Jahari Alford loves all things bicycles.
His family follows “bike life” pages on social media showcasing riders doing tricks on different types of wheeled vehicles, and last year, he received an electric dirt bike for his birthday to ride in a secure area.
Briyonna Alford can picture how excited her 10-year-old son must have been to see the group of dirt bike and four-wheeler riders racing in his direction in Northwest Washington earlier this month. But excitement turned to trauma when a driver popped a wheelie and struck Jahari and his friend, who were riding an electric bicycle in a bike lane, police said. The driver fled the area with the rest of the group.
The impact knocked Jahari unconscious, piercing a hole through his cheek, Alford said. He was rushed to the hospital in critical condition.
Jahari now is at home recovering, and police are still looking for the driver that hit him. President Donald Trump’s D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force, established by an executive order last year and focused on public safety, has also been following the case, closely coordinating with local police, according to a White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said she would push for tough charges in the case. “It’s not just … driving an ATV,” Pirro said at a recent news conference. “To me, it’s being armed with a dangerous weapon and injuring a child, aggravated assault.”
In the meantime, Alford and other community members are pushing for changes in how the city addresses dirt bikes and four-wheelers, such as creating designated spaces for the riders. Though illegal to ride in Washington, the vehicles are a constant presence as the weather heats up. Current policy prohibits D.C. police officers from chasing the small vehicles, according to the department’s website, and some riders travel to the city from other areas.
The wheeled vehicles have been part of the culture of many Black communities in cities nationwide, embraced by riders who want to have fun, said Ronald Moten, a community advocate and co-founder of Don’t Mute D.C. But this is not the first concerning incident involving riders, he said.
How do we find a balance? he asked. “The way it is now is not going to work.”
A parent’s nightmare
Alford said she was hesitant, at first, to let Jahari spend Easter weekend with friends. Just a week earlier, she said, he was held up at gun point while playing in their neighborhood by some teenagers who stole his bike ski mask.
But the sport-loving fifth-grader, who plays basketball, soccer, football and tennis and lights up rooms with his jokes and smile, loves playing outside with his friends, she said.
“I’m so worried as a mom, I’m like, ‘No, you can’t go outside,’” Alford, 31, said. “But it’s like, it’s hard to do that for a 10-year-old who loves to be outside and just gets a little depressed. I don’t want him to be depressed.”
So, on April 3, she dropped Jahari off at school, and he later headed home with a friend for a sleepover and a birthday party. The fun continued the next day with go-karting, pizza and finally, bike riding in Northwest.
Jahari called his mom “every single hour,” she said, but she soon told him he couldn’t stay for much longer because of Easter service in the morning. She planned to pick him up around 7 p.m.
As Jahari and his friend rode in a bike lane near 14th and Chapin Streets NW, Janee Carter and her two children were riding bikes on the opposite side of the street.
Soon, Carter, 37, said the roadway erupted in sounds of dirt bikes and four-wheelers as riders traveled up 14th Street. Carter and her children slowed down, and she saw Jahari and his friend had done the same, watching as the group performed bike tricks.
As the group steadily tried to take over both sides of the street, Carter said, a four-wheeler and a dirt bike crashed into each other, causing Carter to look back over her left shoulder. Within seconds, she heard what she describes as a “smash.”
Carter looked toward that sound, she said, and saw Jahari thrown into the air. His body hit the ground and rolled into the middle of the street, she said.
Carter turned her bike around and rushed to the boy’s side.
She said the rider of the dirt bike briefly approached Jahari as the boy lay unconscious on the ground. The rider, wearing a ski mask, uttered a profanity and then pulled off, Carter said.
Carter said she opened Jahari’s jacket, checking for any broken bones. Blood poured from his cheek.
“His whole face was scraped up,” Carter said. “He had knots on his head that I could describe as, like, a person being beat in the head with a bat or something.”
Carter kept checking his pulse and trying to talk to Jahari while his 12-year-old friend, who was also injured, took Jahari’s phone to FaceTime Alford.
When Alford answered, she saw her son laid out in the street. Carter took the phone and reassured her Jahari was going to be okay but wasn’t responding. Alford repeatedly cried out for her son.
As Alford made her way to the scene, Carter said first responders told the mother to head straight to the hospital. Carter never left Jahari’s side as first responders began working to save his life.
“I feel like God put me right there,” Carter said. His friend was treated at the scene, police said.
Alford recalled her son’s first words to his parents in the hospital: “Am I going to be normal?”
He spent about five days there. He was delirious, Alford said, and wanted to take off the neck brace doctors put on him for a suspected spinal injury.
“Even to this day, he doesn’t remember anything that happened,” Alford said. “He just remembers being at the birthday party and then waking up in the hospital.”
A call to action
According to a police report, a person traveling northbound on 14th Street NW on a black-and-blue dirt bike lifted it onto its back tire, “popping a wheelie” before striking the two boys.
D.C. police released some surveillance footage depicting a group of masked ATV and dirt bike riders to try to identify the people involved. Alford said detectives have clearer video, and she had family members describe it to her. She couldn’t bear to watch it herself.
“We’re praying that at some point that they took their mask off,” Alford said. “We’re just real hopeful.”
Alford, a D.C. native, said she has lived with the ATVs and dirt bikes in the city her whole life. She doesn’t think the driver hit her son on purpose, but she said she was “horrified” to learn they left the scene without helping.
“I think a part of it is the ATVs being illegal, and then them knowing that they’re going to get in trouble for it,” she said.
Alford said she had been in contact with the city council about figuring out a solution beyond the law.
“I’m not discouraging them from riding, but it’s just ways that they can do it if they do it the right way,” Alford said.
She suggested lawmakers have a designated day for riders, where participants would have access to open spaces instead of crowded city streets. And she hopes change will come soon, with the weather heating up.
“I know a lot of parents are now nervous to let their kids ride bikes in the city, play in the city,” Alford said. “We already have to run from bullets in random places, now it’s like we have to watch out for dirt bikes and ATVs.”
Moten suggested changes such as starting a designated league for the riders in approved locations.
“If you create an environment where people can ride them for fun and can be competitive, it can be recreational, it can be whatever, I think that would be a compromise,” Moten said.
D.C. Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6), who chairs the committee on transportation and the environment, said in a statement: “Kids, just like everyone, should be able to safely ride in a bike lane anywhere in our city. This was a serious crime, and it must be treated that way in MPD’s investigation.”
Miracle child
Alford, an educator who works with children with special needs, is seven months pregnant and was already taking time off because of preeclampsia. Now she’s also committed to her son’s care. She worries about lost wages but has to focus on her children, she said.
Jahari is healing fast at home, his mom said, and won’t have any long-term injuries.
“He’s a pretty strong boy,” Alford said, calling him her “miracle child.”
But he still has stiff bones and is in physical therapy and taking multiple medications. He can’t open his mouth all the way yet. Jahari has an upcoming doctor’s appointment to clear him of his concussion and determine whether he can return to school part time, Alford said. Alford also remains concerned about the trauma experienced by her son’s friend, who was injured and treated at the scene.
“It just hurts my heart,” Alford said. “I just wish it would have never happened.”
Her 10-year-old, she said, wants nothing more than to be back outside. Playing with his friends.
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