Posted by news intern Peter Johnson.

As I'm sure you're well aware, red hats are all the rage amongst a certain crowd—women who drink tea together and tour historic monuments together and are perhaps on the same menopausal cycle. But there is a sinister side to groups of people who collectively gather in public while wearing red hats, as one Seattle woman recently discovered, when she and her friends were allegedly jumped in a parking lot by two-dozen men, all of whom were wearing red hats, according to a police report.

When SPD officer Jill K. Bassett and her colleagues arrived at South Lake Union's Citrus restaurant on May 21, one of the victims explained that the tension started when she was hit on in the club by a large, red-hat-wearing man. "She indicated to him that she wasn't interested and at one point she notified security that he was bothering her and her friends (which also included [two of the assault victims])," the report states.

The man backed off—until closing time. When the woman and her companions left the club, they were allegedly jumped in the parking lot by the man and several of his red-hatted friends "because she had shunned him," the victim explained.

Once the first punch was thrown, two-dozen people allegedly joined in the fight.

Officer Bassett writes that "the witnesses stated that the fight in the parking lot was so large that they couldn't be specific as to who was hitting whom, just that the suspects were all wearing red hats as the victims were trying to walk to their vehicles." During the battle, one of the three injured men "specifically recalls being struck by 3 males in the right side of his head. He did not fall to the ground and did not require further medical attention. He could not identify the males if seen again."

Witnesses were also apparently unable to explain how three men hit one head at once.

Eventually, the men in red hats got in their (naturally) red Jetta and (oddly) white Acura and sped off. What they allegedly left behind, besides a feeling of the definitive superiority of red hats over other hats or no hats, were two severely beaten men: "[one victim]'s face was extremely swollen and he complained of rib pain on the right side. He was punched many times by at least 10 suspects, but could not describe anyone in particular. [The other victim] suffered neck and head pain and according to witnesses, lost consciousness prior to police arrival. He was immediately backboarded by SFD and transported by medics to [Harborview]."

The police report doesn't specify that officers suspected this was a gang-related incident; we can assume then, it's not.

Despite the suspects' unhindered getaway, it seems that the red-hatted men made a crucial mistake: One witness "was able to take a cell phone picture of the white Acura's license plate as it left the parking lot," the report notes. Doubtless the men in red hats would attribute the car's failure to its paint color.