A recent series of city robberies has prompted Prince George’s County Police to assign a robbery suppression team to College Park in an effort to catch suspects, a police official said.

Maj. Kevin Davis, commander of District 1, which encompasses College Park, said a recent increase in city robberies that involved at least two students and a delivery person prompted him to dedicate the team to the city. The team, which already has a number of leads on cases, often concentrates on other areas of the district that are identified as hot spots, Davis said.

College Park is now the district’s hot spot for robberies, according to Davis. Since taking over command of the district Oct. 1, Davis has had some early success in quelling robberies. November had the fewest robberies reported all year in the district, though College Park saw an increase recently, Davis said.

Davis said he drove through the city over the weekend to identify factors that may contribute to robberies, and said he was concerned to see so many students walking alone on the streets late at night.

“I stopped counting, at 15, the number of people walking by themselves,” Davis said. “There’s never anybody to blame for a robbery except the robber himself. But I think if we look beyond that we have to decrease the opportunity they have.”

After reviewing the College Park robberies, Davis said he realized a number of victims were students who were intoxicated and walking home from bars by themselves, Davis said.

“Everybody needs to heighten their awareness,” Davis said. “It’s not okay to walk by yourself. It’s not okay for the bars and restaurants to serve obviously intoxicated students.”

The robbery suppression team consists of seven plainclothes detectives and a police sergeant, and is considered a special assignment because detectives focus only on solving robberies, unlike the criminal investigations division, which focuses on a range of different crimes. Davis said he was able to assign the team to the area after Police Chief Melvin High made grant money available to pay for overtime work.

Davis also said police posted a variable message board – a mobile sign towed to an area police can alter the message on – in front of R.J. Bentley’s over the weekend to try to deter criminals. The sign read “Police in area,” and Davis acknowledged it would be difficult to judge the sign’s effectiveness.

“If it gives one crime suspect a moment of pause to go to another area or not commit a crime, it’s working,” Davis said. “If it was nothing but a gimmick I wouldn’t use it.”

As the rest of the county has been consumed by a sharp increase in the number of homicides this year – the 155th homicide Nov. 21 broke the previous 1991 record – College Park and the campus have also seen crime increases in the form of break-ins and robberies. Mayor Stephen Brayman said businesses and residents this summer called meetings with then-commander Maj. Mark Magaw when they were hit with a rash of crimes.

“It does seem that there was something going on systematic with business robberies [this summer],” Brayman said. “And now there may be something systematic with these robberies that we need to figure out a way to keep the vigilance going year round.”

When Magaw quickly allocated resources to the area in response to the crime, Brayman said he was impressed with the results. With new leadership at the District 1 Hyattsville headquarters, Brayman said he looked forward to working with commander Davis on solving public safety issues in the city.

“I understand his job encompasses more than College Park and he has other areas that are considered hot spots and that his resources are limited,” Brayman said. “I am pleased that he is able to point to this major initiative this soon after these recent incidents.”

Brayman has been vocal about his support for improving public safety in the city recently, throwing his support behind a referendum question that asked residents whether taxes should be increased to fund policing efforts. The referendum narrowly passed, but little movement in the city council has been made on new public safety initiatives.

At tomorrow’s council meeting, Brayman said he expected some discussion of the referendum, but cost remained a major concern.

“We need to fully understand the political ramifications of an expensive effort and be able to justify we get the most bang for the buck,” Brayman said. “I feel the State of Maryland should directly participate in a public safety initiative citywide, since parents across the state are sending us their kids. It appears that much, if not a majority, of the crime we read about has a student as a victim.”

Davis agreed students – especially those leaving bars alone – have become a major factor in how criminals have chosen their victims.

“I think this is quite often a target-rich environment,” Davis said of downtown College Park.

Contact reporter Kevin Litten at littendbk@gmail.com.