The titans at the Washington Post could not get their journalistic minds around a pattern of racial violence on the Metro Branch Trail in the nation’s capital in the summer of 2013.
But Mary Curtis could. Kind of.
We met Curtis a few pages ago. She’s the one who wrote the column for the Post about how to detect racial animosity. She called it a “Question of Race.”
It’s all about the “pattern,” said Curtis. That is how she can “determine the motive” of white members of Congress who oppose President Obama. And whether they are racist. Even though they do not come out and say it.450
It’s so easy.
Now you try. See if you can spot the pattern the other reporters at the Washington Post missed.
On Halloween night 2013, a “large group of assailants,” beat and robbed a 50-year teacher on the Metropolitan Branch Trail, a hiking and biking path from Union Station downtown to the suburbs in Maryland.451
This is one of dozens of similar mob attacks at the Metro Trail over the last several years. All the assailants are black. Most of the victims are not.
They reported the crime but ignored the pattern.
But the folks at the Titan of Trinidad, a neighborhood blog, must be reading Curtis more carefully that other Washington media types. They had no trouble describing what really happened during a different attack several months earlier when a black mob assaulted a D.C. commuter on a bicycle, sending him to the hospital with broken bones in his face. 452
As I was biking home on the Metropolitan Branch Trail today I came across a biker on the trail near R St NE who was severely beaten.
Apparently he was beaten by a fairly large group of African American teenagers that I passed on the trail near the bridge near Florida Avenue.
Apparently they beat this biker, a Caucasian male who looked to be in his 50s, for no reason. Cops swarmed the scene and took the man to the hospital, and tried to track down the kids but as far as I know they have not been caught.
I share this with you to strongly encourage you to use caution on the trail. This incident occurred in broad daylight and the biker did nothing wrong.
I spoke with one of the cops at the scene and he says there are incidents on the trail all the time, day and night. I for one will no longer be using the Metropolitan Branch Trail — please stay safe everyone.
According to the web site: “Notably, this was not a robbery; the group of teenagers apparently just attacked and beat this man on the trail without any obvious motive other than to beat him.”
Talking to ABC affiliate, the biker did not wish to use his name. Nor did he wish to identify the attackers as anything other than a group of “kids.”453
“One of the kids peeled away from the group, just came running at me then clocked me as hard as he could,” said the biker. “I can’t make sense of it.”
As Dr. Phil might say: If you had to guess why they attacked you, what would you say? Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that you are white and they are black?
Twenty hours after one of the June assaults, police said they could not figure it out either. In a statement they said:
“Based upon this offense, we have received a number of questions concerning the Metropolitan Branch Trail. Allow us to address your concerns here. This was an unprovoked assault by a lone individual and not a pattern connected to other criminal offenses that were reported to MPD.”454
Uh, let me see. What do we call that? Oh yeah, a lie.
There was a black mob of at least 15 people. Many kicked him in the face. And it was part of a pattern of black mob violence both on and off this biking and hiking trail.
Maybe for Post reporters and D.C. cops it’s like one of those pictures where you stare at it for a long time and a 3-D image emerges. Only in the Post’s case, they have been staring for 50 years and still come up with nothing. Let’s look at a few of the more recent attacks and see if the picture gets any clearer:
A teacher from a nearby Charter school was heading home at 9:15 p.m. The Post picks up the story:
The victim told police that 10 men ages 18 to 22 were in front of him, near the 600 block of Rhode Island Avenue. The victim said he was on his cellphone when he heard a man say, “Let’s get him.”
Police said he was pushed to the ground and beaten in the head. They said the robbers took personal items and $260.
In February 2013, another bicyclist posted about mob violence on the same trail. Writing in the neighborhood blog, Popville.com, he said:455
I was assaulted on the Franklin St. Bridge today on my way home from work at about 4:30pm. I was on my bike and a group of about 10 14/15 yr-old boys were walking along the sidewalk (which is separated from the road by a concrete barrier).
Two of the kids jumped the barrier into the street as I approached on my bike, the first hit me over the back of the neck (right under my helmet) with something really hard, the second kid tried to punch me and mostly missed.
In October of 2012, another biker reported the same crime in the same area with the same results:456 Is your Mary Curtis barometer exploding yet?
Last night on my way to Chinatown I got clothes-lined (or something) as I was blazing down the metropolitan branch on my bike. 4 kids, probably 13-19 were on either side of the trail and decked me good before fleeing the scene. The incident was at the intersection with T St., at about 4th.
I think they mostly just wanted to cause suffering for fun, rather than steal anything.
In February 2012 another poster at Popville reported a black mob assault nearby: 457
I was attacked by a pack of 14-15 yr-olds, boys and girls, and knocked to the ground. Nothing was stolen and the kids ran off after giving me a few kicks to the head.
In August 2012, a woman reported yet another black mob assault:458
I was biking home at 7pm and passed a whole bunch of cop cars taking a report from a guy who had just been jumped by a group of kids. It was broad daylight out, and this guy was easily 6’2″ and fairly well muscled.
I’m a woman. If they’re not afraid to jump a big dude in broad daylight, I shudder to think what they would do to me. I haven’t ridden the MBT since.
The urban pioneers who run a web site for bicyclists in Washington scoffed that anyone could detect any kind of racial pattern. By now, you probably know this: Surely as denial follows violence, the Straw Man always follows the scoff. Here it is: 459
The idea that there is any racial pattern in the attacks is “laughable,” said these mobile advocates. “But, they're right that there have been many similar attacks on this trail over the last year. It is novel argument - however - that the police are somehow biased in the favor of black people. I've not heard that one before.”
To sum up: My reporting was wrong, then it was right, then it was something I cannot figure out. Let’s call the whole thing off.
Finally, by the summer of 2013, police promised to crack down, kind of.
The Washington City Paper reports that several surveillance cameras have been installed near some of the violent hot spots on the path. But there is a minor glitch.
“The cameras are solar-powered,” said the paper, “so they don’t work that well at night.”
And they don’t do too well in the day time either: A spokeswoman for the city’s transportation department that is responsible for the cameras, told the paper that her department is “not in the security business,” so there’s no one monitoring the video feed.
In 2014, police on bikes started to patrol the area. Things changed.
In June 2014, a woman was knocked from her bike and robbed and they actually caught the guy. 460
The week before that a hiker was attacked on the trail. She escaped the attempted sexual assault in the middle of the day. They caught him too.461
Another pattern?
Not so fast: That was the second assault on the trail that day. The second attacker remains at large.462
It happened again a week later: “For at least the third time this month, a woman was attacked on the Metropolitan Branch Trail. Police say a juvenile was arrested in connection with the crime.”463
Two for three, that’s pretty good.
Now if we can just get Mary Curtis re-assigned to the Post crime desk, we’ll have a trifecta.
We’ll get back to black mob violence on bike and jogging trails soon. There’s a ton of it. Bicyclists are soft targets. And hard deniers.
Let’s go to the “prank.”