In 2006, veteran New York Times reporter David E. Rosenbaum was brutally beaten in a robbery near his Washington, D.C. home. Rosenbaum later died at Howard University Hospital, a hospital two miles further away from his upper northwest DC neighborhood than nearby Sibley Memorial Hospital. The slow response time of EMTs and quality of care he received were widely suspected of contributing to his death: EMTs who treated Rosenbaum believed he was drunk and treated him as a low-priority run. Once at Howard, he was left on a stretcher in a hallway and stayed there for an hour wihout examination. Doctors only treated him once he started vomiting; he was subsequently diagnosed with a massive head injury.

Rosenbaum's children, Dorothy and Daniel Rosenbaum, have just won a lawsuit against Howard University Hospital. Terms of the settlement are undisclosed.