Police in the District have arrested two men separately linked to more than a dozen armed street robberies and 18 burglaries of businesses, including two yoga studios, that occurred over the past several months, authorities said Friday.

D.C. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the robbery suspect is alleged to have held up 14 people in the weeks while he was on release pending trial after an arrest in May, when he was charged with breaking into a house.

The two clusters of crimes, Lanier said, demonstrate that “when we see upticks of crime, it typically is one person who is responsible for a very large number.”

She did not criticize judges for releasing the robbery suspect, noting that the courts were following laws and guidelines under which most people charged with crimes in the District are set free until trial; only those deemed most dangerous are detained.

Lanier said the robbery suspect, Donathan Taylor, 19, of Northwest, had been arrested May 23 and charged with burglarizing an occupied house. He was freed a day later after his initial hearing in D.C. Superior Court and ordered to wear an electronic monitoring bracelet to record his movements.

But Lanier said that on June 24 he removed the device, which is a crime, and failed to show up to his next court hearing, on July 6. The judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

In less than two weeks, “Mr. Taylor committed an additional 14 armed robberies,” Lanier said at a news conference. She said the victims “are people who had been victimized by a person who had already been taken into custody in one crime.”

The suspect in the commercial burglaries was identified after police said they noticed an increase in burglaries at stores beginning in early April and extending into July, including intrusions at 10 yoga and Pilates studios in Northeast and Northwest Washington. Police publicly released video and photos from the incidents.

[Yoga studios targeted in burglaries across the District]

On July 24, two patrol officers recognized a man from the videos, Lanier said, and arrested him in the 1600 block of Columbia Road NW. The chief said that when the officers stopped him, the man was carrying a backpack containing tools commonly used by burglars — identified in court documents as screw drivers. Lanier said the officers were not aware at the time that a business had just been burglarized on the same block and “just minutes before the stop.”

At the time, police charged the suspect, Melvin Anthony Turner, 48, of no known address, with one count of burglary for a July 22 break-in at Sudhouse craft brew pub in the 1300 block of U Street NW.

On July 25, court records show, Turner was released from jail pending trial and was ordered to wear an electronic monitoring device. Lanier said he did not show up to have the tracker fitted; a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

While police searched for Turner, Lanier said, detectives compiled evidence linking him to 17 earlier commercial burglaries. She said money and electronic devices were taken in burglaries of two yoga studios — Bikram Hot Yoga Ivy City studio in Northeast and Circle Yoga on Northampton Street in Chevy Chase.

Police are still investigating burglaries at other yoga studios.

Other stores police said Turner is charged with burglarizing include Nail Salon in the 5600 block of Connecticut Avenue NW — where court documents say nine bottles of nail polish and an iPad were taken — and Spices Restaurant, also on Connecticut Avenue NW, where two bottles of liquor and another iPad were taken.

Lanier said officers searching for Turner after he failed to show up to be fitted with a tracking device arrested him Thursday in the 1600 block of New York Avenue NE and have charged him with 18 counts of burglary.