GLEN BURNIE, Md. — She had been spotted sleeping on a porch along Oakwood Road in Glen Burnie, but when a neighbor spotted the woman walking around Gene Nerf’s home as if she was casing it, she called police.
“She asked for help,” said Nerf, “She was homeless and she needed some food or anything. She said, ‘Anything you could do to help.’”
Nerf helped her out with a few dollars and some food, but hours later, when he ran to the store, she apparently decided to help herself, allegedly entered the house and stole his 80-year-old wife’s purse prompting a second 911 call from the neighbors.
“They had her sitting on the ground here with her hands cuffed behind her,” said Nerf.
Little did the officer credited with making that arrest know that he’d be making another similar bust just four days later.
This time, a man who appeared to be drunk, climbed on a woman’s balcony at an apartment complex on Mountain Ridge Road and tried to force his way into her home through the sliding glass door while she dialed 911.
“He responded immediately and, again, was at the scene in three to four minutes,” said Marc Limansky of the Anne Arundel County Police Department.
That resulted in another arrest.
Two crimes less than a mile apart cut short by emergency calls and quick responses that could have easily put the owners’ at risk.
“Burglary is typically a property crime, but if a suspect encounters a person who is home, the situation can change to the worst very quickly,” said Limansky, “They could startle them. They could do something they might not otherwise have done.”
