Capitol Hill robbery suspect linked to dozens of attacks, police say

Yavuz and Hulya Bolukbasi were on a stroll through Stanton Park, taking a quick break from the bustling French bistro they run on Capitol Hill as the last of that Saturday night’s diners settled in for their meals.

The couple said they talked about how they loved the neighborhood and how safe they felt, even after dark.

Then, about a half-block from their restaurant, Bistro Cacao, they said a small dark-colored hatchback came to a stop on the crosswalk. Two men jumped out wearing ski masks and hoods. One had a gun.

“He took the gun and put it to my chest and asked me for my wallet and phone,” Yavuz Bolukbasi said.

D.C. police say the couple on that early November night were victims 27 and 28 out of a total of 49 they allege were attacked by the same people believed to be responsible for more than two-dozen assaults, robberies and carjackings since May. Since the onset of pandemic lockdowns, there has been a rise in robberies and a sharp spike in carjackings across the District and the region — even as crime of other types has begun to tick down.

Most of the robberies attributed to the group were concentrated in and around the Capitol Hill area, residential blocks east and northeast of Union Station. Last week, police said they arrested one of the men — identified as 20-year-old Deangelo Dwight Richardson — three weeks after a key tip from the Bolukbasis, who provided a license plate number for the hatchback. Police said they are looking for at least one accomplice and possibly others who served as drivers.

Prosecutors charged Richardson in four of the robberies. He faces four counts of using a firearm in a crime of violence, three counts of armed carjacking and one count of armed robbery. Police have publicly linked Richardson to 21 additional attacks involving nearly 50 victims. Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office, said the investigation into those cases is continuing. Richardson has been ordered detained and has a court hearing set for next week. His attorney did not respond to an interview request.

D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), which includes Capitol Hill, called the apprehension “a pivotal arrest.”

The robberies, D.C. police Capt. Jeffrey Kopp said, “are certainly part of a larger pattern” in areas throughout the District. Kopp is a supervisor in the Criminal Investigation Bureau, which includes a carjacking task force launched in February last year. The task force took the lead on the Capitol Hill cases.

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Charging documents filed in court describe similar robberies around Capitol Hill. Typically, a driver of a stolen vehicle stayed behind the wheel as two men jumped out — one with a gun — and demanded wallets and phones. Victims told police the men seemed rushed, sometimes abandoning the robbery if a person yelled or resisted, or if a bystander wandered by. Stolen credit cards were used to buy gas, fast food and items at drug and grocery stores. Many vehicles, cards and phones were later recovered by authorities.

The attacks occurred mostly between 6 p.m. and midnight, many in clusters minutes and blocks apart. People targeted included friends walking home from a brewpub, tourists from Poland, couples with small children and construction workers at a work site.

Robberies with guns in D.C. have climbed about 30 percent from the start of pre-pandemic closures through 2021, and are trending upward this year. Carjackings spiked from 142 in 2019 to 426 in 2020 and leveled off last year. But statistics show carjackings are up about 16 percent this year compared with this time in 2021. Nearly three-quarters involved firearms.

Kopp said carjackings and robberies remain a priority for the department, and monthly spikes have eased. This year, police said they have closed 114 carjackings by making 122 arrests, and more than two-thirds of those taken into custody were younger than age 18. The area patrolled by the police department’s First District, which includes Capitol Hill, has been hit particularly hard, with carjackings up 54 percent this year compared to last.

The first break in the Capitol Hill robberies came in July, after police said a masked gunman wearing a baseball cap and a hoodie carjacked a white Toyota Camry near Gallaudet University. An hour later, police spotted the Camry on East Capitol Street and pursued it into Northeast Washington, using the police helicopter Falcon to help track it.

Police said they had to discontinue the chase on the ground, but the helicopter tracked the Camry to an area in Northeast, where a man abandoned the vehicle and ran into an apartment building where his mother lived. Inside the vehicle, police said they found a black baseball cap and a pandemic-style face mask on the front seat. Officers weren’t able to locate the man.

Later, police found the victim’s stolen credit cards had been used at two gas stations and a restaurant in Southeast and Northeast Washington. Surveillance video showed a man with a stolen gold Chevrolet Malibu with Virginia plates, dark-tinted windows and gold trim. The man on the video was wearing distinctive shoes observed in previous robberies — sneakers with a yellow stripe wrapped around the side.

Police said they identified Richardson as a person of interest in some of the robberies, but did not yet understand the full scope of the case. Authorities said they could not locate him, and robberies continued.

The person robbed near Gallaudet was only victim No. 17.

The Malibu proved elusive. On July 26, police in Alexandria, Va., spotted and pursued such a vehicle over the 14th Street bridge into D.C. The driver escaped, police said.

Officers found a Malibu matching the description two days later outside an apartment building on 30th Street SE, according to the charging documents. This time, though, the license plates were from Maine.

Meanwhile, robberies continued, including two on July 30 involving a Malibu. One of the victim’s stolen phones pinged at a gas station on Benning Road in Northeast.

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Police said they rushed to the station in time to see a Malibu with Maine plates speeding out of the lot. They said they were unable to pursue, and the cellphone went offline.

A short time later, police said they found the Malibu abandoned on the side of D.C. Route 295. The driver’s side door was open, and police said they found a loaded “ghost gun,” which is made from a kit so it does not have a serial number, a victim’s wallet and iPhone and a McDonald’s receipt with a stolen credit card number.

Police said they learned the Malibu had a GPS tracking device, and that the vehicle had been parked often at the apartment complex on 30th Street SE. In August, police said they searched the apartment. In a bedroom, police said they found paperwork in Richardson’s name, two stolen credit cards and 11 rounds of ammunition.

But Richardson still had not been found.

Police said the group seemed to stop its robbery spree during August, September and October.

Then, police said, there were eight robberies on Nov. 5 and 6, most in the Stanton Park area.

One of them targeted Yavuz and Hulya Bolukbasi.

The couple said that when the Hatchback stopped on the sidewalk, they figured somebody needed help. But one man quickly emerged with a gun, Hulya Bolukbasi said, first demanding her husband’s phone.

“My hands were up,” the husband said. “I told him I didn’t have it.”

The gunman turned to his wife, who was holding her phone in her hand.

Hulya Bolukbasi said the man grabbed her phone and demanded the passcode. She gave it to him.

The couple said the assailants got distracted and quickly took off in the hatchback, but not before they got the license plate number. “It was very, very scary,” Hulya Bolukbasi said. “I never would have thought this would happen in the Capitol Hill area.”

They called police and walked a half-block to their restaurant.

“I love this neighborhood,” Hulya Bolukbasi said. “I don’t want people to think it’s not safe.”

A dozen more robberies took place until police finally caught up with Richardson, after a holdup Nov. 26, two blocks south of Lincoln Park.

Six minutes after the robbery, police said they spotted in the Navy Yard area a black Mitsubishi Mirage hatchback allegedly used in the crime. Police pursued as the driver sped into Southeast Washington, and stopped at the entrance to the apartment complex on 30th Street Southeast, the same one police had searched months earlier.

Police said the hatchback’s license plate number read JA965, one digit off from the JA995 given by the Bolukbasis.

A man ran from the car, but, police said, they stopped him as he tried to unlock a back door to the complex. It was Richardson, authorities said. The female driver was charged with fleeing police; another passenger was freed without being charged.

Police said they found text messages on the female driver’s phone dated Nov. 10, an hour after several robberies had occurred. Police said Richardson asked her if she threw out the phones, according to the charging document.

“lte did them joints work?” she asked.

“No locked,” he answered. “All of them.”