Yesterday was an odd day to say the least. I was on my way to a talk about Web 2.0 and the Government (Social Media Club DC) and I was jumped about 300 feet from the building that I live in by a bunch of middle school thugs. Probably about 8-10 of them. Nothing bad but from what I can think only about 3 of them did the punching. They came up behind me and punched me multiple times in my good old noggin. It was sort of odd. They didn’t try to take anything just some random fun for them I guess. I called 911 and about 10 cops showed up. Capitol Police was the first on the scene since they are just about 3 blocks away. The thugs went down and around some alleys and then eventually disappeared. We (Cops and I) all assumed they went down into the Metro and took off. The police told me that it’s general practice for these juvenile thugs to do that. I’m sure they will be back some day and will get caught. Crime really hasn’t been a problem in the near southeast district. This is the area around the new baseball stadium where all the new condo buildings are going up. I have lived there for just about a year and this is probably only the second assault that I have heard of.

Anyways, what I really want to do in this post is to thank the MPD for everything. I twittered last night that I thought the response time was a bit slow and if the cops were only 15 seconds quicker at least one of the thugs would have been caught. I’m sure if it wasn’t rush hour and Metro trains weren’t on rush hour service they might have had all of them. One thing that sort of did upset me was, every day there are two cops sitting at the Navy Yard Metro station in there cars.

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They are not from the 1st district where I live. I think they may be from the 3rd district. But the cop was no more than 1 1/2 blocks away from where everything happened. That officer never got out of his car or was probably not listening to his radio. I think if he responded we would have had all them. I found out later that his job is to primarily watch and do security on the building on the corner since it belongs to the federal government.

So, I just wanted to applaud all the officers that responded. Officer Wagner of the 1st district was very professional. He was the one that took all my information and will write the incident report. In fact all the officers, Capitol Police, MPD both in Cars, on Bikes, and the One officer on a Segway acted in a very professional manor. I wish I had all there names so that I could share them. Even the Lieutenant (Not sure if that’s the right rank but the officer that was running the 1st district that night) who’s name slips my mind right now came out to the scene to see if everything was OK.

So, in the end I look on the bright side that I know there really are good police officers in DC that are professional. I have seen many rude ones, which you probably have read in a post I did last week. I also look on the bright side that I was just merely bruised up. If you know what it’s like to get jumped, which I am sure there are a lot of DC residents who have been, you know you have to just put it behind you and keep on trucking. It’s life… there is nothing you can do but keep you chin up and continue doing what you do!

PS: In bed last night I was thinking that getting assaulted in DC is almost like a rite of passage? Anyone agree? Have you been jumped of mugged before?

Photo By: rjs1322