Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced today that the Neighborhood Safety Zone Checkpoints established in the Trinidad neighborhood on July 19, 2008 will be extended for up to five days, ending on July 29, 2008.

“Extending the checkpoints sends a clear message my officers will saturate the Trinidad neighborhood to keep the residents there safe and to ultimately find out those responsible for the violent crime in the area last weekend.  We will continue to canvass the neighborhood with fliers and offer residents every means possible to contact with any information about what they saw or heard in the early morning hours of July 19th.”

The NSZ was established as a result of seven people shot in five separate incidents resulting in the death of 13-year-old Alonzo Robinson in the 1500 block of Holbrook Street, NE.  The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) is still actively developing leads and wants to hear from the public.

The NSZ remains in place to protect the Trinidad neighborhood from further incidents of a very specific type of violent criminal activity and to provide high visibility police presence to achieve this objective.  The continuation of the NSZ is an attempt to achieve these goals to prevent criminal use of vehicles as instrumentalities of crime.

Since the checkpoints were established on July 19th, no shootings have occurred in the Trinidad area.  MPD officers have conducted 10 checkpoints over the past five days, allowing 466 vehicles to pass through the NSZ; five vehicles were refused entry into the NSZ; zero vehicles failed to stop; zero arrests were made; one Notice of Infraction was issued.

The Metropolitan Police Department is currently offering a reward of up to $50,000 for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible for the July 19, 2008 murder of Alonzo Robinson.

Anyone who has information regarding the cases is asked to call police at (202) 727-9099 or 1-818-919-CRIM [E].  Anonymous information can also be sent to the department’s text tip line by text messaging 50-411.