Initial Status Hearing Set for Woman Accused of Assault on Georgetown Woman

On June 6, 2011, a Georgetown woman walking her son home from Hyde-Addison Elementary school was hit in the eye by a younger woman after a verbal altercation escalated on the 1300 block of Wisconsin Avenue. Mayikia Gorham, 19, of Southeast D.C. was arrested shortly thereafter on P Street and charged in connection with the incident. She will have a status hearing July 13 in D.C. Superior Court.

According to the police incident report, the victim stated that she was walking on Wisconsin Avenue and said "excuse me" so that she could pass a group of young people standing on the sidewalk. The defendant then allegedly "began yelling" and "struck [the victim] in the left eye with an open hand."

In an email obtained by Patch the victim gave her own account of the incident. She indicated that the defendant was one of a group of young people "deliberately" blocking the sidewalk.  The victim's requests for them to move were met with racial slurs being yelled at her.

"I turned around and said to them 'watch your language,'  at which point one of the girls walked up to me and punched me in my left eye."

The assailant and friends fled on foot and caught a metro bus, according to the email. The police, however, were able to track down the bus and witnesses identified the suspect. Officer Nicholas Cook arrested Gorham, who was later positively identified by the victim at the Second District Headquarters.

Gorham was arraigned June 23 at which time she plead not guilty and asserted her rights to a trial.

Gorham was previously charged in 2010 for a January 5, 2010 incident of simple assault which took place in the First District. The charges were later dismissed for "want of prosecution."