A woman beaten with a brick by a teenage boy outside her Capitol Hill home in 2022 forgave her attacker, who has kept her updated on his progress in a restorative justice program since they met.
The attack 18 months ago left the sidewalk stained with blood, and Isabella Harris still has some hearing loss.
“For the first, like, six months or so, I was pretty nervous going out and about and about noises at night,” she said.
Police quickly arrested the 16-year-old boy who attacked her. He admitted guilt in court, entering into an agreement that included a restorative justice program and other conditions rather than juvenile detention, the attorney general’s office said.
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Shortly after that, his social worker contacted Harris about meeting her attacker face to face.
“At first, I was like, heck no,” Harris said. “And then I said, well, this is an opportunity to maybe change this person's life … so I said yes because it was a way for me to have some closure, because when you're a victim of crime, you usually don't get any chance to make something better of it. Usually, it's just you wait for it to be forgotten in your brain. That takes a long time. So, this was a good way to cleanse my brain and feel that something slightly positive or neutral came of this event.”
She met with the boy, his father and three social workers.
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“He did apologize to me, and it was sincere, and I definitely appreciated that,” Harris said.
The teen asked to speak to Harris alone, and she agreed. She said she forgave him and told him to “grow up and be responsible for himself, be responsible for his actions, be a good person, be able to support himself, be proud.”
Harris feels better about what happened after meeting the teen and his father.
“We actually all hugged, and I hugged this boy, and he was really small,” she said. “He was a young teenage, well, he was a teenager. He was small, but we all hugged, and he felt good, and I felt good.”
Harris said she’s received three letters from the teen since their meeting updating her on his progress in vocational school.
In 2023, almost 90% of juveniles who entered into a deferred disposal agreement completed the program successfully,” according to a recent Criminal Justice Coordinating Council study. About 16% were found to commit another crime after completing the program.
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