Two robberies and two sex offenses committed in separate incidents early Monday sent police on a manhunt this weekend in search of three men driving a silver getaway car downtown.
Police are investigating whether the crimes were committed by the same group of men, Prince George’s Police spokeswoman Cpl. Diane Richardson said. In each case, the men told victims they had a knife, she said.
“Obviously, the fact that the suspects fled the scene in a silver-colored vehicle [in each case] leads us to believe that we could be dealing with the same group of people, but we don’t know for a fact,” Richardson said. An e-mailed crime alert sent to the university community by University Police said the crimes were related.
The first robbery took place after midnight when a two women and a man were approached by a group of three men on Paint Branch Parkway. Richardson said the men robbed the victims of cash after threatening to produce a knife.
At about 3 a.m., two women were approached from behind by a group of three men and were groped as they walked on Knox Road between Princeton and Dickinson Avenues. Richardson said one of the women was further sexually victimized, but was not raped. The men did not take cash from the victims, as they did in the first case, and Richardson declined further comment on the incident.
About fifteen minutes later, three men targeted three women where Hartwick Road meets Guilford Drive. The three men groped one woman and stole one cell phone, Richardson said.
A Diamondback reporter was riding with a county police officer early Monday morning when the dispatcher alerted police to the first of the robberies. The police cruiser, which had been patrolling student parties around College Avenue, responded slowly due to large numbers of students who were walking in the street.
Once free of the pedestrian traffic, the police cruiser raced down Route 1 looking for the silver sedan. The patrolling officer, who could not be named because of rules agreed upon prior to the ride-along, stopped one car that looked suspicious and matched the description of the vehicle. However, the officer determined the vehicle’s occupants were not involved.
“It’s so hard with crimes like this because by the time we hear about it, they’re gone,” the officer said.
Although Richardson said investigators have been assigned to the cases, she was not able to say for certain whether the victims in any of the cases were university students.
Richardson said patrols would not be stepped up in the areas of the crimes.
“We take these matters very seriously,” she said. She advised residents to travel in groups to avoid becoming targets and to attempt to get good descriptions of assailants in case they are victimized.
Staff writer Will Skowronski contributed to this report. Contact reporter Jeremy Arias at ariasdbk@gmail.com.
