Photo by voteprime.

If you are involved in a “minor” scuffle, and you are mentally shaken but not physically harmed, do you report the assault to the police? In the opinion of the people on MPD’s Fifth District listserv, you bet you do. An emailer to the listserv shared the following story of a late night run-in with some teenagers outside of the Brookland-CUA Metro station at 801 Michigan Avenue NE:

Around 12:00 AM Sunday I was tackled by some rowdy high school aged kids at the Brookland metro who were fooling around. They were trying to intimidate me prior to this by yelling in my face as I left the escalators on the 10th street side of the station, where the bus stops are. After this, some followed me a bit and one guy jumped on me from behind and put his arm across the front of my neck before releasing once I was on the ground, while still within the station. Earlier some of the group–which may be more than one group, there were over a dozen people–were also messing with a young lady who was trying to run up a broken escalator to catch a train–tripping her and getting in her way–and some jumped fare gates and knocked stuff down with in the station.

They didn’t take anything or do anything besides laugh once they had me down and I’m fine physically but just really angry and shaken. I didn’t think it was something worth calling the police over–though plenty of people saw it happen. In retrospect, once I had kids jumping in my face, I probably should have just walked to a populated bus stop and waited around other people for safety. I’ve lived in this neighborhood for just over a year and have felt safe most of the time, though I’ve known that I need to be aware of my surroundings and careful. Now though, I feel like that bubble has been broken.

The story lit up the list, usually a dumping ground for crime alerts and community announcements which rarely require in-depth analysis. A thread on the Fifth District listserv would probably be considered lively if it garnered a few replies. This particular story sparked 28.