DC Police Crack Down on Cell Phone Robberies

Police and prosecutors in DC are starting to make progress in stopping the rash of
cell phone robberies that plagued the city last year, according to cases and police
records.

Last February DC Police Chief
Cathy Lanier told reporters that robbers stealing cell phones and other electronic devices had
“clobbered” her department.

Robberies were up nearly 40 percent citywide in February 2012, compared with the previous
year, according to the MPD. And the department says cell phones accounted for nearly
40 percent of all robberies in 2012.

“I hear 15 stories or so every morning in my crime briefings,” Lanier said. “We are
being clobbered with these robberies, and they’re looking for the same thing. They
say, ‘Give me your purse. Now where is your phone?’”

Recently DC cops and prosecutors say they have begun to bust robbery rings, arrest
random muggers, and get serious jail time for perpetrators guilty of ripping off cell
phones.

Take Vincent Shingler. Last summer the 24-year-old DC resident ran up behind a Howard
University graduate student who had just arrived in the city from Alaska. She was
listening to a book on tape. Shingler grabbed her purse and cell phone on Quincy Street
and ran.

She screamed. Bystanders came to her aid. Shingler ran off with the stolen goods.

Two weeks later the victim saw Shingler enter a local store near Howard campus. She
called the cops, who arrived quickly and arrested Shingler. He pleaded guilty to robbery
in December; on Thursday a judge sentenced him to two years and eight months in prison.

A spokesperson for US Attorney Ronald Machen tells
The Washingtonian his office has handled “quite a few cases” of cell phones being taken.

Thieves have been swiping cell phones in cities across the country. They are easy
to grab, simple to sell, valuable in international trade. Lanier joined other big
city chiefs last year to suggest wireless companies use existing technology to shut
down phones remotely.

Now DC police are offering rewards up to $10,000 for information leading to a conviction.
Metro police are posing as sleeping commuters with exposed cell phones in a ruse to
nab robbers.

“We got offenders off the street, shut down illegal fencing operations, and worked
with the cell phone industry to reform their policies to stop allowing reactivation
of stolen phones,” MPD spokesperson
Gwendolyn Crump says.

By the end of 2012, cops had slowed the rise of robberies, she adds, and so far this
year robberies are down compared with last year.

Word that Vincent Shingler got 32 months in the slammer for grabbing a cell phone
might get around and take the joy out of ripping off phones. But it still helps to
employ street smarts and not walk around after midnight with your cell phone smashed
to your ear.

Harry Jaffe