Prince George’s County community pushing to end retail, ATM thefts

OXON HILL, Md. – Rep. Glenn Ivey, (D-Md.), Prince George’s County police chief, Malik Aziz and other community leaders spoke about ending retail and ATM thefts on Thursday.

“Prince George’s County residents have been deeply concerned about organized retail theft, and ATM thefts that have plagued our communities,” Aziz said. “It’s a severe economic consequence and inconvenience to our citizens due to the many stores that are closed in affected.”

“We want to make sure that we’re doing everything we can to address that, to protect people, to protect their funds, to protect the employees of those stores,” Ivey added.

ATM crime has been on the rise according to Ivey and Aziz, and nobody would attest to that more than Amy Blank. Blank’s brother in law, Kenneth Gerstley, was killed in an ATM robbery in Baltimore back in January 2021.

Since then, the Gerstley family has pushed heavily for ATM robberies to be treated as bank robberies, so the FBI can be involved in the investigation process.

“This piece of legislation will never bring my brother-in-law back. I can never feel that the pain of … my family and all of our friends.” Blank said. “But I can mostly protect another family and another family member who serves their community with such reverence.”

Ivey hopes to have retail and ATM theft measures pass this year. The legislations will be named after Kenneth Gerstley.