A couple was involved in a violent fight over a taxi outside of the Verizon Center after a Van Halen concert Wednesday night.
Brian Bradley, 40, of Arlington, Va., was charged with aggravated assault.
A Capitol Hill couple had flagged down a taxi after the concert when Bradley and three of his friends approached, police said.
“The man and woman were actually getting in the cab when the group tried to bum rush past them into the cab,” Lt. William Fitzgerald said. “That’s what started the argument. The group became violent right away. They escalated that situation and they assaulted the man four on one.”
The woman called 911, and when she went to her husband’s aid, Bradley hit her in the face in front of several witnesses, police said.
“When he struck her, she fell backwards,” Fitzgerald said. “He knocked her semi-conscious, because her body was going limp, the back of her head struck the sidewalk. We believe that’s where additional injuries were caused to her brain at that point and to her skull.”
The woman was hospitalized with head injuries and later released.
Bradley fled the scene but was found in a nearby parking garage, police said.
“It was a real cowardly act to hit the woman in the face like that,” Fitzgerald said.
