A well-known D.C. community activist and his wife were the victims of a disturbing home invasion, and police believe the crime could be connected to a series of others in nearby neighborhoods.
The burglars moved quickly Sunday morning, removing a flat screen TV, a purse and cash from Robert Brannum's home, located in the 100 block of Adams Street NW. Brannum and his wife were sleeping upstairs and had no clue what was happening.
"The alarm went off when they carried the TV out through the front door..," Brannum said.
Brannum, a former ANC commissioner, lives within blocks of where two similar home invasions happened Wednesday morning.
At about 4 a.m. Wednesday, a husband and wife, who live in the 2400 block of Second Street NE, woke to find a man with a knife and a man with a gun in their bedroom.
The men took iPhones, laptop computers and money before the gunman tried to rape the woman, NBC4's Jackie Bensen reported. Her husband intervened.
The altercation moved downstairs to the kitchen, where the gunman fire through the wall into the rowhouse next door, where an 18-year-old woman was sleeping on a couch. She was not injured.
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The burglars then fled the home.
Just an hour before, someone broke into a nearby home on North Capitol Street NE. That resident's dog alerted him to the break in; and armed with ankle weights, he warned the intruders he was coming out of his bedroom. He chased the intruders from his home, throwing the ankle weights at them.
Police believe that because of the locations of all three home invastions, the crimes could be the work of the same suspects.
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