More than 100 North Laurel residents, shocked by three threatening incidents involving a group of youngsters on a single day earlier this month, showed up at a community meeting Thursday, Nov. 17 at the North Laurel Community Center to learn more about what happened — and how to make sure it does not happen again.
"What keeps crime down in a neighborhood is your neighbors being vigilant and caring," said Jennifer Bauer, one of the area residents who attended the meeting, which was sponsored by the North Laurel Civic Association.
Within the span of about an hour Nov. 3, a group of young males surrounded a woman driving a vehicle on Old Lantern Way, surrounded a school bus with 10 to 12 students from Laurel Woods Elementary School that was driving in the area of Covered Wagon Drive and Barrel House Road and then had an altercation on Barrel House Road with an off-duty police officer from another jurisdiction, who is also a security guard for the development.
"I cannot say with a certainty that it is the same group. I think it is, " said Howard County Police Capt. Ellsworth A. Jones III, commander of the police department's southern district. "We think they're all related. … It's a matter of proving it at this point."
Jones, who moderated the meeting, said a juvenile was arrested for allegedly shoving the off-duty police officer; two other youths were involved, but have not yet been identified.
"They are members of your community. They are the teenagers that live in your neighborhood," he said. "This is completely abnormal. I can't tell you why. I don't know — especially because it's kids from within this community."
Jones said the area has seen a significant decrease in crimes reported over the past three years. No other incidents have been reported since Nov. 3, he said.
More police
Jones also detailed what the police department is doing about the incidents — and what the community can do.
Police presence in the area, including plainclothes police officers, has been bolstered, he said. A detective is working to learn the names of more of the youngsters who were part the group. "We've gotten a couple of names, so there will be messages sent and hopefully that will trickle out," he said.
Even if charges can't be filed against the youths, officers "can knock on the door, talk to mom and dad and send a message that this is something that's not acceptable in the community," he said. "What it boils down to is we have to get the community involved and the parents involved to figure out why the kids did this."
North Laurel resident Gina Brown said after the meeting that she does not feel any more or less secure.
"I don't know anybody that's been affected, but the fact that it's going on around us concerns me," she said.
Kecia Powell, also of North Laurel, said she has seen a growing number of young people who are not being watched, but are just congregating in the middle of streets, not immediately moving out of the way of traffic.
"There is a greater need for all of us to pull together: teachers, parents and the police department," she said. "Something out of this should grow — some kind of organization that'll pull the community together."
Officer Mike Johnson said the area already has a couple of active Neighborhood Watch organizations and police would be happy to help residents set up more.
North Laurel resident Matt Scilipoti said the incidents were jarring, if unusual for the community.
"I wanted to see if more of it is happening, if we were not aware of things that are happening," he said after the meeting. "And we found out it was isolated and it probably was just a one-time thing. That's what we expected, but we wanted to make sure."