Safety This Summer: A Q&A With Capt. John Damskey

On Aug. 1, Capt. John Damskey became commander of the Mongtomery County Police Department's 4th District, which covers downtown Wheaton, Glenmont and Kemp Mill, among other areas. Wheaton Patch sat down with Damskey to discuss the 4th district, recent crime trends and what residents can do to stay safe.

Wheaton Patch: What was the transition like between you and Capt. Nancy Demme?

Capt. John Damskey: Captain Demme's done a great job down here, so it makes my job easier initially; I'm not walking into a district that's not coordinated. After we were notified of the transfer, Captain Demme and I sat down a few times. She gathered a lot of information that I would need, and then we went through some of the projects she had started. It's important when we hand off command in a police department, it's just not a bright line in the sand, where one command ends and one begins. You need to continue that good work.

Patch: What's the dominant crime you've seen this summer?

JD: We've been down across the board, except for burglaries, and now we've made some great arrests recently. There was an individual breaking into houses near Einstein High School just the other day. My hope is that we can get ahead of that and find the groups that are responsible, because obviously you just don't do one burglary.

Patch: What can residents do to prevent burglaries?

JD: One, you want to make your house as secure as possible. Lock your doors, etc. We've seen a spike in probably the last three years of thefts from autos. One of the best things you can do is just lock your cars. It's often a crime of opportunity. They'll go through and steal a GPS, spare charge, CDs — anything that's not nailed down.

When it comes to crime, most people around here were brought up just like me. Unless they're kicking in the door, don't call the police; we don't want to bother the police. We've got to change that mentality. A lot of times, we've gotten a call from a resident saying, "This doesn't quite look right," and it's not right. So if it seems suspicious, we want people to pick up the phone and call 911 if it's an emergency and (301) 278-8000 if it's not, and let us know something is going on.

Patch: In terms of outreach to the immigrant population, how do you try to get past the perception of the police as someone they shouldn't talk to?

JD: There's two sides of the coin. There's an enforcement and a safety issue as a police officer for your community, and you also have a trust issue that you want to extend to everyone, regardless of race, age, ethnicity or religion….

With our immigrant population, whether it be Latino or otherwise, it's important that they understand — and our chief and our county executive is very clear on this — that we are here to ensure the safety of all, bottom line. We don't ask immigrant status. That's important, because if you're afraid you're going to be deported if you come forward as a victim of a crime, we're not going to get that information. We're just not.

Patch: Are there any specific outreach programs that this district is doing?

JD: Not specifically. You prove it by our actions. Sometimes we have day laborer problems at Home Depot, but that's private property.… They don't want day laborers congregating there, and that's their decision. So when they call us, we do that.

Many times what we do, if the management comes out and says you need to leave — for whatever reason — and they don't, they call the police. A lot of times, we'll give people a trespass notice and say look, if you come back, you could be arrested, but you need to leave now. Overwhelmingly, people are pretty understanding when you ask them to leave.

Patch: What about crime prevention?

JD: Any officer can do a security survey, which is an assessment of your house or your business. And we look at things like locks and windows and lighting, those areas that a bad guy would use to get into your house.… With residences, we need to have adequate lighting, make sure you have numbers on your house so we can find your address, and make sure there are not bushes in front of the windows.

We do a security survey and hand you copy which says, this is what we found, and this is what we recommend. You can request one from our office.

Patch: Do the crime stats in the area support the perception of Wheaton as a high-crime area, in relation to the rest of the county?

JD: We need to realize that if that's someone's perception, then that's their reality — whether it's accurate or not. If you don't feel safe, then we need to address that.

In a central business district, your crime is going to be higher than, say, out north of [Route] 108 in Olney. Crime is higher in Washington, D.C., as an urban district in comparison to the outlying residential area.… I don't think it's any less safe, but I think the population is greater, so the percentage of crime is going to be higher. Which means, we as a police department have to have an understanding and dedicate more resources to it when appropriate.

As far as crime trends across the county? Is crime higher here in Wheaton [central business district]? I don't think that's accurate, but that's not the important part. The important part is you're hearing that from people.

Interview has been condensed and edited.