It’s possible the pedestrian had right of way, but that’s not 100% clear to me given the description. In DC, the only specific law I could find is that “The driver of a vehicle shall stop and remain stopped to allow a pedestrian to cross the roadway within any marked crosswalk, or unmarked crosswalk at an intersection, when the pedestrian is upon the lane, or within one lane approaching the lane, on which the vehicle is traveling or onto which it is turning.” If the pedestrian was indeed speeding up to create a conflict by entering the crosswalk (and therefore was not ” upon the lane”), it isn’t clear to me that they are entitled to right of way. If it’s accurate that the pedestrian “quickened his pace” and even then was only able to force contact by extending an object into the back wheel after the bike was through the crosswalk, then I don’t know that I buy the cyclist was in the wrong. It is certainly possible that we’re not getting a great description of the incident, and the pedestrian had to stop short to keep from getting hit and only then proceeded to assault the cyclist.
The Virginia law is a bit clearer about this, though not much, prohibiting pedestrians from entering a crosswalk “in disregard of approaching traffic” – which I always interpreted this to mean that a pedestrian (or cyclist) can’t dash into a cross walk in front of a car at speed, get hit, and claim the driver was at fault. They could enter “in regard of traffic” while the driver was far enough away to react even if that required the driver to slow/stop to allow them to finish crossing. I didn’t find any similar language googling DC law.
In any event, the pedestrian’s actions are so over the top unhinged that they really should be reported and absolutely constitute assault consummated by battery and probably a bunch of other charges too. Attempting to hit someone with a heavy bike lock chain seems pretty close to assault with a deadly weapon, though IANAL. There are traffic cameras all over DC, not to mention home security cameras and video doorbells, so there may well be video of the incident if you act quickly to file a report.
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