Posted on 09/04/2009 7:38:55 AM PDT by Travis McGee
Thomas Fitzgerald never knew what hit him.
One minute he was riding home from his night-shift job and stopping his bike at Broad and South Streets to watch a mob scene that appeared to be getting out of control.
The next, he told a Philadelphia judge yesterday, he was waking up four days later from a medically induced coma, with his hearing impaired and his memory scrambled.
Two other witnesses yesterday helped piece together Fitzgerald's lost minutes as they described how, about 11:30 p.m. May 30, the 53-year-old bicyclist was set upon by eight young males, beaten, and left unconscious and in the middle of a violent seizure.
Rest of article at link.
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Not to excuse the criminals but stopping to watch a riot isn't at all a good idea.
Picture of one of the perps at link. Usual suspect.
What’s needed are some “Muzzle Flash Mobs” to handle these punks.
I agree. The criminals bear the fault.
But that sure didn’t sound too bright.
Obama’s brownshirts in action. The uniforms are on order and have not yet arrived.
Obama Brownshirts on a training exercise...
“Blue” Cesspool City Ping!
Hate Crime?
Cause surely it was a pack of out of control “white youts” attacking an innocent black man on his way home from work? (sarcasm off)
This stuff has got to stop now. Restore law and order in this country, or the citizens will do it themselves.
We were in Baltimore's Inner Harbor not long ago on a Saturday night. There were groups of "youths" hanging around all over the place and we didn't feel safe.
Pics from the scene, including one of the perps. Carry guns, people... remember, if there aren't any police around to protect you from THEM, there aren't any police around to protect them from YOU.
That was the last safe area in Baltimore.
Support concealed carry.
Bring back the death penalty.
I think we can expect more of it. The media should call them gangs and thugs. Giving them cutsie names like “flash mob” is just going to encourage it.
“......Seven or eight others joined in, punching and kicking him as he slid to the ground while other spectators cheered.”
There is much work to be done. *sigh*
A high capacity semi-automatic pistol and a stronger sense of survival would have come in very handy.
I stopped biking into the city a couple of years ago. This is why. When the Schuylkill River Trail is completed towards Reading, my biking will be exclusively north of Valley Forge.
I know if I am in a car being attacked I will close my eyes and hit the gas pedal!
Posted to the CW2 group, to raise awareness of the dangers of "flash mob" behavior. Be aware that your perfectly legal small "tea party" or similar gathering could be swarmed by violent criminals called over by "community organizers" in a matter of moments.
Good police work, note the upscale ordering by the 'alleged' thief. Article also has him on surveillance camera as part of the mob ransacking a convenience store earlier. Hope he likes prison food but this being Philadelphia, always a chance for sympathetic jury.
You were in Baltimordor.
It's simply stiff with goblins, hobgoblins, and orcs of the worst description ...
Yep. Something like my M&P45 would fill the bill nicely.
What did we think would happen when we took morality out of the culture? Did we think good things would happen?
Animals.
Sounds like a perfect argument in favor of high capacity magazines to me.
Hand grenades ...
Keep your eyes open. Nail more thugs.
It isn’t just gangs of criminals. It is also gangs of anarchists. Expect them to organize a riot this way one day.
For now, they test the wires.
To have a “successful” riot, they only need to gather a crowd to mask their own actions. The respondants need only gather with “pillowcases” or dresses in Red to make it seem like a coordinated activity.
This sickens me, these animals deserve a bullet to the face
Which is why everyone I associate with carries. They try this crap here and there will be a dead flash mob.
law & order is hard to get when the people running the country/state/city aren’t law abiding themselves (and in Philly thats all 3)
This however wouldn't be:
Peace through superior firepower.
L
Did they get the flash from AG Holder’s office directly,
or someone down the hall for plausible deniability?
May 30th. Did the president speak out on this matter? Did the national media cover the assault?
The “muslim youths” in France were using “flash mobbing” as a very effective tactic during the street fights and arson riots a couple years back. They can rally to an area with no police, do their descruction or violence, and then disperse into the night before enough police can arrive to stop them. Expect to see this more often as our own “urban youths” discover the power of this new tactic.
I have had a CCW for 5 years, and I don’t go into urban areas without my gun.
The gangs are getting bolder, and the authorities don’t do anything. I narrowly escaped a mugging less than a block from the square in downtown York, PA at 8:00AM on a Saturday morning, two weeks ago. I was being followed by two young men, with spanish accents and piercings, who were threatening to “smack the shit out of” me.
I fully understand what motivated Bernie Goetz.
And for those who don’t know, flash mobs use viral communication techniques, cellphones and texting to summon a crowd quickly to a “random” location sometimes under a “wacky” premise. Call 10 friends and tell them show up and have them call 10 friends...
6 degrees of separation could summon the entire world. Not everyone will attend but it is a way to get a “flash mob” present.
I’ll be surprised if by the time it comes to trial that the defense lawyers don’t have all of the suspects claiming they were so enraged by the racist things the victim(s) were saying that they just had to attack. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Hitting the gas pedal didn’t work out so well for a preacher in Georgia who was being attacked by two thugs...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2331925/posts
This tactic (without the violence) was being used in Boston in the early 70’s. * big guys would walk into a retail store, spread out so you couldn’t follow what all of them were doing. They would grab whatever they could, and be gone in 60 seconds. The cops called it “swarming”.
My thought as an urban cyclist is that he might have been at a stoplight and the mob was in the intersection. Yes the story says he stopped to watch but given that every intersection is probably a stoplight ...
If that is the case, then it is wrong place, wrong time and the guy is SOL. This is where situational awareness is paramount, and time is minimal. Could he have turned around and gotten away, could he have dropped the bike and run, should he have shucked the backpack and bike ...? No good answers except to avoid all dangers and then you are a mushroom.
Guaranteed that this "alleged perp's" Public Defender will try to make him guilty of failing to avoid the mob and all of these defensive moves while focusing on the fact that he cannot ID anyone.
Yep! Service to American justice...no incarceration or legal fees required! Just DEAD!
Didn’t seem to glean the victim’s race . . . is he white? Didn’t catch it . . . I’m guessing he’s white, otherwise they would have said he was black. Don’t want to upset the protected classes, do we?
Does anybody know?
I was walking, a few years ago, from South Street back to the center city area where my hotel was located. Before I realized it, I found myself at an intersection, near or at the scene of this current crime, and I suddenly realized - “this is not a safe place to be on foot by myself”. It wasn’t midnight, but it was after dark. There was a decidedly criminal feel to the neighborhood.
I managed to get out of there, quickly, without drawing attention to myself, but my pulse was racing a bit.
I’ve been googling around looking for a photo of Thomas Fitzgerald, but could not find one.
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