Owings Mills Mall Not So Dangerous, Statistics Show

The Owings Mills Mall is not the crime-ridden shopping center some believe it to be, according to data provided by the Baltimore County Police Department. 

Crime at the mall decreased in nearly every category from 2009 to 2010, county statistics showed, including a 64 percent decrease in robberies in the mall and its surrounding area.

Only four robberies occurred at 10300 Mill Run Circle, which includes the mall and its parking lots, in 2010, the most recent year for which comprehensive data is available. Eleven robberies were committed in 2009, and no other violent crime was reported in either year.

Police Lt. Stephen Doarnberger, assistant commander of the , said crime has decreased significantly at the mall since he arrived at the precinct in 1997, though the public perception of danger seems to remain.

“There was a high number in earlier years,” Doarnberger said. “Perception is a difficult thing to change.

“On average, it’s as safe as our other [shopping] areas.”

Two burglaries were reported at the mall’s address in all of 2010, and thefts were down more than 20 percent overall, statistics showed. Almost 90 percent of thefts were cases of shoplifting.

One vehicle was stolen from the mall’s parking lot in 2010, compared to three in 2009, the statistics showed.

Despite the drop in crime, some comments on Patch have indicated a belief among locals that the mall is unsafe, and some commenters have speculated that the northern terminus of the Maryland Transit Administration’s Metro Subway has effectively shipped criminals to Owings Mills.

Perception may have been influenced by an incident in 1992 in which a 28-year-old woman who worked at Saks Fifth Avenue in the mall was murdered on a path between the metro station and the shopping center.

But when the path was closed five years ago, Doarnberger said crime via that route ceased to be a problem for mall patrons.

Even then, the majority of crimes committed were on the poorly lit path itself, not elsewhere on the mall’s property, Doarnberger said.

 “It was a good place to do a robbery,” he said of the dark walkway. In the same breath, Doarnberger dismissed the notion that the metro was solely to blame for crime at the mall.

“We have plenty of homegrown suspects,” Doarnberger said.

Closing the pathway helped deter criminals, but declines in crime are also thanks to an active mall security force, Doarnberger said.

In years past, known gang members would walk around the mall flashing gang signs and openly recruiting mall patrons, said a mall security guard who wished to remain anonymous.

But things started to change after mall management instructed security to “put them out if it’s a gang member.”

Security was told to kick out anyone seen openly recruiting or displaying gang signs, the guard said.

“No one likes to shop anywhere like that,” the guard said.  “We haven’t had that problem for two or three years.”

Doarnberger said police and the mall’s security force have cooperated well. The Franklin Precinct has one officer assigned to a post that includes the mall, Doarnberger said, and police have occasionally been called to the mall to remove individuals who refused.

Though Doarnberger wanted to credit police and mall security for the effort made to improve safety, he admitted that , aiding the downward trend in crime.

“The [crime] numbers are clearly an indication of the fewer amount of people going there,” Doarnberger said.