During Covid, a family off of Kansas Avenue and Decatur Street put up an adjustable basketball hoop on their back deck, right on the alley, to let their two young kids play. The spot was popular with other neighborhood kids, and the two homeowners were happy to let other children use the net whenever they wanted.

The basketball hoop is now gone, along with the staircase from the back deck to the alley, and the window blinds are drawn closed. What started out as a normal night on April 11th turned absolutely nightmarish for the family as the four young kids, two of whom were teens, attacked the husband and left him knocked out in the alley with a broken jaw, missing teeth and more injuries.

The couple, who wish to remain anonymous so we’ll call them John and Jane, would raise or lower the basketball hoop to fit whomever came by to play, making it easier to use. Around 7:30pm on Monday night, April 11th, as dusk slowly fell, four kids showed up at the back of the house. One was reportedly as young as 10, one was pushing a stroller, and two were older teens. One older teen was wearing a black sweatshirt with a white rectangle, the other older teen in a yellow jacket.

John greeted the kids and lowered the net to make it easier for them to play and dunk the ball. He told them that they could play for a little while, but that they’d need to stop when it got late as his young 5-year old daughter would need to go to bed, and the hoop was below her window.

“John went out and adjusted the hoop for them as he often does as a kindness, and got out the basketballs we keep on hand,” Jane said. “He asked them to be sure to stop playing at dark so he could get our daughter to bed without noise. At 9:30 they were still playing, so when my daughter complained about the noise, John went out to ask them to stop.”

Jane says her husband is of slight stature, not an imposing presence and is soft-spoken. He reportedly walked halfway down the stairs to the alley and calmly asked them to wrap it up, as the noise was keeping up his daughter.

“John is just a very calm guy,” Jane said. “After he asked them to stop playing, the bigger of the teens came at John on the stairs, yelling ‘What did you say to me? Why are you coming at me?’ The boy then rushed John and punched him [in the head].”

John fell or was pulled from the staircase, unconscious, and the kids allegedly proceeded to kick and stomp on him. “He doesn't remember anything after that first punch,” Jane said.

What the couple has pieced together from the blood trail in the alley, John’s injuries and police discussions is that John was knocked out by the first punch, thrown down the rest of the stairs and "stomped out" as the police told them — kicked in the body and face repeatedly.

A neighbor’s camera footage shows the kids leaving the alley shortly after, “Strolling with no sense of urgency or fear, though John was unconscious and bleeding badly a few feet behind them,” Jane said.

On a video recorded by a neighbor’s security camera, the teens can be heard exclaiming how the video on one of their phones was still on and recording during the assault. “I had my phone still recording!” one boy says. “You ain’t move it?” the other asks. “Yeah,” the first boy responded. (Petworth News verified the audio from the security footage — though the video did not capture the assault.)

John had six bones broken in his face, including his orbital bone, nose and jaw, and had most of his front lower teeth broken. “There was so much blood that it has seeped into the concrete in the alley and won't go away, despite cleaning,” Jane said. “My children will see it.”

A neighbor who went over to feed the couple’s dogs and clean up, said there was so much blood it looked like a murder scene.

The spot where the net was attached to the deck, now removed and the basketballs stored away.

While MPD showed up quickly, the responding officers told the couple they shouldn’t have spoken to the teens, but called MPD to remove them.

“The last thing we wanted to do was to call the police on four Black kids playing basketball in an alley,” Jane said. “My husband had already spoken to them, had set up the net for them. Everything seemed fine. Then this attack happened… it just seems so ruthless to attack him, leave him bleeding on the ground as they calmly walked away.”

Adding insult to the injury, the ambulance reportedly took more than 20 minutes to arrive. John was taken to MedStar Washington Medical Center but oddly not admitted as a trauma patient. He was left in a hallway until they operated on him — they had to remove the teeth from the front of his lower jaw because they were all broken at the roots. After the surgery, he was left in the hallway again for 24 hours, then sent home with Fentanyl. The couple asked why he wasn’t being admitted, or his other broken bones tended, and was told there were no rooms available, and they’d have to call other hospitals to see if he can be admitted.

They managed to get John into George Washington hospital, where he had another surgery to repair his jaw and nose. “We know he needs at least two more [surgeries] to his mouth and teeth, and possibly additional reconstruction of his lip and orbital bone. After a week he is finally home, but he can only have liquids for the next six weeks, and we know this is the beginning of a long road. I am afraid to have my children see him (they think Daddy fell down the stairs) because his face is so damaged. They are upset and asking why we have taken down the basketball hoop and removed the stairs, and we don't have answers. All of the neighbors are very upset,” Jane said.

Jane had a handyman come over and take down the basketball hoop and remove the stairs, sealing the deck from the alley. “For the first time ever, I lowered the blinds on the first floor,” she said. “The stairs had John’s blood on them, and we didn’t want the kids to see that.”

The bottom supports of the staircase, cut away in the couple’s need to feel safer and keep the blood hidden from their children.

“We believe in the city, believe in staying here,” Jane said. She said her first reaction was to leave — sell the house. Run. For the first time, she thought “Can we afford Bethesda? Can we afford Takoma Park or Silver Spring?”

“But once I was calmed down and with my children and really thought about what happened, it seems like one person snapping in so irrational way — it wasn't a planned crime — it was a crazy moment in time. It seems too specific to be scared of it happening again. I hate the idea that we will worry more and feel less comfortable,” she said.

“But I will feel less comfortable about my kids playing in the alley. We had to take the basketball hoop down — I loved that so many different kids came and played and there was a trusting relationship about it. I'm angry still, and everytime I see the blood in the alley... I'm so angry. I feel helpless. It's shock and sadness at this happening at all. Particularly with John, he's a really good, really nice person and having this happen to him...”

The MPD detective told Jane that while they were investigating, they didn’t yet have any leads.

Update 4/25: MPD has a portion of the security video on their YouTube account that has no sound and a blurry view of the teens; however, the neighbor who owns the video camera asked Petworth News to not embed the clip due to her own concerns about her family’s identity, and we have agreed to the request in this instance.