“Friday Night H Street NE Incident”

“Dear PoPville,

Friday night (February 17th) my friend and I (we are both young women) were leaving the Little Grand (7th and H St. NE) a little after 11pm. We were walking home going west on H Street NE when a man standing outside of the Whole Foods yelled something at us (I didn’t hear what he said as my friend and I were in mid-conversation). The man was tall, stout, and probably in his 40s. My friend and I kept walking and we could hear him continuing to shout at us. He was saying things like, he needed to tell us something, he was the black Jesus, he knew God, and was mad we weren’t talking to him. We realized he was following us as he was shouting. He followed us to H and 4th NE when

my friend and I noticed that Big Board was still open.

We crossed H St. and ran into Big Board. When we went inside we immediately told the employees that a man was following us and that’s why we came in. We looked out the window and watched the man cross H St. and start to walk toward Big Board. Thankfully, the bartender intercepted the man at the front door and told him he needed to calm down. There were other men drinking at the bar that backed up the bartender trying to get him to leave. The man kept yelling that he was mad we ignored him, repeating he is the black Jesus, and that we were ugly on the inside. Another employee told my friend and I that he would walk us out the backdoor where the man wouldn’t see us leave. The employee was kind enough to walk with us a few blocks all the way to my house to make sure we got home safe. He said anytime we felt unsafe we could always come to the bar for help.

I wanted to share for everyone’s awareness in the H St. neighborhood and shout out to Big Board for their kindness. The man did not seem violent, but clearly mentally ill. The employees and the bar patrons handled everything well by calmly getting him to walk back out on the sidewalk.”