I have lived at 500 Buchanan St., Apt. 12 since 1989. The current owner, Joel Haddad, refused to change the locks on the two gates since he bought the building in the early 1990s. I asked him many times over the years, but he refused. Eventually the locks became so worn that many keys could open them. He responded by adding a lock on a wooden door inside the front gate, but left the worn locks in place on both gates. The wooden door swells in humid weather, which makes it difficult to close. It is often left ajar. The back gate does not close by itself to this day and is often left ajar by tenants and garbage collectors. There have been at least a dozen further intrusions since I was assaulted and falsely accused on August 5, 2013. Since around 2009, I've seen a neighbor kid come by to visit Anthony, the only juvenile in the building. Anthony's not a bad kid, but his friend was always sullen. Once I said hi to them as they passed on the street, and it was clear that his friend resented it, so I never did that again. He was always armed with a Razor scooter, which is a steel plank a couple feet long. It has a steel pipe perpendicular to the plank which serves as a handle. During the years since, I'd often see Anthony's friends hanging out on the back stairs, texting or charging their phones. Usually they would move aside to let me pass, but not always. Sometimes I'd just go down the front steps instead. In the first quarter of 2012, something changed. As many as three nights a week, when I got home and opened the gate, I'd hear two or three or four people running down the back stairs and out the gate, as if they had been watching for me from the roof. I assume this is because I live on the top floor, so I can hear when people are on the roof. The intrusions continued week after week into the summer. I suspected the kid with the scooter, but I never saw the intruders. That changed on the evening of Sunday, August 5, 2012. About 9:30pm I descended the back stairs, intending to drop off some recycling on the way to the store. As I reached the first floor landing, I smelled marijuana mixed with some kind of chemical. It smelled like burning plastic. I heard laughter and rushing feet, and four teens I'd never seen before came running out of the laundry room. The laundry room exits on the hallway between the stairs and the gate, so at all times while the intruders were in the building they were between me and the back gate. At all times when I could see them they were leaving the building. They were three boys and a girl, and appeared to be zipping up their pants. The girl was tugging at the waistband of her tights. It seems I had interrupted an intimate moment. The kids ran out the gate and it shut behind them, so I continued down the stairs and dropped the empties in the recycle bin. As I stood behind the bin, a fifth kid ran out of the laundry room. He was carrying his scooter. I began to say, "You know what they say about discretion being the better part of valor?" but he began shouting after the third word. He could not have heard what I said and was unlikely to understand it anyhow. He shouted, "Punk-ass bitch! Don't you touch me!" and brandished his scooter. I remained still, keeping the bin between him and me. He brandished the scooter as he continued moving toward the gate, a distance of about 12 feet. This encounter lasted 10 to 15 seconds, and then he ran out the gate to rejoin his accomplices. I heard them run down the block. Once the coast was clear, I emerged from behind the bin and continued on my way to the store across the street. They were in the wrong, and they knew it, and they were gone. I figured it was over. At the store I recounted what had happened. The staff there are very familiar with the sight of neighborhood kids running into the building. I took my time to be sure it was over before returning home. Then I went upstairs to continue my work. After about ten minutes I heard a mob outside the building. They were shouting incoherently. Not owning a cell phone, I went downstairs to tell them to leave before I was forced to call police. When I arrived at the front gate, I saw the same gang I'd surprised in the basement. They were screaming and jumping up and down. Hoping to reason with them, I opened the gate. Fromabout 12 or 15 feet away, the ringleader wound up and flung his scooter at my head. Most of the weight hit my shoulder, which spared my life. Had it hit my skull with its full weight I have no doubt I'd be dead, based on the damage to my shoulder, which quickly developed a lump the size of a golf ball. The kids ran off, leaving the scooter behind. My glasses were broken. Unable to see much, I walked back to the store to get cleaned up, get on video, and ask the clerk to call police. Within the next couple minutes, a larger mob formed around the store. What looked like a dozen teenagers and a big man about 45 years old and 250 pounds surrounded the store, banging on the plate glass and shouting "Send him out." The grandmother of the kid who lives in my building came running down to see what had happened, knowing these were her grandson's social circle. While she swabbed blood from my face, the clerk held the door shut against the mob. One teenager I'd never seen before pushed the door open anyhow, ran in, and asked me "Why you crying?" I wasn't. I said, "I'm bleeding," and he ran back out the door. The grandmother began helping the clerk to hold the door shut. Next the older man pushed his way in. From about three feet away he shouted, "You touch my kid?" "No, and I never came near him." He went limp and let the clerk drag him slowly out the door. Afraid for my life, I ran back into the office to wait for police. I locked the office door and began to barricade it. The shouting continued and I heard the gang pounding the plate glass so hard I was sure it would break. I was afraid for my life. When police came, they asked me why I was hiding. "These people are trying to kill me," I replied, and the officer said that she needed to cuff me, it was standard procedure, and that they needed to get me out of there. As they walked me to the car, other officers tried to manage the mob. Just before we reached the car, the adult lunged at me, trying to grab my hair. A cop body-checked him out of the way and we drove to the station. At the station, the officer who had cuffed me asked me whether I had touched one of the youngsters. I told her I'd never gone near them. She observed that I had not said no, so I said, "They never touched me and I never touched them." Later, two officers came and uncuffed me. "We're going to let you go, but first we have to ask you some questions." They took me into a room and we sat at the table. They asked me my views on people who touch children inappropriately. Why is it wrong? What should happen to people who do that? What did I think motivated them? I told them I think that's a horrible crime, one that threatens the survival of our species. Human beings take a long time to develop, so it is everyone's responsibility to ensure that every child is treated fairly. Any violation of a child's trust does damage to the species. They had asked me why touching a child inappropriately is wrong. I replied that they can't consent, that they don't understand the stigma or the consequences, and that the pre-frontal cortex, known as the seat of judgment, does not finish developing until the early twenties in most people, and that's why we raised the drinking age. I told them that I know views differ on what should happen to that type of offender, but that I suspect they must be removed from society to ensure they could never do that again. I said I can't know what motivates them, but that it looks like a desire for power and control. I told them that I had helped raise two children, with two different partners, and invited them to talk to both women. Each kid turned out great, and each is beginning a family of their own. One officer asked me if I had any enemies, observing that such a sudden escalation and serious charge is very unusual in the absence of some kind of feud or vendetta. I concurred, and said that while I don't know why they would try to kill me in particular, it was likely that they considered me a witness, and that if the motive was to kill the witness, that wouldn't be unheard of. "I think the reason they attacked me is because I was the one who surprised them, and I suspect the ringleader watches for me because I'm the biggeest obstacle to his habit of using our building as a clubhouse." "I think another factor is that I'm not a big, physically intimidating person. I write software, loathe sports, and don't work out. My attacker knows I won't escalate because I don't want to start a feud or vendetta, and I think he ran for backup just to make that threat clear." "I think the reason he attacked me is also that they were somewhere they're not supposed to be, doing something they're not supposed to be doing." "The bottom line for me," I said, "is what were they doing in my home?" "Wait," the officer asked, looking surprised. "You mean they don't live there?" "How did I leave that out? I'm so stunned by the attack and the head injury. No, they have no business being in that building. If there's anything good to come of this evening, it's that from now on they have no excuse for being there." I told them how I'd seen the kid around, riding his scooter up and down Buchanan, or hanging out on the back steps, once or twice a month for half a decade, I described events of recent months, which made it seem as if they were watching for me from the roof, and running out when I came in, and that now I was pretty sure my attacker was behind those intrusions as well. Unlike the other kids, he could claim he was there to visit Anthony, but in recent months I'd seen them more and more often when Anthony wasn't around, as was the case that night. The officers apologized, explaining that they had to ask these questions, and then they photographed my head injury and the blood on my hands from wiping my face. They gave me my belongings and a typed statement saying that I had not been arrested, just detained for questioning. The next day I came home around 6pm. Seeing my neighbor Rosemarie, a retired social worker, I recounted my ordeal, hoping she'd have some advice. After all, the family likely still believed the kid. To them I was just some guy, and even though they knew he had no business being in my building, they would naturally take his side. I told her I was afraid for my life. She wanted to stand outside my building, and as I began telling her that wasn't a good idea, a gloved hand grabbed my hair from behind. The attacker's dad bent me double in the street, right in front of Rosemarie, turned my head to face him, and asked, "Are you a child molester?" "No." "Did you touch my kid?" he asked again. "No, and I never would. I never even came near them." "What did you do, then?" "I surprised them when they were doing something they didn't want anyone to know about." He let go and strode off. "You better hope that tape comes back clean." "That tape is my best friend," I said, unsure of what he meant but sure it was something to do with a search for evidence. There can't be evidence of things that didn't happen, so any search for evidence could only help me. I called the police and for the first time was classified as a victim of violent crime. Because of the gap between the first attack by the family and the second, my request for aid to pay for X-rays and a CT scan has been denied on the grounds that my status as victim began with the second attack. Because I was not considered a victim when the kid tried to kill me, I face thousands of dollars in hospital bills. I am also unemployed, having been laid off this year. It is unfortunate that anyone can break into someone's home, attempt to murder them, and then persuade police that they themselves are the victim. I would like to ask the Victim/Witness Assistance program to reconsider their decision to deny compensation. The child's false accusation does not mean that his attempt to murder me did not qualify me as a victim of violent crime.