PHILLY.COM: A mob of teens [NOT pictured, above] injured at least two people and robbed others during a brief rampage Friday night in Center City, police said. About 9:15 p.m., police started receiving 911 calls of a group of 20 to 40 teens assaulting people. Police found a man on the ground bleeding badly from the head at Walnut and Juniper Streets. He was transported to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.A street robbery was reported at 16th and Spruce Streets, police said. An iPhone was taken in that or another robbery. A man was assaulted at 15th and Sansom Streets, police said. MORE
INQUIRER: Four people, including an 11-year-old boy, who took part in a destructive romp through Center City Philadelphia on Friday night face charges of assault and conspiracy. The four were among a crowd of marauding youths who swarmed the sidewalk at Juniper and Walnut streets about 9:15 p.m. and pounced on a 33-year-old man, punching and kicking him. Police say the attack appeared to be random. Moments later, at 15th and Sanson, a mob descended on a 59-year-old man and kicked, punched and beat him. This attack, too, was random, police said. The beatings, which happened in plain view of people out for a stroll on a summer night or on their way to popular Center City restaurants, stunned passersby. MORE
PREVIOUISLY: AP TICKER Gets Medieval On Flash Mob Violence
Our top story tonight: Mob violence. No, not the Goodfellas/Sopranos kind of mob — I’m talking about flash mobs of violent black teenagers roaming the streets of Philadelphia looking for people to beat unmerciful — people whose only crime, best we can tell, was being white at the wrong place at the wrong time.
This is so not good. This is bad for Philadelphia — setting back years of revival and revitalization. This is bad for white people — justifying the worst instincts of the racist and the borderline racist. This is especially bad for black people, because if this keeps up, the hammer will come down — make no mistake — and it won’t be pretty. There will be curfews, there will be lockdowns, there will be police beatdowns. It’ll make Frank Rizzo and Atilla the Hun look like faggots.
To the people who did this, or have been involved in similar incidents around the city in the last year and a half, I beseech you to think this through. There are consequences for your actions, terrible consequences.
Not the least of which is you made the crypto-racist commenters at Philly.com sound like reasonable people — which is really saying something, because the commenters at Philly.com are hateful bottom-feeding trolls who look for every opportunity to demonize black people with offensive stereotypes. So congratulations on that.
Also, you made all the trigger-happy, paranoid Dirty Harry-wannabe types that refuse to leave the house without a concealed weapon seem like common sense people. Which really takes a lot of effort. So, again, fuck you for that.
But most hurtful of all is that your actions did to the legacy of Martin Luther King what a thousand cracker sheriff billy clubs, attack dogs and fire hoses could not. You shit on everything he lived and died for. And when you fuck with Martin Luther King — well, now you’re on the fightin’ side of me…
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PREVIOUSLY: Flash Mobs All Fun & Games Until Someone Gets Hurt
PREVIOUSLY: Everything You Know About Flash Mobs Is WRONG
PREVIOUSLY: JUDGE 2 PARENTS: Only You Can Prevent Flash Mobs
PREVIOUSLY: QUIET RIOT: Flash Mob Takes South Street
PREVIOUSLY: CRACKDOWN: Cops Get Medieval On Flash Mob’s Ass
PREVIOUSLY: MOB RULES: Flash Mob Rampages At The Gallery