As a follow up to a story I posted a few days ago, Jonah at SeattleCrime helped me get my hands on the police report because he’s a bad ass like that. So here’s a better version of the story I wrote over at SeattleCrime:
A teenager on a fixed gear bike was jumped by five guys who threw a soccer ball at him, shoved him off his bike and kicked him, injuring the biker’s elbow pretty bad in the process. The story was posted on Magnolia Voice by an unnamed source:
At approximately 7:10 p.m. on Tuesday, July 27 a 16 year-old Queen Anne/Magnolia resident was riding his bicycle on the 2700 block of Gilman Avenue West when a vehicle stopped in front of him. The driver (a Caucasian male, 18-21, shirtless, wearing red shorts, about 6′ tall, with short blond hair and an athletic build), exited the vehicle with a soccer ball and used the ball to knock the rider off his bicycle. The rider was thrown to the ground violently. The driver continued to attack the rider, who, knowing he was seriously injured, fled. A passenger in the driver’s car took the bicycle and they fled. The vehicle was a silver or gray late-model Subaru Outback or similar without a license plate on the front.
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SeattleCrime obtained the police report, which mostly corroborates the story, but says there were five male teenagers (16-18) in the vehicle, and that “they” beat the victim up, kicking and punching him. The victim’s elbow was fractured and will require surgery, according to the MV account.
The victim said he did not know the assailants, according to MV, but it is possible on of the assailants had owned the bike at one time. The bike, a unique “Cervelo P2-SL frameset with all custom parts and a fixed gear” had been stolen previously and recovered after it was found locked up with another bike, a Lemond, near Green Lake. After the victim was able to provide receipts for the frame serial number, police clipped the lock and returned the bike to him.
During the attack, the attacker allegedly made reference to the Lemond and said the bike was his:
It is possible that the driver purchased the bike after it had been stolen and believed the rider had stolen it from him. During the attack, he yelled something about where the “Lemond” was. But knocking a bicyclist off a bike going downhill at perhaps 20+ mph is not the appropriate way to deal with a situation like this.
What a mess. If the MV writer’s theory is right, then this kid has a serious injury to his elbow because of a giant misunderstanding. Ugh.
