Crime & Safety

Ten Memorable Northern Virginia Crimes in 2011

A look back at local crimes in 2011.

Northern Virginia residents aren't likely to forget some of the crimes that occurred in the area over the past year. The incidents over the past year ranged from a serial butt-slasher to a shooting at a barber shop. 

 

Patch editors have collected a list of some notable crimes in Northern Virginia during 2011, ranked in no particular order.

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1. 

At least nine women were slashed during 2011 at Fairfax County shopping centers, including Tyson's Corner, Fair Oaks and Greenbriar. Police believe that Johnny D. Guillen Pimentel, 40, was responsible and fled the area following surrounding the crime. 

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2. 

In August, officers with the Northern Virginia Gang Task Force  in Falls Church looking for illegal gambling machines. On , five Vietnamese-Americans charged with illegal gambling appeared before a City of Falls Church judge who acquitted four of the previously charged people.

3.  A Herndon family was robbed and abducted from their home in the Dulles Greene apartment complex on Thursday, July 28. A man entered through an unlocked door, implied he had a gun and eventually were put in a vehicle and driven to an ATM to withdraw money. No one in the family was seriously injured. The suspect is described as black, in his 30s, about 5-feet 9-inches tall and lean. He wore a dark hat, a dark, baggy sweat suit, black athletic shoes and dark cloth gloves, and has not yet been captured. 

4. 

A former employee of the the Belle View Barber Shop entered and fired multiple rounds inside the business around 2 p.m. on April 13, killing one person and injuring another. Following a police search around the Route 1 corridor and at the suspect's home in Annandale, Hung T. Nguyen eventually turned himself in that night.

The surviving victim, a 38-year-old man, was taken to a hospital and sustained non life-threatening injuries to the lower body. Kingstowne resident Le D. Hoang, 39, died at the scene.

5.  A 72-year-old Annandale man was charged with with two counts of attempted forcible sodomy for allegedly forcing a Falls Church woman to watch pornography before sexually assaulting her back in July. The 41-year-old woman did not suffer any injuries, but according to Fairfax County police, she was reportedly locked in a room at the  and made to watch a video depicting sexually explicit acts.

6. 

Man Ha Park, 53, was charged with the stabbing murder of Mihwa Kim, 49. In a letter dated before the attack,  (who was his ex-girlfriend). 

7.

A McLean psychiatrist was killed by a patient in July. The patient then apparently killed herself. Little is known about why the Vienna woman shot him, but Dr. Mark Lawrence was well-respected within his field. 

8.

Detectives received an anonymous tip through Crime Solvers in early October. The tip led to the arrest of Burke resident Un Y. Lahr for selling K-2 to George Mason University students at Lee’s Market in University Mall.

9.

In three incidents, two male suspects in dark clothing robbed at gunpoint victims responding to a car ad on Craigslist. Two of the robberies occurred at the same location in the Newington area and the third in Clifton. Virginia State Police are investigating, but police have not confirmed that the robberies are the work of the same suspects. 

10.

David Alan Patton was sentenced Aug. 19 to 50 years in prison, with 10 years suspended sentence, for the Sept. 12, 2010, murder of Stephen A. Carr in his Burke home.  Fairfax County Circuit Judge R. Terrence Ney also sentenced Patton to 10 years in prison for the abduction of Carr’s girlfriend. That sentence will run concurrently with the murder sentence.


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