Editor’s note: This story, originally published at 11:02 a.m. on May 7, 2025, was updated at 10:06 a.m. on May 8, 2025, to add comments from Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, co-founder and co-executive director of Racial Justice NOW.
Visitors to and residents of downtown Silver Spring can expect to see more Montgomery County police officers on patrol Friday and Saturday nights this spring and summer, according to police Commander Jason Cokinos.
“With the warm weather now upon us, we have seen an uptick in juveniles in and around Ellsworth Drive,” Cokinos said Monday in a statement emailed to Bethesda Today. “We are looking to have visible officers in hopes of preventing juvenile crimes and other crimes. We want the area to feel safe for people to come and enjoy the businesses and restaurants. We have officers in the parking garages for the same reasons.”
Cokinos announced the initiative in a post on social media Friday evening. The initiative will increase the number of officers visible in Veterans Plaza, Ellsworth Drive and Fenton Street, Cokinos said. The launch comes after the department announced a drop in major crimes such as homicides and carjackings from 2023 to 2024 in the Third District, which includes Silver Spring’s downtown area.
Stephanie Helsing, the president and CEO of the Greater Silver Spring Chamber of Commerce, said Wednesday in a statement emailed to Bethesda Today that the extra officers and “continued vigilance will contribute to a safe and enjoyable experience for those who live in, work in and come to play in Silver Spring.”
Helsing noted that the chamber has had a partnership with the Montgomery County Police Department since May 2023, called the Silver Spring Safety Alliance, and attributed that initiative, in combination with the other public safety efforts, to the decrease in crime decreasing in the downtown area. Some of those efforts include the Late-Night Safety Plan Bill and the department’s Drone as First Responder program, which is operational in Silver Spring.
“The Chamber is thrilled to see that these collaborative efforts are, in fact, acting as a deterrent,” Helsing said.
While some see the policing increase as a way to improve the experiences of visitors and residents in the downtown, Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, the co-founder and co-executive director of Silver Spring-based organization Racial Justice NOW, was critical of the initiative’s aim to prevent juvenile crime in the downtown area.
“Why are they not hiring more community intervention workers through public health? That’s a question we have at Racial Justice NOW. Why are you using the police for kids?” Sankara-Jabar told Bethesda Today in an interview on Tuesday.
Racial Justice NOW is a Silver Spring-based organization that focuses on “challenging systemic anti-Black racism, the criminalization of Black families, and discriminatory policies in education,” according to its website.
Sankara-Jabar argued that the county should instead focus on addressing the reasons why young people and children were committing crimes and provide them with more resources and support.
“We know that the police and the criminal justice system are about throwing them away,” Sankara-Jabar said. “The data is there. We know that recidivism for juveniles goes through the roof with even one introduction into the system.”
It is unclear how long the increased police presence on Fridays and Saturdays in the downtown area will remain. Cokinos said the initiative may vary month-to-month.
“We expect to run this through summer but will constantly reassess based on data and trends,” he said.
Cokinos did not share the exact number of added officers in downtown Silver Spring and said the number can vary depending on the night and assignment.
Additional challenges
Cokinos told Bethesda Today in late March that the statistics showing the drop in crime were “encouraging” and “worth celebrating,” but there was more work to be done to address car break-ins and auto and retail theft in the downtown area.
“Our challenge is a lot of our auto thieves and the people that are breaking into cars — they’re more regional crews. So, they’re going from Prince George’s [County] to [Washington], D.C., to Northern Virginia to Silver Spring,” Cokinos said in March. “It’s a lot of cross-border-related crime.”
In response to vehicle-related crimes, more officers have been sent to patrol in and around the county’s parking garages in downtown Silver Spring. In a post on social media in early April, Cokinos said that the Montgomery County Department of Transportation has security guards who patrol the garages and county police officers work to assist them.
In addition to vehicle-related crimes, shoplifting has become prevalent in downtown Silver Spring in recent years, Cokinos told Bethesda Today in a late March interview, calling the issue an “epidemic.”
According to Cokinos, incidents of shoplifting in 2019 as compared to 2024 have increased 128% in the downtown area. However, Cokinos said the number of reported shoplifting incidents has fallen over the past few months. A combination of targeted enforcement and officers working directly with businesses and the Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office to prosecute offenders has helped to reduce the number of incidents.
Cokinos said that he believed the main causes of crime in the downtown area stem from adults coming from outside of the county to commit crimes and juveniles.
“We get juveniles that come here, they hang out downtown, they’re enjoying themselves and then they get bored and decide they want to commit a crime. … We’ve arrested juveniles for robbery,” Cokinos said.
At a multi-jurisdictional public safety summit held in Takoma Park in mid-April, Montgomery County Police Chief Marc Yamada said dealing with juvenile crime has been a “frustration” in the county. He explained that what made it frustrating is that it is difficult to prosecute juveniles for serious crimes.
Yamada recounted one example of a 12-year-old boy who was arrested multiple times for burglaries of cars at dealerships in the county.
“We caught him many … times but because of his age, I can’t question him, I can’t arrest him. I simply have to turn him back over to mom,” Yamada said.
He noted that both of the child’s parents tried to “get him the help he needs” but struggled.
“The system is not set up to where this juvenile is afforded the assistance and the family [with what] they need,” Yamada said, adding that the solution will have to come from collaboration with other local law enforcement agencies and government partners.
