BALTIMORE — It's a place where people come to grow their own vegetables or flowers, and maybe just find a little peace. But in recent days, three gardeners at Dewees City Farm in North Baltimore have fallen victim to juvenile crime.
On Saturday around 3 p.m., Baltimore Police say two women, ages 82 and 64, were approached by two young men who demanded they hand over their belongings. According to police, the suspects chased the women around the garden, struck the 82 year old woman in the head, robbed them, and sped off in one of the victims' cars.
Then, on Monday just before 5 p.m., an 82 year old man told police two males, about 12 to 14 years old, approached him with a knife and tried to rob him. He was able to scare them off with a gardening tool.
"I never thought I would have to constantly look over my shoulders, just walking out my front door. I mean, I've lived here 40 years," Jane Blonder told WMAR-2 News.
She lives across the street from the garden. Last Friday, just a day before the first incident, she was carjacked by three male teenagers.
"And I was told to get out, give them the keys real fast, or they'll kill me. And then they saw I had a phone in my pocket and they said, 'give me your phone too.' And then they were gone," Blonder recalled.
RELATED: Pair of teens accused of assaulting and robbing two women while gardening
Police were able to recover her vehicle, but she said no arrests have been made yet.
On Saturday afternoon, as she was leaving to replace her stolen phone, she noticed a group of people standing outside the garden.
"I said, you know, maybe I should go warn them about what happened to me and then they said, oh, it just happened to them a half hour ago; they were waiting for the police," Blonder told WMAR-2 News. "So it's like, wow, all right, that's real comforting."
In the Saturday assault case, police did arrest a 16- and 17-year-old and brought them to the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center, where they requested the suspects be detained. But both were released to their guardians by Department of Juvenile Services staff. The 17 year-old was placed on electronic monitoring. Both teens have prior robbery arrests.
Mayor Brandon Scott addressed the issue at a news conference on Wednesday, saying he was "extremely frustrated."
"I'll be the first to say that we have to treat young people in a different mindset, right? You can't treat a 40 year old and a 14 year old the same. But at the same time, when you have someone who has done a similar crime before, you can't just send that person home. There has to be accountability and services. They should not have been released to their parents, period."
Dewees City Farm is owned by the city's Recreation and Parks Department. We reached out to the department to ask if anything is being done to address safety concerns.. We're waiting to hear back.
We also reached out to the Department of Juvenile Services for comment and have not heard back.