The Department of Public Safety is investigating a string of five thefts and burglaries of items totaling nearly $1,500 from buildings at the Georgetown University Medical Center.
The incidents occurred over a two-day period starting Jan. 26. DPS Associate Director Joseph Smith declined to comment on whether the incidents are connected but confirmed that an investigation is ongoing.
The first two incidents took place at the New Research Building on Jan. 26. Video footage from a surveillance camera showed a man stealing a computer, a computer monitor and a scanner from an open loading dock at 2:25 p.m. The suspect then loaded the equipment into a white, four-door Toyota Corolla that was parked outside the dock. The total value of the stolen equipment was estimated at $300 but could be as much as $900, according to a Metropolitan Police Department report.
The report describes the suspect as a 35- to 40-year-old black male, about 5-foot-10 and weighing 200 pounds. He was dressed in a black jacket and a blue hat with gray pants and a gray shirt.
A little more than two hours later, a suspect of the same description and an accomplice, who was not described in the MPD report, took two freezers from the same loading dock and loaded them into a white Dodge pickup truck.
Three more offices were burglarized the following day.
At 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 27, an unknown suspect broke into an office on the fourth floor of the Medical-Dental Building and stole a $700 safe. The professor who reported the burglary is licensed to possess controlled substances, including cocaine and morphine, for research purposes. He reported to MPD that the safe was usually used to store those drugs, though it was empty at the time of the burglary.
Another office on the fourth floor of Building D was broken into around the same time. Though nothing was reported stolen, a desk drawer was broken when the burglar forced it open.
Fifty minutes after the first two burglaries, $235 was stolen from a safe in an office on the second floor of the same building.
No description is available for the suspects involved in any of the Jan. 27 incidents.
