Source: Stephen J. Cohen / Getty
Joe Biden’s granddaughter wasn’t the only person in the nation’s capital to have their car broken into over the weekend.
Black-populated social media timelines have been replete with reports of hundreds of car break-ins in Washington, D.C., on Sunday during a Rod Wave concert.
A handful of the alleged break-ins were documented on social media with photos of damaged cars that had smashed windows and their interiors appearing to have been rifled through.
They were reported to have happened near and around the Capital One Center, an entertainment arena located in downtown Northwest D.C. where popular rapper and songwriter Rod Wave was performing at a stop on his national Nostagia Tour.
The social media account for Alan Henny, who posts breaking news in and around the metro D.C. area, reported early Monday morning that “Police officers are taking numerous reports of THEFTS FROM AUTOS in #DowntownDC in the past few hours.”
Henny provided the street names and locations where the break-ins were reported – locations near and around the Capital One Center, which is at F and 6th Streets NW, an area circled in a map appended to Henny’s post.
Hours later, the “SAY CHEESE!” social media account claimed in a viral post that “Over 200 cars were reportedly broken into last night at Rod Wave’s concert in D.C.”
The widely shared post was liked more than 25,000 times, reposted more than 4,000 times and viewed more than 5 million times as of Tuesday afternoon.
The reports come amid a reported surge in D.C. of car-related crimes, including carjackings and break-ins, like what happened to Biden’s granddaughter on the same day as the reported break-ins around the Rod Wave concert.
Also, on Sunday night in Northwest Washington, a Secret Service agent assigned to protect Naomi Biden fired his gun at people suspected of trying to break into her car.
The agents detailed to her “encountered possibly three individuals breaking a window on a parked and unoccupied government vehicle,” said Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications for the Secret Service. “During this encounter, a federal agent discharged a service weapon and it is believed no one was struck.”
D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) downplayed the reports of hundreds of cars being broken into and instead said the number was much smaller.
An MPD public information officer told NewsOne in an email that the department only had “approximately 10 reports” of vehicles that were broken into in streets surrounding the Capital One Center. The public information officer said no arrests had been made as of Monday night.
Official MPD statistics show that there’s been a 98% upswing in motor vehicle thefts this year compared to 2022. Thefts from autos showed a 1% decline, however. Data for car break-ins were not listed separately.
The police statistics are only based on reports they receive.
Last month, ABC 7 News in D.C. reported that car thefts in the city were reaching “alarming levels.”
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