We're Back, and the Only Thing That Supposedly Happened Is Literally Five Months Old

We're back, after a brief scare when the DRB officials manning the checkpoint at Lawyers Road caught us returning to Reston with a series of brightly colored paint swatches in our luggage. So what was the biggest news in Reston in our absence? Something that happened nearly five months ago: our pal, the athletic, desk-vaulting, hoodie-wearing bank robber:

Fairfax County police and the FBI are still searching for a serial bank robber known for wearing a hooded sweatshirt and vaulting teller counters.

Police believe the Hoodie Bandit is responsible for eight robberies since November: six in Reston, one in Chantilly and one in Fairfax. His targets are most often BB&T Banks, and he comes armed with a handgun.

His last known robbery was in March, when he jumped a teller counter at the United Bank at 13060 Fair Lakes Blvd. in Fairfax, police said. At the time, authorities said they were concerned the suspect was acting more aggressively... In previous robberies, he took less time and acted with less aggression toward bank employees, authorities said.

He also apparently got a little more organized. So why is the Examiner writing about this now? Has the Hoodie Bandit put his sweatshirt back on and hit the banks again? Not exactly.

But just as law enforcement officials worried the robberies would get violently out of hand, they appear to have stopped. The Hoodie Bandit hasn't been seen since his last robbery. At that time, media outlets began reporting about the series of robberies after a story in The Examiner.

And the filthy "web logs" were talking about them from day one.

Meanwhile, maybe the police and media should be paying more attention to this guy, who's suspected in two indecent exposure cases along the W&OD trail in Reston, and a third, more troubling incident in Vienna, over the past few weeks.

Three women have been assaulted on the W&OD Trail in the Vienna and Reston areas in recent weeks, and police in Fairfax County and Vienna are looking into whether the same man might be responsible for the incidents.

The first attack occurred July 15, when a 25-year-old woman reported that she was approached by a man on a bicycle about 2 p.m. as she was running near Ayr Hill Avenue in Vienna. Police said the man exposed himself, threw the woman to the ground and positioned himself over her. The woman broke free and ran for help.

The second and third incidents happened over a span of about 15 minutes in the Reston area Thursday. A woman walking on the trail west of Hunter Mill Road said a man approached on a bicycle, exposed himself and pedaled away. About 10 minutes later, two women walking near mile marker 13, west of the Vienna town limits, reported that a man exposed himself and grabbed one woman by the arm. She screamed and the man fled.

The assailant in all three incidents is described as about 40 years old, cleanshaven and tan, with no shirt, black shorts and a cyclist-type hat. The Fairfax victims said the man was about 5-foot-7 and 200 pounds, with "a large belly." Anyone with information about the attacker is asked to call 866-411-8477.

There's also a composite sketch of the bicycle at the first link, which shockingly resembles a bicycle:

If you know someone who rides something like this, he (or she) is obviously the guilty party. PANIC.