WASHINGTON — A D.C. man said he felt safe walking to his Northwest home at night, until he was viciously attacked earlier this month.
Ben Fishel, the grandson of the late CBS broadcaster Andy Rooney, says he was walking home near 11th and V streets in Northwest at about 2 a.m. on July 19 when he was grabbed from behind and slashed across his face on his front steps located in the 2100 block of 11th Street.
“He had me in a headlock,” Fishel recounted to FOX 5. “I couldn’t breathe.”
Fishel isn’t completely sure what he was attacked with, but he believes it was a box cutter. He said it came across his chin and cut him pretty deep.
Fishel thinks he and his group may have been followed after he refused to pay for cigarettes for several men at a nearby gas station.
“As soon as I peeled off on my own to go to my house, apparently he was still following me,” he said.
That’s when he was attacked, as he turned the key to his front door. The suspect slashed him and then fled without taking anything.
“We walk home a lot,” Fishel told FOX 5. “It was never a concern of mine.”
But he wants to put out a word of caution: “I would just tell folks to be just a little more mindful.”
