hill Maryland: a Brief History, downloaded 2008 May 26, including by reference "The Sword and the Shield: the Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB", N.Y.: Basic Books, 1999, pp. 186-189.).
Uniformed Operations
Uniformed operations include Community Service officers who specialize in bridging the gaps between "regular civilians" and the law-enforcement community, as well as Educational Facility officers. Also instrumental have been targeted enforcement efforts such as the county-wide "PCAT" "police-community action teams" which can for limited times focus greatly enhanced manpower deployments on specific trouble spots. Also very useful, through early 2008 a policy of "decrease to zero tolerance" towards persons seeking day-labor employment at impromptu hiring centers convened on private property. At one time in late 2007, literally a hundred or more day-laborers congregated on the grounds of Home Depot in Aspen Hill with other gatherings across Georgia Avenue at the 7-11. Other comparable gatherings in nearby communities outside of Aspen Hill proper have been subject to comparable enforcement efforts (Jasinski, Agnes and Meno, Mike, "Fewer construction jobs, less demand for laborers", Gazette, April 10, 2008 downloaded on 2008 May 26). Now, after months of work, the gatherings are much smaller, and in general only amount to as many as a dozen or so men waiting in the parking lot of the 7-11 (observed 2008 June 14).
Other uniformed operations include public outreach and participation in anti-gang programs (Montgomery County website).
Community Response to Crime
Community responses to anti-crime efforts by the DOP have been mixed.
The criminal element, not surpisingly, has tended to adapt to police activity generally in two ways: either they don't much care or they take a more subdued approach. The ones who don't much care quickly learn that it is generally a good idea to care. The ones who take a more subdued approach are likely to be, ultimately, a far greater problem to the non-criminal elements of the community.
The "legitimate" elements of the community tend to be generally supportive of all police activity other than speed-limit enforcement. Public attendance at civic association and "social group" meetings is almost always boosted when representatives of the DOP are scheduled to appear.
Some elements of the community have aligned themselves openly with the law-enforcement community. In particular, the rental property-management community tends to work with the DOP to resolve problems, and some elements of the business community work with the DOP. Yet again there seems to be some efforts at cross-purposes ongoing. Many of the shopping centers don't depend merely on the police, they also hire various levels and layers of private security staff, ranging from uniformed and licensed armed security officers to "informal arrangements".
"Informal arrangements" is an expression covering a lot of conceptual and operational territory, not to mention covering a wide and fuzzy expanse of legality. In general, "informal arrangements" has included establishment of low-key militias. For example, during the extensive power outages following Hurricane Isabel, the English Manor neighborhood was quickly covered in parts at night by an impromptu "local defense force" consisting entirely of African immigrants who simply assumed key positions and kept watch. Interestingly, there was very little reported crime during that period.
"Informal arrangements" are inherently risky to the community as a whole. Legitimate citizens expect law-enforcement activity to be the exclusive province of the duly-constituted authorities such as sworn officers of the Department of Police. Society as a whole is meant to be bound by the constitutions and by law, rather than by the organizational abilities of private citizens or foreign interlopers. In times of emergency such as natural disasters, it may be necessary for untrained personnel to step forward to fill gaps in services, though the County does in fact have a fairly large trained and certified reserve of volunteers trained through such programs as "CERT" or "community emergency response teams".
