In D.C., a Crime Goes Unchecked

I was walking home from dinner around 10:30 last Sunday night when I watched a man beat another man unconscious in the middle of Dupont Circle. The smaller man attempted to walk away from the larger one, but he was chased down and battered as he tried to cover his face. I stood at the outside of the circle, searching the streets for a police cruiser to flag down.

After a couple of minutes, as the beating continued (the park benches and sidewalks were crowded with people intent on ignoring it all), I dialed 911. The dispatcher sent an ambulance as I watched the bleeding man go limp and the other stroll calmly away up 19th Street, laughing with a friend. I stayed on the phone with 911 and followed the attacker from a distance, telling the dispatcher where he was and what he was wearing so the police could pick him up. The officer thanked me and hung up.

I continued to follow; I wanted to see the man arrested. It's my neighborhood. After a few blocks, I figured the cruiser that came through Dupont Circle had missed him. So I called 911 again.

This time the police were irritated, insisting that they appreciated my call but had all the information they needed. I hung up as I flagged down a police cruiser that was parking. I assumed the officers were responding to the attack. I pointed to the huge man lumbering up the block and said that I was the 911 caller and that this was the guy they were looking for. "Oh, that call's not ours," one of them said.

They were responding to a dispute at a restaurant, and they walked off. I ran and caught up to the attacker, though trying to stay out of sight, and managed to flag down another police car. I again described the man, pointed him out just up the street and then pointed back toward the circle, where emergency workers were loading the victim into an ambulance. The cops seemed annoyed. They gave each other a look, sat for a beat, then said "Okay, thanks" and drove off -- in the opposite direction from the man who had just attacked a person in the middle of a public park. He strutted off into the dark.

It was odd to watch a suspect go one way as the police headed another when all I've heard about lately is how the city is in the middle of a "crime emergency."

I'm sure he'll be around tomorrow night, though, in my neighborhood. Maybe they'll get him next time.

-- Drew Pulley

Washington