Crime spree has police on alert
By Gregg MacDonald
Three armed robberies, a shooting and another attempted armed robbery that included assault have all occurred in the Reston/Herndon area since Oct. 2.On that date in Herndon, a victim was robbed at gunpoint by a Hispanic man near the intersection of Florida Avenue and Center Street at around 4:45 p.m.
Two days later, in the Fox Mill area of Herndon, two African-American men allegedly hid inside a Giant Food store and waited to rob employees after they closed the store on Saturday evening.
Around 11:10 p.m., two store employees, 19 and 33-year-old Herndon-area women, locked the doors and began to clean up when the suspects appeared wearing masks in one of the aisles. The would-be robbers reportedly brandished a gun at one of the victims and assaulted her. They then took both victims to the store's office where they bound one of the victims and demanded money. Before the victims could comply, the suspects received a phone call from a third party and fled.
The next day, two separate armed robberies occurred within minutes of each other in Reston and on Monday, two victims were shot in yet another violent Reston incident in which the suspects are described as Hispanic.
"There is a short-term crime spree going on in Reston right now," said Lt. Andy Hill, assistant commander of the Reston District Police Station. "All the incidents are under investigation."
Detectives are investigating the possibility that the two Reston armed robberies that took place on Sunday may be related, and possibly gang-influenced but Lt. Jeff Coulter of the Herndon Police Department does not think that the Reston incidents are related to the armed robbery that occurred in Herndon on Oct. 2.
"There is no apparent link right now," he said. "But the shooting in Reston put us on a higher alert."
Coulter said that the Northern Virginia Gang Task Force was in the area, working with Herndon and Fairfax police on Friday, Oct. 3, trying to identify potential gang members in the area.
"Herndon is like an island and we are concerned about the violence around us in Sterling Park and now in Reston," Coulter said.