Residents Request Police Presence After Rash of Muggings
posted 6:18 pm Wed August 15, 2007 - Washington
"I hear a yell behind me, I turn around and that's when I get smacked in the head with a pole," said Thomas.
Thomas says he was confronted by two boys, both about 13 years old. "I say take everything, you can have it and start to back away and then as I back away the other kid runs up to me and hits me again with the metal pole."
Thomas returned to the scene of the crime Wednesday, posting an open letter to the "kids who mugged" him. He sarcastically thanked them for the concussion he suffered and his self-described newfound fear of the District.
"They were laughing as they hit me. They were laughing as they ran away," Thomas said.
Thomas says his attacker used a three-foot-long pole to batter him. Another victim, Angelo Gomez, says he was menaced with a large knife or machete.
Gomez was walking home from the Shaw Metro Station Sunday night along Rhode Island Avenue when he was confronted by a lone man with what appeared to be a machete.
"He says give me all of your money or I'll kill you right now."
Gomez said he complied and the robber left, but he heard the same voice just seconds later.
"He's mugging somebody else right on the other side," said Gomez, recalling the incident. "He was mugging a second person, a man."
Gomez said he tried to call 911 but was put on hold. As he walked, he ran into a crying woman who said she had just been mugged.
Long-time neighborhood resident David Lippe has a series of e-mails from neighbors reporting muggings along the same stretch of Rhode Island Avenue.
He wants police to take action.
"Is it going to take somebody being murdered to get the attention that we need, that we keep screaming for?"
Latest Comment on Residents Request Police Presence After Rash of Muggings
beatrice valdes
11:01 pm on 08/18/07
i live one block away from the shaw metro. i have lived here for over 15 years. i am a white female. i don't go to the metro b/c there are 'predators' waiting to jump you. its been this way for some time now. someone was shot and killed there less than a year ago. when is metro going to do something about this? maybe a camera or guard? it sucks!! and yes, its race related...!
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