The Greenbelt Police Department seized seven illegal firearms during its December crime suppression operation in Franklin Park, an area of Greenbelt where the annual number of aggravated assaults confirmed by police has almost tripled over the past decade.
The 52 aggravated assaults that the department reported to the FBI for the area over the course of 2022 nearly triple the 2013 total of 18, according to monthly crime reports.
The 2022 total comes amid the department’s reports of a January 24 shooting, the February 10 arrest of a murder suspect, a February 3 combined arson and
shooting in the complex and a February 13 shooting that resulted in a lockdown at the neighborhood elementary school.
Police spokesperson Hannah Glasgow said officers’ 168 premise checks and 155 traffic stops during the 28-day saturation patrol, which lasted from December 3 through December 31, enabled them to confiscate a large number of firearms compared to most months. According to the department’s weekly crime data, in December 2021, police confiscated three firearms and in December 2020, they confiscated one.
Glasgow said the crime suppression operation allotted two to four additional officers to Franklin Park per shift to conduct proactive patrols and respond to calls for service. The department typically assigns one officer to each of Greenbelt’s three area commands.
“During regular patrol, officers just by the nature of the job have to be really reactive and might be able to do one or two traffic stops a night,” Glasgow said. “When you’re doing these saturation patrols, you can do up to 10 in … a four-hour shift.”
Police seized four of the seven illegal firearms after pulling over vehicles with illegally tinted windows.
Officer Albert Murray, the department’s community officer for Franklin Park, said the crime suppression effort supported his goal of doing more proactive and community-oriented policing.
“My objective is to just definitely build back trust with the community and tackle some of the problems that the community has going on,” Murray said, “whether that’s being very visible and vigilant at nighttime … or something as simple as walking through and saying hi to the kids out there.”
Glasgow said the possibility of future saturation patrols depends on budgetary constraints. Officers participated in the effort on top of their usual patrols. “This was done on officers’ overtime,” she said.
Some Franklin Park residents recognized officers’ efforts but described continuing safety concerns. Myisha Hagler, 40, a patient services representative who moved to Franklin Park in 2018, feels better about her son’s safety than a year ago. Hagler recalled being stranded outside her apartment last January after a murder led police to seal off the adjoining building. Her building is only accessible through the adjoining building.
“I was terrified to let my son go outside and play, because anything can happen,” Hagler said.
Hagler suggested that Franklin Park management could protect residents by installing key access to buildings. “I’ve seen people sleeping in buildings,” she said. “You know, [they’re] sitting in the hall, and they’re drinking, and I don’t even know if they’re residents here or not.”
Rachel Antzak, 40, a data analyst who has lived in Franklin Park since 2013, said some parts of the complex are poorly lit at night and secluded from the road. “It’s like, ‘Okay, well I’m not going past this point, because it’s too dark and I don’t feel comfortable going down that way,’” she said.
Franklin Park management did not respond to requests for comment.
Murray emphasized the department’s commitment to the Franklin Park community.
“The department definitely cares about the city,” Murray said. “One hundred percent. And if there’s a problem … we try our hardest to not just put a
BandAid on it. We try to get to the root of the issue and solve it.”