Police arrested three teenagers in connection with the armed robbery of two university students near the corner of Rhode Island Avenue and Norwich Road yesterday afternoon, police said.
Two of the men had offered full confessions last night, police said, and told detectives they had tossed a silver and black semi-automatic pistol as they fled the scene. Police were unable to find the weapon, and plan to conduct an extensive crime scene search downtown tomorrow.
If anyone has found the gun already, they are asked to call investigators at 301-699-2601.
The students were walking on the sidewalk in broad daylight when three men pulled up in a Lexus, Prince George’s County Police officers said. One of the suspects got out of the car, displayed a handgun and demanded money from the victims.
One of the victims, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons, said he fought back when the man approached, grabbing the gun and turning it away from himself while the suspect reached into his pockets to search for his wallet. The student was not seriously injured during the crime.
“We started wrestling,” the student said. “He hit me in the face a couple times and the next thing I knew he ran back to the car he pulled up in.”
The student added that none of his or his friend’s possessions were taken by the suspects, and he ran to the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity house, where he was pledging, and contacted the University Police to report the robbery.
A mother visiting her daughter at a house nearby witnessed the altercation from her car and flagged down a police officer, who was patrolling in a police cruiser nearby.
The police officer turned out to be Maj. Kevin Davis, commander of police District 1, where College Park lies.
“I make my daily trek though College Park and you always think you could interrupt something,” Davis said. “The fact that I played a role in this is satisfying.”
Both the victims and suspects fled the scene before Davis was flagged down, however.
The woman who spotted the robbery wrote down the license plate number, allowing police to find the suspect’s car on Greenbelt Road and arrest all three of them within five minutes of the robbery, Davis said.
Brothers Azeem Taiwo, 17, and Usman Adekunie Taiwo, 21, both of Glen Dale, and Tyrone Oladele Dosunmu, 16, were charged with armed robbery, first degree assault and use of a handgun in a crime of violence, Davis said. He also said he was taken aback by the fact the men allegedly tried robbing students in the mid-afternoon.
“A brazen daytime robbery? Yeah, it’s surprising,” he said.
Contact reporter Steven Overly at overlydbk@gmail.com.
