William Johnson, on his South Philadelphia street, was ineligible for compensation because police did not classify his beating as a crime. (John Costello / Inquirer Staff Photographer)

Nine months after the South Philadelphia man was pummeled by a group of assailants on a deserted Old City parking lot, the Philadelphia Police Department is prepared to say he was a victim.

Johnson's arm was broken in two places and doctors needed eight stitches to close cuts in his face. Yet police classified the incident as a "hospital case," meaning no crime had occurred, rather than as an assault.

The distinction is important because the state program that compensates crime victims for medical bills and other costs assists only those who can supply evidence of a crime, such as a police report. Without an incident report backing his account, Johnson, 25, was ineligible.

Johnson's case was one of three described in a Nov. 22 Inquirer article on how the downgrading of crime reports by Philadelphia police hinders crime victims in seeking compensation.

Now, police say they have taken a second look at the March 21 incident and are satisfied Johnson was indeed assaulted. That clears the way for him to collect compensation for nearly $6,200 in hospital bills and lost wages.

Detective Sean Brennan of the Central Detective Division said he had begun the process of upgrading the department's classification from hospital case to aggravated assault, a change that takes the episode from a noncrime to a felony.

Brennan, in an interview, said he would soon write a report upgrading the incident based on a recent interview with Johnson and a review of medical records documenting the seriousness of his injuries.

Brennan said he did not know why police initially classified the incident as a hospital case, a category intended to be used for medical emergencies and accidents.

Johnson said he had been barhopping in Old City and was heading for a SEPTA station on Market Street, on his way home, when he was attacked about 2:30 a.m.

He said a group of men in a darkened parking lot near Second and Market called out to him, seeming to know him and offering a ride home. When he approached, he said, the men began beating him, driving him to the ground with punches and kicks.

Johnson was on his knees, his bomber jacket soaked in blood, when a patrolman arrived. Johnson said he pointed out the assailants as they walked away, but the officer did not pursue them.

The officer did take Johnson to Pennsylvania Hospital, where doctors stitched his battered face, set his arm in a cast, and kept him overnight. The patrolman wrote an incident report that made no mention of the brawl and said simply that Johnson was "transported to Pennsy Hospital, 8th Spruce."

The report was delivered to the Sixth District station house, where a supervisor reviewed it and assigned an incident code -- 3013, for "hospital case." A box was checked indicating that no further investigation was needed. No detective was assigned to the case until Brennan began reviewing it last month.

Johnson, a warehouseman for a fabric company at the time of the attack, was out of work for six weeks and lost $1,500 in wages. His medical bills totaled $4,683. Because he was new on the job, he had no medical insurance.

Under the state compensation program, crime victims can receive up to $35,000 to cover hospital bills, lost wages and other costs. The money comes from court-imposed fines paid by convicted criminals.

Johnson applied for help through Center City Crime Victims Services, an affiliate of the statewide program. The agency requested a copy of the police report -- a standard procedure. The report did not indicate that a crime had been committed. Johnson submitted a claim anyway. Sherry Winchester-Hunter, a victim advocate with Center City Crime Victims, helped Johnson, sending the Bureau of Victims' Services in Harrisburg a thick packet of medical bills, wage stubs and other documentation in May.

Last month, the bureau decided that without a police report affirming that a crime had occurred, Johnson was not entitled to the money.

The police decision to upgrade the incident is the first official acknowledgment of his standing as a victim.

"That's wonderful," said Winchester-Hunter on learning of the decision. "Now, there's actually a crime." She said she would resubmit Johnson's application and was optimistic it would be granted.

An Inquirer series published Nov. 1 and 2 described how Philadelphia police had underreported crime for years, downgrading major offenses against people and property to minor ones to make the city's crime rate look better.

The series documented how beatings and stabbings had been turned into "hospital cases," burglaries into "missing property," car break-ins into "vandalism," and gunpoint holdups into "threats." Rapes have gone on the books as "investigate persons."

A week after the articles were published, Chief Police Inspector Frank M. Pryor, head of all patrol forces in the city, ordered an overhaul of incident reporting. In a detailed memo to commanders of the city's 23 police districts, Pryor warned that the "hospital case" category was one of several that were especially prone to abuse.

The memo said hospital cases "might actually be" aggravated assaults or rapes. He ordered captains to closely review each one.

Johnson said yesterday that he was happy to learn about the imminent upgrading and hoped it would rescue his credit rating, which he said had been damaged by the unpaid hospital bills. He called the news "great . . . cool, cool."