If you’ve been on the north side of Adams Morgan at any point during the last two days, you probably noticed the severely damaged bus shelter near the intersection of Calvert Street and Adams Mill Road NW. The damage occurred on Tuesday night, which is when DCist received the above images. While following the lead on Wednesday morning, I exchanged emails with a man who lives near the bus shelter — he claimed that he jumped into action to apprehend the vandal, who the source described as an inebriated teenager that had struck the glass backing with a hammer.

Obviously, I set out to try and verify the source’s story. But that has proven to be an incredibly difficult task. Why? No one, aside from the individual I spoke with and the photographer who took these photographs on the scene that night, appears to have any record or knowledge of anything happening to this shelter that evening.

The Metropolitan Police Department has nothing on file regarding the incident — no charges, no arrests, not even a report from the scene. (My attempts to reach individual officers in the Third District and PSA 303, where the incident took place, by both phone and email have not been responded to as of this posting.) This lack of information conflicts with the emailer’s account: the source said that three police officers took his and the alleged perpetrator’s statements, and one of those officers informed him that since he didn’t witness the vandal actually swing the hammer, he couldn’t make an arrest. Obviously, police were on the scene — that crime scene tape didn’t get there all by itself. Plus, a police cruiser is visible in one of the images, along with three officers.