Details emerge from December robbery
This past December, two men who had just had good nights at the MGM National Harbor casino in Oxon Hill, Maryland, were robbed when they arrived home. The public didn’t know much else about the incident, but through a search warrant, Prince William County police have revealed that serious violence was involved and the victims are fortunate to be alive.
The reason a search warrant was issued, resulting in us finding out further details about what happened, is because the suspects – there are at least three of them – are thought to have been the perpetrators of a similar crime in October. The search warrant is required to request DNA from one of them in order to attempt to link the two robberies.
The Washington Post reports that the suspects have been identified, but the paper has not published their names yet because they have not been formally charged. The two victims have not been named.
Victims stalked for 20 miles
According to what the detectives wrote in the search warrant, the two victims had a successful night of blackjack at MGM National Harbor. They cashed out early in the morning of December 19th, 2019, one leaving the casino with $39,000, the other with $3,000.
Retrieved surveillance footage shows other men – presumably the suspects – communicating on cell phones while following the victims through the casino and to the parking garage. This is a common tactic criminals use. They watch gamblers to see who wins big and then follow them to their car. This is why it is recommended that you ask for a security escort if you win a sizable chunk of change. Now, that might not have mattered in this case, as the robbers did not approach the victims in the parking garage, but it is possible that they would have been scared away.
The victims drove home to Woodbridge, Virginia, about 20 miles away. They stopped at a gas station, where security cameras showed a gray SUV following them as they left.
One man shot, $42,000 stolen
A Ring surveillance camera captured much of the rest. When the victims arrived at one of their homes in Woodbridge at 1:40am, two armed, masked men emerged from what appears to be the same gray SUV and forced the driver out of the car. They struck him in the head about 20 times and shot him in the arm and took his $39,000.
A third man, also wearing a mask, shoved a gun in the other victim’s back and made him lie on the ground. He took the victim’s $3,000. The robbers then fled the scene. The man who was shot, in the meantime, is getting better in the hospital.
