The call came across the police radio at about 9:20 p.m. A gunman had just committed a robbery in the 1200 block of Westerlee Place, near an apartment complex off Baltimore National Pike.
It had to be them.
It was late May, and Baltimore County Sgt. David Neral and his 10-man unit had spent the past few weeks fighting a spate of robberies in the Woodlawnarea, most recently following the trail of two men. The pair tended to rob victims near apartments. One was at McIntosh Court, a few blocks into the Wilkens district. Another was Westerlee, where a man was just held up at gunpoint. He lost a watch, a Federal Credit Union bank card and a military ID.
“If they?re going to hit again, they would hit McIntosh Court,” Neral said.
The Westerlee suspects robbed multiple times in an hour. But after two of the duo?s 15 suspected robberies, they had driven to a BP gas station just inside the city line and fueled up their friends? cars on a newly stolen credit card. Neral took a chance that they might stop to gas up. On Friday, May 26, he drove to a grocery store parking lot across from the gas station and waited for the Baltimore National Pike suspects.
STREET GANG INVASION
Woodlawn has been a community under siege, both by crime leaking in from the city and by crime from within this once relatively safe suburban Baltimore neighborhood. By mid-June, armed robberies were up 48 percent from the same time last year, with more than 100 cases on file.
“We were just having a very rough time with armed robberies down here,” said Capt. Barry Barber, Woodlawn?s precinct commander. “We did some analysis to determine where we were having most of the problems, where they were most concentrated, the days of the week, the times.”
Street-gang members were believed to be committing the robberies ? not necessarily satellites of national gangs, like MS-13 or the Bloods and the Crips, he said. “It could be just a loosely knit group of kids that decide to call themselves whatever … and go around and commit crimes,” he said.
The robbers target a variety of people, police said — other kids, total strangers, people they know. Barber directed a group of his detectives and Neral?s unit, the precinct?s Community Action Team, to spend the entire month of May working a late-night shift to get the numbers down.
Early on in their detail, the CAT officers in Woodlawn tackled two known trouble spots ? one west of Security Square Mall, the other around Saint Luke?s Lane. They stopped people for field interviews, jotting down names on index cards, tracking who was known to hang out where and arresting some for various offenses.
“After a week or so, those places were dead,” Neral said. “We didn?t lock up a ton of people, but we made a statement by getting out there.”
Then came the night of May 15, when four robberies were reported. They fit a pattern going back a few months, where a suspect chatted with the victim then suddenly attacked.
THE PLAN
Neral strapped on his black police vest in a second-floor precinct office in Woodlawn and headed out on assignment.
The evening?s plan was to check on a few apartment complexes. Groups of teenagers and 20-somethings typically gathered at picnic benches or basketball courts outside the apartments.
Neral, followed by detectives and other officers, pulled into the parking lot of one area complex as night fell. He parked ? and locked ? his car and walked down a grassy slope toward the basketball court. Perhaps a dozen kids, many in long white T-shirts and jeans, watched them approach.
One boy took off as Neral moved closer and raced down a wooded path away from the complex. He ran right into the waiting hands of an officer who blocked the teen?s escape route.
For nearly 45 minutes, Neral and several detectives and officers talked their way through the group, one by one. The crowd slowly dispersed.
Two young men were led up the path in handcuffs, but the point wasn?t necessarily to arrest anybody.
Not right then.
“We?re tracking the gangs and the groups,” Barber said later, explaining the tactics the unit used that night. “We?re trying to know where they are, who they are, and keep pressure on them as much as possible.”
In May alone, they charged more than 80 suspects on a variety of crimes, Barber said. One suspect left the basketball court that night in the back of a patrol car, charged with trespassing. Another was picked up on a robbery charge in connection with stealing a cell phone and then showing off a gun tucked in his pants when the victim?s father confronted him, Neral said. The Baltimore National Pike pair remained at large.
THE GAMBLE
Neral was sitting in his car on May 26 in a parking lot on Route 40, hoping his gamble on the gas station would pay off.
Then a call came in ? an armed robbery at McIntosh Court. If only he was there, he thought. He could have closed this case.
“If I was home right now, I?d throw something through my TV,” he said. “I was that mad.”
But he decided to hang on a little longer, convinced the suspects still might strike the gas station.
It was a long shot that paid off.
A car pulled up to the gas pumps, followed by two, then three, then four, then five more Crown Victorias.
There they were.
“We were excited, because of the stress of thinking we had missed these guys,” Neral said. “It was a big rush.”
After calling for backup, Neral and Officer Greg Mead pulled into the BP gas station and started boxing the cars in. One suspect peeled out before they could stop him, leaving the other suspect behind, chatting with friends.
A check of the receipt shows that the credit card used to buy all the gas belonged to the victim from McIntosh Court, Neral said. Seven people were taken into custody, and five cars were towed back to the station.
“They were a little surprised. Most were friends of the actual guys who did the robberies,” Neral said. “They were just coming to get gas.”
Police arrested the escaped suspect around 5 a.m. Saturday. Detectives and officers from Woodlawn, Garrison and Wilkens served eight search warrants ? six on cars, two on the suspects? homes ? before the day was out.
“It couldn?t have ended better,” Neral said.
Capt. Barber agreed.
“May was kind of the beginning, because you can?t sustain that kind of enforcement effort over a long period of time,” Barber said. “Their main function now will be to keep the pressure up.”
