Today is Labor Day, traditionally marking the end of summer vacation. Last day in the pool, supervised by our Czech Life Guard, and the shuttering of one of Arlington’s little gems of active leisure. So, that is personal level activity. In the Endless Campaign, the first mail-in ballots are supposed to be hitting the mail-boxes this week. The Mid East is on a hot boil, so the County-level chaos gives a full dimension array of activity in tumultuous times.
The one here yesterday featured at least four armed men, twenty-five or thirty armed officers and hundreds of panicked shoppers. So, that is a start to our Labor Day. We don’t claim to be listening to the Arlington Police tactical radio. Our pal James Curren actually gets paid to do that, and he and a couple of his associates at Arlington Now do a nice job of capturing some of the lunacy in progress around us.
Disclaimer Inserted by Legal Intern Melissa: “Don’t get us wrong!-There may be more crime at the moment, and more spectacular versions of it, but it is nothing “new,” just a reflection that we are all waking around with video recorders that can transmit as fast a thought!”
So, slouched around the morning picnic table, the Creative Section thought about the events of the last couple weeks as the build-up to yesterday’s carnival. There was the accidental shooting over at the Ballston Mall a couple weeks ago. We could have heard it from the patio, just a few blocks up Pershing Street. Not a big deal, just a deranged man who attacked a cop and got his hand on the gun. No one was hurt, though a dog-walker nearby got his hounds involved in the minor chaos.
Then, there were the explosions over in the Lubber Run Park, resolved with the arrest of Mr. Jack Peters of Clarendon, though there is some speculation there may be more to that story.
Passing right by our stately pink building, Candidat Trump visited Arlington National Cemetery last week, and the campaign controversy over whether a former President could be pictured there, and he drove right past Big Pink on the way to the Eden Center where we had lunch the day after he did. That afternoon was marked by two more gun-related incidents over at Pentagon Row that made news as there was a roar of outlaw motorcycles and ATV’s descended on us Saturday.
Hundreds of them roared between Quinn’s Conner Bar and Saigon Noodles and took an illegal right on Clarendon Blvd and then a left at the 7-11. The parade arousing the ire of some residents and our police, though that was not nearly as excited as what went down yesterday afternoon.
That one was over at Pentagon City and featured U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who had earlier been concerned with the murder of the six hostages in Gaza and communicated with the President on alert at his beach house in Rehoboth. The Fashion Center Mall across the parking lot from the office in which some of us worked for a few years.
The Macy’s on the south side was a place of refuge from the Pentagon’s tumult of the War on Terror when some of us worked or visited the Pentagon, and we could vanish into some decent fashion if things got too intense there.
There was a melee yesterday. James clued us in on a string of armed robberies and a carjacking with a Cabinet Secretary on the periphery that added to the excitement at the Pentagon City Mall.
The first robbery happened around 3:45 p.m. in parking garage under the mall. The thief was armed with a short barrel rifle and stole someone’s watch. The man then slid his rifle in a backpack and wandered purposely up the escalators to the top floor of the mall where he pulled out the rifle and robbed a second victim of another watch. Police units responded to calls for assistance but couldn’t locate him, since he fled upstairs.
Then, there were simultaneous reports of shots fired and smoke inside the Fashion Centre. People were running from the mall and broken glass was spread in front of the Tourneau watch and jewelry store.
Adding to the alarm were reports that a high level federal official was shopping at the mall at the time. That turned out to be Secretary of State Blinken, who was being evacuated from Macy’s by his protective detail, which may have included the five armed personnel seen advancing toward the store and shoppers and carjackers were also flying around.
You can imagine that would have added to the pandemonium on all three levels of the mall, plus the parking garage underneath and Pentagon North Parking across Army-Navy Drive.
The sound of shots actually turned out to have been the suspects using sledgehammers to smash display cases in the Tourneau store, which must have been darned noisy. The smoke turned out not to be explosives but vapor from a fire extinguisher they used during the robbery.
A woman shopper talked to Jim. “I’m at Pentagon City and just heard what I thought was several gunshots. Everyone was running. I was in the SneakerMart- the sneaker store on the 3rd floor- and was isolated, so I had no idea if the police are massing.” She shook her head. “That’s enough of an adrenaline rush for one day,” she said. “I’m outta here.”
The Virginia State Police were on scene to assist Arlington County units due to a separate incident that had DC, Pentagon and Arlington County Police converging on an armed carjacking in the District. They were following a Toyota Highlander reported stolen during an armed carjacking which took I-395 into Arlington at the same time.
The three teen-aged male perpetrators from the Tourneau robbery then fled on foot toward the carjackers in the lot. Security guards threw shoppers out and closed the mall. An army of police officers chased the three people from that vehicle onto the grounds of the Pentagon as the secretary shopped at the Macys with his security detail while the watch thief with his rifle was being detained above.
You can see things were a little confused with five security units- three of them police, two store security and one bodyguard detail involved. All of them armed. Add the assorted sirens from the three law enforcement departments and it was quite the afternoon of excitement.
So, that is why we try to keep our shopping in Arlington limited to the early morning. And have now transitioned to delivery stuff where we can cover the patio while it is in progress, you know?
James Cullum and the staff of Arlington Now contributed to this report
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