Community Chat

[golding76]

[Well, now we don't need guns or knives to terrorize people going about their business in the light of day.  This news story contains really unpleasant details.  Obviously, the attacker has a mental illness, and I suspect he is one of the homeless who live on McPherson Square.  There is no way to contain and/or help all those who are now unmoored from rational behavior.  We are going to have to rethink the societal plan.  Once again, I don't have the answers to these sorts of problems, but we need to get a handle on the problem of these lost people who are off the grid.  As many know, mental illness, drugs, alcohol -- you name it -- have destroyed the lives of these lost souls who can no longer make it in the regular world.

The news tonight said it was a GALLON of urine.]

McPherson Square

‘Disgusting': Liquid Believed to Be Urine Poured on Woman at McPherson Square

Man arrested on simple assault charge

By Mauricio Casillas, News4 Reporter • Published 26 mins ago • Updated 6 mins ago

A man poured what is believed to be urine on a woman walking in McPherson Square Friday morning.

According to a disgusted witness, the woman was walking on a sidewalk near the intersection of 15th and K streets in Northwest D.C. before 10 a.m. when a man grabbed her from behind and poured the liquid on her.

“I was standing on the crosswalk waiting to cross over, and a woman on the opposite side started screaming,” Jack Rutman said.

“Grabbed her by the back of the dress and dumped a gallon of, I presume, his own urine violently on top of her,” he said.

You should not have to expect a violent encounter on your way to work in the morning.

Jack Rutman, witness 

Rutman said he called 911 from a safe distance since he didn’t know if the man was armed.

“I had never seen anything on that level before,” he said. “It was truly shocking and disgusting.”

[Shanus]

@golding76   I'm horrified by this, but I can't say anything surprises me anymore. Violence, mental illness, etc. is rampant, prisons are full to capacity and mental facilities as well.

Social workers, psychologlists and mental health professionals are so overwhelmed since Covid. 

Sometimes it seems like the world is going to he*l in a handbasket. 

Hoping we all can live our days safely....

Thank you for posting this.

[bikerbabe]

Everyone laments mental illness and drug addictions but no one is willing to truly fund it, including insurance, social outreach programs, staffing. research, and in-patient and outpatient facilities. For adults AND minors.

[Linmo]

It could have been a hate crime.  Too soon to tell.  Either way, it was done by a person with mental issues.  I hope that both the victim and the perpetrator get the help they need to recover.

[Isobel Archer]

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@bikerbabe wrote:
Everyone laments mental illness and drug addictions but no one is willing to truly fund it, including insurance, social outreach programs, staffing. research, and in-patient and outpatient facilities. For adults AND minors.

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I think it's even more complicated that just funding.  You can't just commit the mentally ill against their will.  When they do something like this, they can be arrested, but then they probably won't be jailed because of their mental illness.  If they are sent to treatment, and then resume their meds and/or seem to get better, they have to be released - and then the cycle resumes.

Also with the increase in drug use such as fentanyal etc., more and more people are on the streets and treatment centers are overwhelmed.  It has always amazed me when people insist that drug dealing is not a violent crime.

[Snowpuppy]

What are posters personally putting up with?

They aren't taking public transportation nor do they work in a major metro city.

[Isobel Archer]

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@Snowpuppy wrote:

What are posters personally putting up with?

They aren't taking public transportation nor do they work in a major metro city.

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Obviously you didn't read any of my posts on a previous thread.

I worked in DC for years and took Metro.  I still go into the city on Metro - although it is not really safe any more.

[golding76]

Snowpuppy, my story is similar to Isobel Archer's.  I worked in Washington, D.C., for years and took public transportation to and from work.  In fact, only yesterday I posted an account of a sexual affront that occurred in 1972, but the entire thread has been deleted and you won't be able to read it now.

What hurts me to the core with this urine assault is that I flashed back to all my days walking blocks from buses or the Metro (what we call the subway in this area) in later years and not having to worry about such a vicious and disgusting act.  My greatest worry was if my slip was showing or the wind was tossing my hair around.  It breaks my heart that people do not have that sort of carefree existence any longer.

McPherson Square is not an undesirable neighborhood (at least I do not remember it as such).  There may be homeless people there now, but they chose a lovely spot.

These days, my Metro travel has been limited to getting to the Kennedy Center and the Capitol One Arena for shows.  And I don't do that much these days  So, you are correct in thinking I have no recent experience of going to work via public transportation.  

However, I did take the bus from McLean, Va., to D.C. for several years in the latter part of the 1970s and from Northern Virginia to the Pentagon from 1979 to 1982.  

So, for much of my adult life, I took public transportation to work.   

Photo of McPherson Square

[Isobel Archer]

@golding76   Very well said.

Although we did have the sniper there for awhile.  I practiced walking in a zig zag manner.  Probably looked like a mentally ill person myself.