Man Robbed, Assaulted on Path Near Sunset Hills Road

Columns

by Karen Goff July 26, 2016 at 2:10 pm 12 Comments

Correction: A previous version of this story said the victim was on the W&OD Trail. That was incorrect.

A man was robbed and assaulted by three suspects on a trail near the 12100 block of Sunset Hills Road on Monday, Fairfax County Police said.

The man was walking near Sunset Hills and Town Center Parkway about 9:25 p.m. when he was approached by three men who allegedly began to assault him, police said.

The suspects took property and fled on bicycles. They were described as black. There was no further description provided.

The victim was treated for non-life-threatening injuries at a local hospital.

A similar robbery and assault took place near the same spot in May.

In that incident, a man said he was walking on the path about 9:30 p.m. when two men pushed him to the ground, took his property and fled.

The suspects in that case had a different description. That case remains open.

Mike M

Hey, jmsullivan. Get a load o this. Didn’t take long, did it?
Former Pedestrian

The trails around here are getting too dangerous to go it alone. I used to enjoy walking the Reston paths, not anymore. It’s the one thing I really enjoyed about this town. Now I use my car to go to the local village center instead.
- susie
  
  Liberalism
- Dodge
  
  You do realize how many trails there are in Reston, how many people traverse them daily, and how infrequently you hear about robberies? The chance of being robbed on a Reston trail are as low as you could possibly hope for. Don’t let the reporting of a single event paint the impression that there is an inherent danger. That is just short sighted.
  - Former Pedestrian
    
    This is not a single event, whether its the paths or the local streets, the frequency of muggings has increased substantially over the past few years.
    And it will only get worse if the facists take power.
    - Dodge
      
      I bet you’re fun at a dinner party
    - Tom
      
      That’s fine. More room for the rest of us on the paths.
- Waitwhat
  
  Assaults, robberies, and rapes have occurred off and on, and in waves, on Reston’s paths, for decades. “In the fall and winter of 1982, a series of nine rapes along Reston’s paths and in its garden town houses terrorized the community and frustrated police for four months..” (Washington Post). In 1979, I was mugged at the underpass by the Soapstone High’s (now a 7-11). Crime has been going on for a long time on the paths.
- Tom
  
  Donald Trump and the mainstream media have people running scared and afraid to go out the door. Everyday life is full of risks but the facts show that overall, crime rates are lower than they were just 20 years ago. Social media and “always connected” consumers have warped perspectives thinking that just because something bad happened, it will somehow happen to them.
  - Mike M
    
    And this is Trump’s doing?
Mike M

Calling people “racists” is like killing tanks. Fun and easy! Well done, twerp!
Isaac Blaise

Hello, my name is Isaac. I was the man who was attacked on the W&OD trail in Reston at ~9:25 pm while walking to my hotel from work that evening. The story is incomplete and inaccurate, and this being the first time I actually saw the story reported online ( I had to email the detective to find it ), I would like to correct the record.

1. I was attacked by 3 black men on bikes. One rammed me with his bike and grabbed my backpack, and another began punching me.
2. The suspects DID NOT FLEE the scene. I did. I escaped by running off the trail. In the process of doing so, I ran into a tree and split my head wide open, causing blood to spray all over me. Even still, I ran through the woods and a parking lot and finally to the lobby of my hotel, where i screamed for help, knowing that I had lost a lot of blood. In fact, the detective on the case told me that a security camera captured my attackers riding slowly along past the Verisign building. No ‘fleeing’ there.
3. My injury WAS life threatening. There was a good chance that if I’d gone unconscious when hitting the tree (I was woozy), or if my 3 attackers managed to hold me down preventing my escape, I would have bled out. How do I know this? The paramedics told me I’d lost a lot of blood, and if I was out much longer, things would have been much more serious.
4. The attack was race-based. How do I know this? Because my attackers continued to attack me even though they already HAD everything they could have stolen from me, using violent rhetoric and racial slurs. (Yes, I’m white and my attackers were black). I was foolish enough to walk on the trail in the dark, thinking that I’d be fine since the hotel was so close.
5. My injury was a direct result of the attack, and very painful. I needed 100 stitches and local anesthesia on the top of my skull. I was on morphine in the hospital for nearly 2 days while I was being monitored for infections, concussion symptoms, and potential non-obvious neck injuries.
6. The story didn’t end there, and I wish there was follow up on this story as I would have been happy to answer all questions. In fact, to this day my attackers haven’t been caught (and probably never will be since I didn’t see their faces, too dark). My recovery was quick, and my stitches are out. I still have a long scar that goes from the back of my head to halfway down my forehead, but the plastic surgeon who put me back together thinks there’s a good chance it’ll go away.

Lesson learned, but at least it would be nice if the facts were straight.

Isaac
ps, if anyone doubts my story, I made a video: https://youtu.be/4fSxrZlYbac

Subscribe to our mailing list