Early this morning, the blog Unsuck DC Metro reported that on Dec. 23, six masked gunmen boarded a New Carrolton-bound train at Stadium Armory and robbed the passengers at gunpoint.

WMATA initially confirmed to the blog that an incident did take place on Dec. 23, between 6 and 6:30 pm. Unsuck DC Metro said their story, which sounds like something out of movie, came from a source who is a “minor who wishes to remain anonymous and does not want to talk to the press.” (Unsuck DC Metro has now updated their post, and no longer says the source is a minor.)

According to their source:

Three of the men entered through the front door of the car, and the other three entered through the last door of the same car.

Some of the male passengers were ordered to the ground, and some of the robbers kicked them repeatedly. Some were kicked to the point that they were bleeding from their wounds, primarily head wounds.

One woman tried pushing the emergency button several times, but never got a response from any Metro employee….

The witness managed to clandestinely call 911 while they were still on board, but hung up on the 911 personnel because they wanted to call someone to let them know where they were because they felt like they were going to die on the train.

The men jumped off at the next station and ran.

Metro’s official response, just released, reads more like a traditional robbery. Metro says there were no weapons present during the robbery, and the suspects were two 17-year-old males, not six masked gunmen. They also take the opportunity to praise their new reassignment of Transit Police into “stations, trains, and buses.”

Here’s their press release:

On Dec. 23, Metro Transit Police responded immediately to a report of a robbery that had just taken place, and within 30 minutes the suspects were positively identified, arrested and the stolen property recovered.

In an effort to address crime in the Metro system, the MTPD recently reassigned sworn officers out of administrative functions and office buildings into stations, trains and buses to better protect our customers from crime and to increase their ability to respond as quickly as possible. Here is a good example of how that redeployment makes a difference.

Background:

Police responded immediately to a call for robbery on an Orange Line train between Stadium-Armory and Minnesota Ave stations on Dec. 23. Two victims reported that while on board a train, two males stole a cell phone and a shopping bag containing recently purchased clothing and exited the train at Minnesota Avenue. The victims exited at the Cheverly station, where they reported the crime.

Metro Transit Police stopped the suspects in Northeast Washington, DC, near the Minnesota Avenue station a few minutes later and were able to get positive identification from the victims.

Police recovered the stolen property and charged the two 17-year-old males with robbery.

The victims did not report the use of a weapon during the incident. The victims were treated for minor lacerations at the station.

Photo by NCinDC via Flickr/Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivs 2.0