It was Friday rush hour on May 12th and John Rowley III, a partner at Baker McKenzie in Washington, D.C., was disembarking from a Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority train on his way to meet with a friend at his office near the Gallery Place-Chinatown station in the nation's capital.

At the end of the Metro platform stood a group of people. As Rowley walked passed them to exit the station, a shoulder hit him square in the chest.

“The person clearly tried to knock me down,” Rowley said. “What happened from that point on is still very fuzzy to me.”