Six months into 2025, 19 D.C. firefighters reported being assaulted on the job. That’s almost once a week on average. Firefighter-paramedic Dave Brown was one of them, in an attack caught on video.

Just before 8:30am May 8, DC Fire & EMS was called to a corner in Chinatown for an unconscious man who appeared to have fallen off his rented bicycle. Paramedic Dave Brown told the News4 I-Team he put a collar on the man to protect his neck, loaded him onto a gurney and started the trip to nearby Howard University Hospital.

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A block into the trip, Brown told the I-Team the patient woke up and hit him in the head.

“He wanted to fight. He wanted to assault me," Brown said.

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