Tag: Philadelphia

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Meet Philadelphia Gay-Bashing Defendant Kathryn Knott

LGBT advocate Scott Wooledge has Storified several of Philadelphia gay-bashing defendant Kathryn Knott’s Tweets to give the public a glimpse into the 20-something’s mind.

According to Scott, “She seems nice. And a little racist, and a little homophobic. And frequently drunk or hungover.”

I think it’s interesting to note that Knott is the daughter of Chalfont, Bucks County Police Chief Karl Knott. Neighbors of the Knotts were reportedly “not surprised” by the charges brought against Kathryn.

UPDATE: All three defendant’s have turned themselves in according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

[View the story “Meet #PhillyHateCrime Defendant Kathryn Knott” on Storify]
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Philadelphia: Three Suspects Charged In Violent Gay Bashing

Arrest warrants have been issued and charges filed in the brutal gay bashing incident of almost two weeks ago in Center City Philadelphia.

With charges ranging from aggravated assault, simple assault, conspiracy and reckless endangerment, three Bucks County residents – two men and one woman – will be charged for the violent attack of September 11, 2014, on two gay men.

From NBC Philadelphia:

District Attorney Seth Williams issued the arrest warrants for Philip Williams, 24; Kevin Harrigan, 26; and Katherine Knott, 24. No word yet if any of the trio surrendered to authorities.

“I would like to thank the police for their thorough investigation and the public for the outpouring of information and tips in this case,” said Williams. “This vicious attack shocked the entire country. An assault on people because of their sexual orientation has no place in Philadelphia.”

Police say one of the suspects also snatched a victim’s bag containing a cellphone, wallet and credit cards. The group then fled in an unknown direction.

“It was a bunch of screams at first,” said witness Geoff Nagle. “…a lot of punching and kicking.”

Another witness, who asked to remain anonymous, says he heard the group screaming homophobic slurs.

“It was surprising that it happened in front of me, I never witnessed a hate crime based on that,” the witness said.

Here’s a report from the local NBC affiliate summarizing the violent episode:

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Philadelphia: Gay Bashing Suspects To Be Arrested This Week

According to a source close to the current police investigation of the Center City gay bashing incident, arrests should happen this week and “people are going to get locked up.”

As of this morning, police had interviewed 18 possible suspects and witnesses.  One more key person of interest – “the girl in the middle of it all” – will be interviewed today.

The process has been time consuming as police want to make sure they “get it right,” and each interview takes at least four hours:

“We’ve had to schedule with the attorneys for all the different times for them to come in,” the source said. “But Monday morning as soon as the stores opened, we started working through the video and then we started the interviews. We want to make sure whoever threw a punch or whoever was part of this assault will be arrested. What happens with cases like this is that, if you rush it and don’t do a good job, they’ll start throwing out charges later on. These kids all have top-notch attorneys, so if our case isn’t put together on our end, they’re going to pick it apart. But we’ve put together a great case for the DA and we’ll be working in conjunction with the DA to bring the charges.”

“The stories have been pretty consistent so far,” the source said. “It looks like it started by either a bump or words being exchanged, and then punches were thrown. But not everyone in the crowd knew what was going on. People were kind of staggering, and some didn’t seem to realize the extent of the one guy’s injuries.”

“It’s a tragedy for the two guys who were hurt and it’s a tragedy for some of the people in the crowd because the majority weren’t involved,” the source said. “But the guys who were involved are going to pay the price.”

The violent attack has renewed attention on the lack of hate crime laws with respect to crime on LGBT people.

In 2002, the state legislature had added sexual orientation to the hate crime laws, but it was later challenged and repealed on a technicality. State Rep. Brendan Boyle has introduced a bill to amend the current hate crime law to include LGBT citizens.

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Philly gay-bashing witness – It wasn’t self-defense

Philly Mag has reached out and spoken to one of the witnesses of the vicious gay-bashing that took place in Center City last week.

In light of one of the alleged attacker’s lawyer bringing up the idea of self-defense, Philly Mag asked the witness what he saw and if the violence could have been motivated by “self-defense.”

Here’s just a portion of the interview:

Do you have a sense of what set this off?
It seemed to me that the two larger guys were fed up with what the other guys were saying, and one of the victims was pushing one of the women away, but just a little bit. And I could also hear some slurs like “fucking faggot” and I also heard someone say “I am sick of this fucking faggot.” If you saw the victims, they were small, not as large as the two guys. And then, it happened so quickly, one of the victims is lying unconscious, bleeding from the head. There wound up being a one- to two-foot puddle of blood where he was hit and knocked unconscious. He wasn’t moving. There was a blood stain on the ground until it rained two days later.

Was the whole group of 12 punching and kicking the victims?
Not that I saw when I got over to my window. There was really one guy that inflicted what I saw. The punches I saw from him were what knocked the one guy out. You see those kinds of punches in boxing matches a little bit, but you don’t see them in person. It really connected. The guy got knocked out cold.

How did the attack end?
It was a quick thing. Punches were exchanged. And I think that when they realized how serious it was, they went on their way. The women started covering their faces. He hit the concrete and didn’t pop back up. When the paramedics got there, it looked like he had two faces on one side of his face. It was serious. You could see all that just within a couple of minutes.

Was police response quick?
Cops were literally there within a minute. Paramedics were literally 30 seconds behind. I was very impressed by the cops.

It’s been reported that some of the suspects might be trying to invoke a self-defense argument.
I don’t see how it could be self-defense. There were 12 people there. The self-defense thing is a little crazy to me. It wasn’t like a guy just threw a punch to protect himself and ran away. That’s not what happened here. There were multiple punches to the one guy’s face — on both sides of his face.

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City Councilman Asks Federal Government To Explore Hate Crime Charges For Philly Gay-bashing

City Councilman James Kenney

Amid the outrage caused by a gay-bashing in Center City last week that sent a gay couple to the hospital, City Councilman James Kenney has called for the federal government to bring hate-crime charges against the group suspected in the attack.

Kenney called the incident “a violent and vicious attack on two human beings because they are gay.”

“It’s a crime of violent bias that calls for the full weight of federal prosecution by the United States Department of Justice,” he said in a statement.

Currently, a crime related to LGBT animus is not covered under hate-crime laws in Pennsylvania, but it is covered under federal law. Sexual orientation had been a part of the hate crime statute until 2008, when the state Supreme Court ruled that such inclusion was a violation of the state constitution.

Police are currently interviewing “persons of interest” but no arrests have been made as yet.

Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims

In related news, state Rep. Brian Sims – who represents the area where the attack took place – says he will push to change the hate crime law to include gender identity, sexual orientation, and physical and mental disability to the hate crime law. Already introduced in 2013, the legislation is not likely to see any activity until 2015.

“One of the things I’ve learned is that sometimes it takes a horribly negative experience to get people out of their seats, for them to be active and engaged,” says State Representative Brian Sims of his colleagues in Harrisburg. “It’s not necessarily because they’re opposed but because they aren’t aware of the need. So we are going to be sure to utilize this horrible event to make sure that they hear about it. I’m going to be bringing two people with me who will be able to tell them all about it.”

You can watch Councilman James Kenney speak to the City Council about the attack below:

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Philadelphia: One Member Of Gay-Bashing Mob Fired From Catholic High School

NBC Philadelphia is reporting that some of the members of the mob who are “persons of interest” in the attack on two gay men last week which sent them to the hospital with severe injuries were alumni from Archbishop Wood High School in nearby Warminster, PA.

One of the persons of interest was also the assistant basketball coach at Archbishop Wood before the school dismissed him from his duties Wednesday, according to a school spokesman.

“He was not a teacher at the school but serving as a coach on a contract basis. He was terminated this evening and will not be permitted to coach in any Archdiocesan school,” the spokesperson said. “We expect all those who work with students in our schools to model appropriate Christian behavior at all times.”

UPDATE: The AP is reporting that the assistant basketball coach, Fran McGlinn, resigned from his position at the school when confronted about the allegations, and was not fired. One has to wonder – if innocent, why would McGlinn resign so quickly after being identified?

Four of the alleged attackers arrived at the police station to give statements accompanied by their lawyers.  One lawyer told the press that the vicious attack was in self-defense because one of the two gay men threw the first punch.

Right, because two gay men when confronted by a homophobic mob like to instigate a fight on a dark street when they are outnumbered 6 to 1.  Makes perfect sense.  I’d like to see the mob’s defensive wounds…

The high school, Archbishop Wood High School, issued this statement in regard to the attack:

Earlier today, Archbishop Wood High School became aware that some of its former students were allegedly involved in the assault of two men in Center City last week.

This afternoon, administrators communicated with the entire Archbishop Wood school community to make it emphatically clear that the school does not, under any circumstances, tolerate or condone the violent and hateful behavior displayed by those who took part in this senseless attack.

Administration also stressed that Catholic schools are centers of learning where students are expected to treat each other in a Christ-like manner at all times and that everyone deserves to be treated with respect and dignity. The actions of those who took part in the attack are reprehensible and entirely unacceptable. They are not an accurate reflection of our Catholic values or of Archbishop Wood High School.

Watch the report from the Philadelphia NBC affiliate below:

(via JMG)

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Philadelphia: Mob responsible for hate crime beating may claim “self-defense”

Caryn Kunkle, a source close to the two men who were brutally beaten in Philadelphia during a hate crime this past weekend, has shared on her Instagram account that the mob of homophobes look to claim “self-defense” for the cause of the violence:

Hate Crime update: the group of 15 genius kids who attacked two unarmed and non-PDA gay men on their way out for pizza on Sept. 11th at 10:45pm in the Rittenhouse area of Philadelphia are claiming “SELF DEFENSE”.

Probably because the insanity defense was clearly unavailable…..

Since when does collectively pounding someone’s face into the concrete while audibly and repeatedly shouting “dirty faggot” qualify as self defense?

Not sure, but the DA should have a field day with this trial.

(Police arriving on the scene thought it was a shooting because there was SO MUCH BLOOD coming from the unconscious victims head)

(h/t PhillyMag)

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Social Media Helps Police Track Down Attackers In Philadelphia Hate Crime

The photo that went viral in helping find alleged hate crime attackers

In what seems to be a stunning use of crowdsourcing social media, people on Twitter and Facebook have apparently pieced together clues which have led to the attackers of two gay men this past weekend in the Central City neighborhood of Philadelphia.

A Twitter user named “@FanSince09” started to get the pieces together after police released surveillance video showing what appeared to be the group who attacked the two men.  From that video, a Twitter user named “@GreggyBennett” found a photo from a nearby restaurant that featured a group of people wearing the same clothes.

Over the next few hours a game of Twitter-telephone led to identifying the restaurant, and then users cross-referenced the restaurant’s Facebook page to see who had “checked in” that night.

One thing led to another and another.  At this writing, the alleged perpetrators have been contacted and are turning themselves in.

We shall see if justice prevails.  Stay tuned. Below is a local news report where @FanSince09 calls in to discuss how the story unfolded.  @FanSince09 has appeared on several TV shows this morning including Good Morning America and more.

You can read how the story unfolded via Twitter in this Storified tweet-chain:

[View the story “How Twitter May Have Helped Track Down the Suspects from a Philadelphia Police Surveillance Video” on Storify]
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Philadelphia Police Release Video of Suspects in Brutal Hate Crime Attack

This is very important regarding the brutal attack of two men in Philadelphia this past weekend that left sent the victims to the hospital, one of whom had to have his jaw wired shut due to a fractured jaw.

Please watch the video and read this info from the Philadelphia Police Department:

On September 11, 2014, at 10:45 pm, the complainant, a 28 year-old male, along with a friend, a 27 year-old male, were on the 1600 block of Chancellor Street when they were approached by a group of unknown white males and females.

As the group approached the complainants they made disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation. The group then attacked the complainants holding them while other members of the group punched them in the face, head and chest.

During the assault one of the complainants dropped his bag containing his cell phone, wallet and credit cards.

When police approached one of the suspects picked the bag up from the ground. The group then fled and were last seen north on 16th Street towards Walnut Street.

Both complainants were transported to Hahnemann Hospital for multiple injuries. One complainant was treated for fractures and deep lacerations to his face requiring surgery and his jaw wired shut.

Suspect Description: A group of approximately 10-12 white male and females all in their early 20′s “clean cut” and well dressed. One suspect was described as having a husky build, brown hair, wearing a brown shirt and shorts.

If you see these suspects do not approach them, contact 911 immediately.
To submit a tip via telephone, dial 215.686.TIPS (8477) or text a tip to PPD TIP or 773847.
All tips will be confidential.

If you have any information about this crime or these suspects, please contact:
Central Detective Division
Det. Domenic #9140
Det. Waring #8101
215-686-3047
DC# 14-09-036141