Caught on camera: Man smashes ANC commissioner's car window, steals purse
WASHINGTON - A D.C. official is among the latest victims of car break-ins and theft and video cameras caught the suspect smashing her car window and running off with her purse.
Tricia Duncan, 3D02 commissioner for Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3D, shared a video on X over the weekend regarding a Dec. 20 incident around 1:30 p.m. Duncan said that day, she was meeting with another commissioner and constituent by 49th Street and Van Ness in the Spring Valley neighborhood.
"I feel like I was doing constituent services and my job when this happened," she said.
Duncan’s car is equipped with cameras, which showed a person smashing her passenger window shortly after she left the car. It was roughly 90 seconds after she left, she said.
"I lecture people on not leaving stuff in their car. I would say I am extremely diligent of not leaving things in the car," she said. "I would say for every 100 times that I took everything out of the front seat of my car, one time I might not."
The post has been viewed thousands of times on X since she first uploaded the video online.
"He gets out of the car. He uses what police have told me is called a ‘center punch,’ that they are originally designed to shatter windows if a car is submerged or you’re trying to get someone out of a car quickly. He’s got one," she said. "I was extremely frustrated at first with myself, because this is the number one kind of theft in our neighborhood. We are extremely lucky not to have a lot of violent crime. We have had some carjackings, but they have significantly been reduced, but this is the biggest crime in our neighborhood."
Duncan said since her original post, she has heard from a number of residents.
"I have had several people reach out to me saying they have been victims of this sort of crime without proof it was actually this individual, but I have also been sent pictures from other Tesla’s of this person’s clear as day high definition picture," she said. "I do think the police have been wonderful and they’re trying to identify this individual, but this is a non-violent crime and is not maybe the highest priority of what we all want our police to focus on. However, this is menacing and it’s not good for a city to allow this to go on."
D.C. police have not indicated whether they believe the person caught on camera is responsible for any other crimes, but did confirm a report was filed for the Dec. 20 incident.
Duncan said while she has not coordinated with police, she is willing to put up a personal reward for a correct identification of this person. Anyone with information can be reached at 3D02@anc.dc.gov.