Neighborhoods alarmed along York Road corridor

TOWSON, Md. - Caught on camera… a suspect who waited outside a Walgreen’s on York road until a customer walked out of the store and was robbed at gunpoint.

Police say the victim is 88-years old.

"Just coming back out to the lot and somebody holds her up," said John Keenan of the Idlewylde Community Association who fears the holdup has left many of the people who live in the neighborhood doubting their safety, "I gotta tell you, it's making a lot of people nervous.  So you're starting to wonder, 'Should I go out alone?  Should I take somebody with me when I go out?'  Everybody that shops... that lives here you know, we shop over in the York Road corridor.  We have a lot of elderly people in the neighborhood use the Walgreens over there."

About 48 hours after that robbery, a man approached three Dumbarton Middle School students as they were walking home along Regester Avenue and asked for directions, but then he demanded they hand over their cellphones.

"A weapon was implied.  The victims never saw a gun.  However, the suspect told one of the girls that he would shoot her if she did not give him the phone," said Cpl. Cathy Batton of the Baltimore County Police Department.

The girls escaped unharmed, but less than an hour later, it appears the same suspect struck again targeting a Towson High School student in front of the historic Villa Anneslie two blocks away and this time, he displayed a handgun.

Police have increased patrols in the area, but now some fear those who live there may take the law into their own hands.

"A lot of the fathers... you start to hear about middle school kids getting robbed in broad daylight,” said Keenan, “You have a lot of fathers that are pretty upset right now so they're going to be out patrolling at night... out walking their dogs more just keeping their eye out for people that don't belong in the neighborhood."