Newww record!

In the ten months or so since I've been maintaining the D.C. murder counter (on your left), not once has the column keeping track of "days since our last murder" gotten as high as seven.

Until today.

D.C. has actually gone an entire week without a homicide. Here's a snapshot for posterity:



That's right, there's a party going on. Right here. A celebration, if you will. And we owe it all to.. a mysterious man in a red jacket.

Boyce said the man chased him down an alley and began stabbing him again, wounding Boyce's hand and wrist as he tried to defend himself. During the struggle, Boyce said, the man in the red jacket walked into the alley.

"He's a working man," Boyce remembered him saying. "You don't want to go to jail for trying to kill him. He's just doing his job." The attacker did not seem to listen, Boyce said.

At one point, Boyce said, the man in the red jacket started to lead the attacker away. But the assailant broke away, ran back and started punching Boyce in the face.

Incredible... an outsider actually helping someone in danger. In D.C. Someone in D.C. actually took an interest in the life of someone else, and stepped into a dangerous situation to help them. I'm speechless. And that's not all:

Boyce said that as he lay on the ground, the man in the red jacket called 911 and talked to him to keep him awake.

"I felt him rubbing my hair, saying, 'Come on, stay with me,' " he said.

OK, this man in the red jacket fucking rocks! This mysterious man is my new hero. He actually saved this guy's life. It's an unprecedented display of selflessness in Washington.

This, seriously, makes my day. Man in the Red Jacket: you rock.

P.S.: Andrew, I expect a heroic graphic rendering of this man, including superhero name, on my desk by Monday.