WASHINGTON — Nysia Armstead hoped to go home from the hospital Tuesday, three days after she alleges being beaten and stabbed in the head and arm by a man, as two women hurled anti-gay slurs at her.
It began, according to the Armstead, who is transgender, as an argument over a washing machine at the Capital Laundry Mat on Benning Road, Northeast, and escalated into an alleged brutal hate crime.
DC Police said they're actively investigating the attack as a crime motivated by anti-gay or transgender bias. They have yet to announce any arrests.
The attack was caught on camera and the video is disturbingly graphic.
In an exclusive phone interview Tuesday from Howard University Hospital, Armstead, 31, describe the assault, saying, "They just called me all kinds of "f**** and "b****" and stuff. 'Oh this b****, won't use this washing machine."
In the video, you can see the two women and a man assaulting her, punching her repeatedly, then stabbing her in the head. She retreats to a corner of this laundromat, grabbing her head, bleeding, clearly in terrible pain.
"I got stabbed in my head and my arm with a big old knife and I've got 37 staples in my right arm, I mean 37 stitches in my right arm, and 18 staples that were put in my head," she said.
D.C. Police said when they arrived, she was bleeding severely. They rendered first aid and D.C. Fire and EMS raced her to the hospital.
Armstead said the attack has left her paralyzed with fear.
"I don't even want to go outside...I'm depressed. No, I'm not ... Anytime I breathe, it hurts," she said, sobbing.
D.C. Police statistics show 87 gender or sexual orientation bias incidents in 2019. The reported cases actually went down in 2020 by about 25% to 65. But experts said many of these crimes go unreported.
Sign up for the Get Up DC newsletter: Your forecast. Your commute. Your news.
Sign up for the Capitol Breach email newsletter, delivering the latest breaking news and a roundup of the investigation into the Capitol Riots on January 6, 2021.