I live in a townhouse in "The Woods" in Burke Centre where there have been several vehicles broken into lately. I came out to go to work this morning at 4:55am and to my suprise I see a young man standing next to my vehicle looking in the drivers side window. I startled him as I opened my front door and he started to take off. I gave chase with no success. It was obviously very dark so I couldn't get a good look at him but he was around 6'+, thin build wearing a dark colored hoodie and dark pants (maybe jeans). As he was leaving the scene he was mumbling something about getting into vehicles... I called the non emergency police number (703)691-2131 and had them send an officer out. The officer came out VERY quickly but the young man had run away by then. The officer and I did a brief search around my street looking for other vehicles that may have been hit but came up empty. I gave the officer as much information as I could and then left for work. I know this will not stop until he or they are caught so PLEASE keep your eyes open neighbors, and if you see ANYTHING that looks out of place, say something. Call the non emergency # and file a report. The police can not help us unless they know about the situation.
My vehicle was broken into up in DC at a baseball game not too long ago so I've learned not to keep ANYTHING of value in there anymore. I would recommend others to make sure you take all valuables out of your vehicles at night and bring them inside with you. The cowards normally hit the "easy" targets first, then go after the others. If you do decide to leave your GPS/Satalite radio/ipod/phone/etc. in your vehicle, make sure to put them out of sight as to not give them a target to lock onto. Keep your doors locked and your eyes open people and maybe we can get this guy(s) off our streets and out of our belongings! Thanks for reading my rant!

I was going to ask about his race, but no doubt he was black.

I'm sorry this happened to you, but this is what Burke Center is coming to. Burke Commons road is filling up with more blacks, low class Hispanics, and welfare cases. When they move in, this is what follows. Just a few weeks ago on Scarborough Commons, a man tried to force himself into a woman's home. Burke Center appears more often in the police blotter. What are we going to do? Slowly move out of the area, family by family, and let them destroy the place? Why should they get to have it? No way.

Calling the police is pretty risky if they don't like what they hear from you.
Police get frustrated with their jobs too, probably more-so than the rest of us.
Think about it, how often can you call them and they can easily go grab the individual who did the crime? Not very often.
If the cops perceives you to be questioning his capability or if you just rub him the wrong way because you're frustrated that you've been wronged by a criminal, then he may not react very nicely to you. Remember it's VERY easy for a cop to cause you a lot of trouble. If he reports that you've lied to him, even on a very minute point, then you can go to jail for up to a year based on his word alone.
Don't call the cops because it might be YOU who gets in trouble.

^^^This is the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while. The police are here to protect and serve the community. They can't help if you don't tell. How about this...don't lie to the police when you call them. Just a thought.

Actually not ridiculous at all, Dave. Yes, the police are here to serve and protect, but they don't always do that. More often than not I have actually found myself in a worse situation with police involvement than if I had just dealt with it on my own. I honestly have nothing against cops personally (it's an incredibly tough job), but the way I have witnessed some of them behave, speak, act, and handle situations is troubling, to say the least, and is probably due to a combination of too much power, too little education, and too few external checks on police power. If you aren't at least a bit uneasy around police officers, you aren't just a good law-abiding citizen; you are foolish. We're talking about people who are not even required to obtain a fucking college degree before they are armed with guns and the right to arrest/detain/search you with little to no reason in order to enforce laws they don't even really fucking understand. If you're not scared of THAT then you're really fucking dumb.

J / K mol is right,
We aren't in kindergarten where the cops are the pure, infallible Good-Guys. Police officers can only know so much in any given circumstance, the rest, they deduce which can't always be accurate. When they encounter a person who's already agitated because she's been the victim of a crime, it's pretty easy for a cop to jump to the wrong conclusion that the victim is hiding something or lying, after all police deal with criminals who lie to them all the time. Cops don't always outright lie about what victims say to them, they often just hear what they want to hear and go with that, all the way to the courtroom.
Hearsay evidence is excluded from court, generally because it has been shown to be wildly inaccurate no matter how good the witness's memory is. The government sees fit to maintain a dangerous exception to this rule though. Anything you say to a cop may be repeated in court and often taken as-fact!

In brief: Unless you're in certain, immediate danger or there's a lot of blood, be VERY hesitant to call the cops.

Just call the fucking cops, you paranoid cowardly bastards.

nic, is back in town, check with him.

I also live in the woods and we had something stolen from our car. A neighbor had her purse stolen from her car the same night (she'd forgotten she left it in there after unloading groceries and such). This happened around the same time you mentioned Dave.

More recently I had a tire stolen off the car I keep parked up on Wards Grove. Guess I should have just done like all my neighbors here in the Woods and left it parked in a visitor spot so I could have kept an eye on it.

I've lived here six years. I'm over it. This area is going to shit. I like my neighbors and my street but we're surrounded by ghetto sections of town houses and apartments. Would be helpful if there were streetlights to deter some of the thieves.