A troubling story about a scooter jacking Saturday night in Columbia Heights is popping up on local message boards. I’ve contacted the police with no answer so far. Here’s the raw info from DC Scoots and WMASA (which haven’t approved my membership yet so I can’t post my contact info on the post):

One of my coworkers’ friends just bought a Buddy 125. On Saturday night, about 7PM, he stopped at an intersection in Colombia Heights and was approached by four young black men. They demanded his scooter, he said no, and one pulled a gun. He then gunned his scooter and went into the intersection, getting pistol whipped. And then he hit a car. He’s okay, the scooter is trashed, and the 4 hoodlums are nowhere to be found.

However, the police report inflames me and pisses me off. A DC Cop issued him a citation for running a red light while he was in the hospital. The report claims that he “drove into the gun”, rather than actually getting pistol-whipped. I hate crime report manipulation. I told my friend that he should definitely go to court, contest, and bring hospital room pictures of his pistol-whip wound.

UPDATE: I just spoke with the police, who are looking into this for me. The inspector I spoke with was skeptical, and I should add the caveat that third-hand news items from list-serves can suffer from the inaccuracies of the telephone game. More to come.