Violent Attack at Congressional Cemetery

On Monday July 23, an employee of Congressional Cemetery returned from lunch at around 1:45, locked up her bike, and headed to the gate house. As she did, a young shirtless man, approximately 25 years old, came up to her and made some sexually suggestive remarks. The employee ignored him as best as she could and tried to get into the house. Before she could do so, however, he grabbed her, demanded her keys, and pushed her down. He then attempted to grab her purse and run off. Meanwhile, a second employee upstairs heard the disturbance, called 911 and ran downstairs. She came out to assist the first person. At about the same time, a Department of Corrections office from the DC Jail happened to be passing by. The DoC officer, joined shortly by another one, told the man to move along. One stayed with the victim, while the other stayed with the suspect as he started moving along. Corrections officers are unarmed and can’t make arrests outside the jail.The man continued up 17th Street SE and fully disrobed. MPD responded quickly, and he was arrested in short order a few blocks up 17th and with Attempted Assault with Intent to Rob. Further investigation revealed that he had already attempted to carjack someone in the area, so Unarmed Carjacking was added to the charges.The employee attacked suffered several scrapes but is fortunately otherwise physically unharmed.According to the Cemetery employees, the suspect was clearly not in a normal state of mind. Besides his partial (and eventual complete) disrobement, he “danced back and forth on the balls of his feet,” shadow-boxing.

Obviously, this is an isolated incident. The suspect, as far as we can tell, has no relationship with either the Cemetery or the neighborhood. For both privacy reasons, and because this is an ongoing investigation, MPD can’t comment on the mental state of suspect or whether he used drugs. Some early reports indicated that he had been an escapee from the DC Jail, but that has been confirmed not to be the case. Almost certainly, he came from another tenant of the former DC General complex on Reservation 13, but due to privacy concerns that can’t be confirmed.