N.Y. Times journalist dies after mugging

updated 12:06 a.m. ET Jan. 9, 2006

WASHINGTON - Veteran New York Times journalist David E. Rosenbaum, 63, died Sunday evening from injuries suffered in a street robbery while walking near his home two nights earlier, police said.

He had undergone surgery Saturday at Howard University Hospital in an effort to relieve pressure on his brain, said his brother, Marcus Rosenbaum.

Police spokesman Sgt. Joe Gentile said police found Rosenbaum after being called to the scene about 9:20 p.m. Friday and that the victim’s wallet was missing.

He said police are investigating a report that two men were seen leaving the area in a dark-colored vehicle.

“He wanted some fresh air and decided to take a walk,” Rosenbaum’s brother, Marcus Rosenbaum, told The Washington Post. He said his brother was found by a neighbor who called 911 and waited with him until help arrived.

Marcus Rosenbaum said a credit card company had called his brother’s home Saturday morning and reported that someone had been trying to use one of his credit cards.

A graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University, Rosenbaum grew up in Tampa, Fla., and worked for The St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times, a chain of suburban newspapers in London and Congressional Quarterly in Washington before joining the Times bureau in Washington in 1968.

Except for a three-year stint as a special projects editor in New York in the early 1980s, Rosenbaum spent the remainder of his career with the Times’ Washington bureau in a wide range of reporting and editing positions.

He shared the 1990 George Polk Award for National Reporting with a fellow Times reporter for their coverage of federal budget battles.

Rosenbaum’s survivors include his wife, Virginia, and two grown children who also live in the Washington area.

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