Mugging in Mt. Pleasant/Adams Morgan Friday Afternoon

Photo by PoPville flickr user Vileinist

“Dear PoP,

Just wanted to give you and the readers a heads up. I was mugged Friday while walking back from the Mt. Pleasant Interim Library at the intersection of Argonne and Harvard, two streets I walk on a daily basis and I’ve considered to be a fairly safe area. The mugger was in his late teens or early twenties, black and seemed to have been on drugs. He blocked me from walking down the street and asked me what I was doing on the block. I tried to keep walking but he ended up chasing me halfway down the street where I stopped and surrendered my tote bag. Fortunately, all I had in the bag was a book and some DVDs I checked out from the library. After I gave him the bag and ran up the street back onto Harvard (in front of the Pica Taco) he actually followed me back up after awhile and then crossed the street and walked down Mt. Pleasant. I was able to recover my bag and all of my belongings except for the one dollar he stole from the bag. This was around noon, so it was in broad daylight. I have filed a police report.

This seemed to have been a random event but just a reminder for everyone to be cautious and to always let them have the bag!”

I always here MPD echo the same advice – always let the mugger have the bag or wallet or phone etc. But I often hear readers say they prefer to run and/or fight. Obviously I think it depends if a weapon is involved, where you are and other factors but I strongly agree with the reader and MPD’s advice – it is always smarter to “hand over the bag” rather than risk injury or worse for replaceable items.

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