Teens attack teens on Old Chapel Road By JANE MCHUGH Staff Writer
A group of teenagers was attacked and robbed by another group of teens early Saturday morning on Old Chapel Road across from Belair Estates. One or two of the assailants had handguns.
One boy was so badly beaten, he was hospitalized for two days. And a girl suffered a sexual assault during the attack.
Two credit cards were stolen. The attackers went online and used one of them to buy $500 worth of clothing and other items but the credit card company declined to honor them, said the boy victim's mother.
Descriptions of the crime came from the boy and girl, who are dating each other.
Prince George's County Police public affairs officer Cpl. Clinton Copeland was unable to find a record of the crime in a police computer, although he was given the case number.
The teens said it happened around 3 a.m. as they walked down Old Chapel Road from High Bridge Estates, where they were at one of the teens' houses practicing in a band.
All the victims - three males and two females - live in the Bowie, Crofton and Annapolis areas. After band practice, they walked to the 7-Eleven on Route 197.
According to the girl, 15, and the boy, 17, they encountered five teens outside Belair Estates, all clad in white shirts and blue jeans, who began yelling and cursing at them. One pulled out a handgun and told them to, "stop, it was a holdup," the girl said. "The big thing that scared us was the gun. It was, like, a black revolver. He held it right up to my chest and snatched my purse away. Then he took the gun to the back of my boyfriend's neck and took his wallet and car keys."
He made the other two boys get on their knees and robbed them of a wallet and a cell phone, she said. The remaining girl in the victimized group was left alone because she was carrying nothing valuable, she said.
A second teen attacker had a gun, the girl said. "He came up and grabbed my left breast. I smacked his hand. My boyfriend was, like, 'Hey, don't do that.' " For trying to defend her, "four or five of these guys started kicking him. They beat him for two or three minutes."
The attackers appeared around 17 or 18 years old but one looked younger, the girl said.
One of the boys who was forced to kneel had thrown his cell phone in some bushes. He retrieved it and called 911, she said. He remained on the phone with a police dispatcher during the 30 to 45 minutes it took for Prince George's County police to arrive, she said. "He was really scared and wanted to let them know what happened."
Her boyfriend said he saw two guns during the assault. He said one attacker made him lay down and kicked him in the ribs and stomped on his back. His spleen was injured, he said.
The parents of the boy and girl are upset because they think the police aren't acting aggressively in doing a follow-up investigation that would result in some arrests.
The boy's mother said Tuesday at least some of the assailants should have been nabbed by now because the attempted online purchases are traceable. She said she called her credit card company about her son's card being stolen and the company said they had declined to process purchases made an hour or two after the attack. Shortly after hearing that, around dawn Saturday, she called the police detective assigned to the case to give him that information. "He said, 'Call back tomorrow,' " according to the mother. "I said that I had all the information here" about the computer purchases. "I thought he could begin to trace them right away. I said, 'Why don't you write it down now?' He said, 'OK.' "
The detective sounded reluctant to investigate, she said.
The father of the attacked girl said his daughter "was badly, badly shaking and just terrified" afterward. Although the officers at the scene "seemed friendly enough," the detective hasn't returned his calls, he said. "I'm trying to find out why they can't get the people who did a sexual assault, armed robbery and attempted murder. My concern is that the more time goes by, the harder it will be to find the suspects. And there's a perfect way to catch them because of the online purchases. I'm also afraid because the kids that did this have some of our kids' drivers' licenses and know their identities," the father said.
A similar attack happened in early May in the Pizza Hut parking lot on Superior Lane. That crime was investigated by Bowie Police, who said two juveniles were jumped, robbed and beaten by seven other juveniles, one of whom was apprehended. It's not known if the same attackers were involved in both incidents.
