Police Beat
Juveniles jumped
Two juveniles were jumped, robbed and beaten by seven juveniles in the Pizza Hut parking lot on Superior Lane, Bowie Police said. At press time, one arrest had been made. A police officer happened to be patrolling the vicinity when the fight erupted Saturday at 8:20 p.m. As soon as the assailants saw him, they ran. The officer managed to apprehend one of them, age 17, as he fled across Route 450. The victims had minor injuries and were treated at the scene. A cell phone had been taken from one of them.
BHS bus fracas
A 14-year-old was charged with assaulting an 18-year-old while both rode the school bus to Bowie High School, police said. The two got into a verbal argument, prompting the suspect to grab the victim by the hair and begin punching him in the face, police said. The bus driver broke up the fight. The victim suffered cuts and bruises.
Boy hit by car
It could have cost a boy his life, but the 12-year-old suffered only scrapes and bruises when a car struck him after he stepped off his school bus, obeying the common sense rules by remaining in the crosswalk.
The car that hit him was behind several vehicles that had come to a halt for the bus, as required by law. But its driver decided to pass the stopped cars and proceeded to the right to overtake them, the boy's mother said. "For some reason, no crossing guard was on duty" as the bus dropped her son off in front of Whitehall Elementary School, she said. He was hit in the crosswalk. "Thankfully the driver was not going very fast and slammed on his brakes. My son turned into the car, so his book bag cushioned him a bit," she said. The boy was taken to Children's Hospital and determined to be OK.
Meanwhile, his mother, who talked to the Blade-News, was on an airplane flying home from San Diego. "I landed around the same time he was being released from the hospital," she said. The mother was heartened by all the people who stopped to help her son. "The firefighters, police and parents - they were great," she said. "I have to say that so many great people stepped right in and took really good care of my son." At least 10 other cars stopped to help, she said.
Bowie resident Joseph Robertson Woodward, 19, of the 14500 block of London Lane was charged with failing to yield at the crosswalk and striking a pedestrian. He was driving a Ford Focus, police said.
D.C. tax fraud
A guilty plea has been entered in the property tax fraud case that the FBI and IRS say cost the District of Columbia government tens of millions of dollars. Ricardo R. Walters, 33, of Fort Washington, pleaded guilty Friday in federal court in Greenbelt to receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit money laundering, according to a news release. Walters is the nephew of Harriette Walters, the suspected ringleader in the case, who worked in the property tax rebate office. In the scheme, officials said fake property tax rebates were converted into checks and issued to Walters and her friends and relatives, who allegedly spent millions of dollars on luxury goods and homes. Three Bowie people are implicated in the alleged scam.
