A girl was beaten with a chair leg in the diplomatic residence of Equatorial Guinea last night, police said Tuesday, but no arrests have been made because the alleged attacker is a diplomat.
The incident happened around 9:30 p.m. Monday on the 4000 block of 27th Street N., in Arlington’s tony Dover-Crystal neighborhood. Police were called to the home of Ambassador Ruben Maye Nsue Mangue after a female 911 caller reported that “there’s someone going crazy at her house” and a man “hit her in the head with a chair,” according to scanner traffic.
“I’ve been there before,” said a responding officer. “There have been previous calls from this address.”
The female victim was struck “several times,” police said. Paramedics transported her to Virginia Hospital Center with a head wound, but no arrests were made.
“The subject has full diplomatic immunity and was not arrested,” Arlington County Police said in a crime report today. Police said the assault was “domestic” in nature but declined to reveal the identity of the suspect.
“We won’t go in to those details at this time,” ACPD spokesman Dustin Sternbeck told ARLnow.com. “The State Department was notified by our officers and it’s in their hands at this point.”
An anonymous tipster who contacted ARLnow.com this morning, before news of the attack was made public, claimed that the ambassador — who was appointed last year after serving on the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the Peace and Security Council of the African Union — was the attacker and that his teenager daughter was the victim.
Reached at the Equatorial Guinea embassy in D.C., Rebeca Maye, who identified herself as Ambassador Nsue’s secretary, said his 16-year-old daughter was brought to Virginia Hospital Center with a head injury, but added that it was “not very big.” Maye declined to answer questions about the alleged assault and said the ambassador would not be available for comment until later Tuesday night.
Equatorial Guinea is a small nation on the west coast of Africa. It has a population of just 650,000, but it’s one of sub-Sahara Africa’s largest oil producers, according to Wikipedia.
Neighbors of the diplomatic residence on 27th Street, who did not wish to be identified by name, said the family that lives there mostly “keeps to themselves” — but there have been some recent disturbances.
“A girl can sometimes be heard screaming foul language” from the home, one neighbor said. Another said police were called to the house a couple months ago when a man and a woman had a shouting match outside.
Andrea Swalec, Ethan Rothstein and Scott Brodbeck contributed to this report