Dear PoP – Beyond Sick Behavior Edition

IMG_3468, originally uploaded by Prince of Petworth.

“I’m new to Petworth, enjoying the neighborhood for the most part, nice renovated house, close to metro, liking Domku and Looking Glass, need to check out some more stuff.

Last night (Friday), however, I witnessed an unfortunate sight right outside of Petworth Metro. After a drink at Looking Glass I was walking a friend to metro when we saw a man wearing a black balaclava without any openings for eyes or mouth, he was beating up another man, who had fallen to the ground and was being kicked in the head. The victim eventually got up and ran off. What was troubling was it seemed like the assailants friends were watching and laughing during the ordeal and taking cell phone pictures. The assailant threatened us, so we scattered and walking away I turned to see him kicking another man on the ground in the street.

The whole thing seemed like an activity for this group of people, their friend wearing a mask would pick fights with people that walked by and his friends would take cell phone pictures.

My question is is this anything you have heard of? Is this something that happens in Petworth? I seem to recall a trend like this in the UK a while back, where kids would just randomly assail people and capture it on cell phone video.

Any insight would be great. I called the police as I walked home. an unfortunate end to an otherwise great night out in Petworth.”

Good lord, I thankfully have never seen nor heard of anything like this before in Petworth or anywhere else in DC. This is some very sick behavior. Regular robberies are bad enough but to do it just for the thrill of it – is beyond disturbing. I hope you gave the police as proper a description as possible, particularly of the friends taking pictures as that could probably help with an investigation/conviction.

Has anyone else seen or heard of anything like this happening before?