We’re reporting this, it should be noted, in part because we haven’t seen many of these crimes lately. In what has become relatively rare after a hold-up filled spring, there was a reported street robbery attempt Saturday night on Capitol Hill, according to East Precinct radio transmissions. In the incident, a caller told police that three men wearing red with bandannas over their faces attempted to mug the caller in 1400 block of E. Howell around 10:30 PM Saturday night. The attempt was unsuccessful and an area check of the alleys and streets nearby did not turn up any of the suspects immediately, according to the radio reports. At this time, we don’t have details on what happened to scare the suspects off.

There were no medical emergency callouts to the area at the time of the report so it sounds likely there were no injuries in the attack.

This is the first street robbery attempt CHS has reported in more than a month. The Hill has seen it’s fair share of business hold-ups in the meantime. But we also have learned of a street robbery that happened mid-June that we missed as the report was delayed by SPD a little longer than usual.

In the mid-June incident, a man began following a woman and her companion and making lewd comments as they walked north on Boylston around 1:30 in the morning on Thursday, June 17. The woman told police they kept walking and realized the man was still following them as they turned onto E. Pine. The woman said that when she became upset and told the man to leave them alone, he rushed her, pushed her to the ground and stole her purse before running off. The suspect was not found.

There was also a reported attempted mugging on June 28 that was foiled when the victim was able to run away from the man he believed was going to rob him.

30-day Capitol Hill robbery map

We recently reported on 2010 Hill crime trends and noted an increase in robberies across Capitol Hill so far this year compared to the year previous. Even with the increase, the robbery numbers are better than the Hill’s 2008 totals. The East Precinct beat that covers the area where this attempt occurred, however, has been a problem area so far in 2010 with already 10 robberies recorded. There were only 4 in beat C2 in 2009 though the first four months of the year but 9 in 2008.

You can see business and street robberies from the previous 30 days on Capitol Hill plotted on this map.