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Philly’s Gay-Bashing Gang Of “Well Dressed” Straight Assholes Has Been Identified
Philadelphia police are thanking a few random good samaritans on Twitter this week for helping identify the gang of heterosexuals who shouted homophobic slurs while severely beating a gay couple in an unprovoked attack in Center City last Thursday.
We reported yesterday that two victims, 26 and 28-year-old boyfriends, were approached by a large group of “visibly intoxicated” and “well dressed” assailants while on their way to dinner last week. The victims and several witnesses told NBC Philadelphia that at least two men and six women from the group called the victims “dirty fags” before launching a disgusting physical attack on both.
Both victims were released from the hospital with multiple facial fractures, one had severe bruising on his face and will be required to have his jaw wired shut for two months.
The group of assailants miraculously got away but were caught on surveillance cameras nearby. Using that footage, a handful of random sleuths on Twitter last night were able to identify the group through tweets and Facebook check-ins because, well, did you really expect the police to do anything about it?
Here’s the surveillance video released by the Philadelphia police:
Gawker has the full scoop:
A Twitter user named Greg Bennett posted a photo of a group posing at a restaurant who look an awful lot like some of the suspects in the video:
Philly hate crime: pic.twitter.com/i3PBprO9nn
— Greg Bennett (@GreggyBennett) September 17, 2014
Bennett tweeted that he’d gotten the photo from “a friend of a friend of a friend,” but didn’t know where it was taken. That’s where another Twitter user stepped in: FanSince09, a diehard Eagles fan who apparently lives in South Jersey. Fan retweeted the photo; almost immediately, he got a torrent of responses from people telling him the restaurant was La Viola, an Italian place in Center City. He tweeted that he ID’d most of the people in the photo by checking their Facebook check-ins:
@RealGlenMacnow found them all at la viola, some of them checked in on FB, compared FB pics
— FanSince09 (@FanSince09) September 17, 2014
If you’re going to gay bash don’t fill your FB profile with gay slurs and also delete that resturant check in from earlier
— FanSince09 (@FanSince09) September 17, 2014
Joseph Murray of the Philadelphia PD also tweeted a rough confirmation that the group in these photos is, in fact, Philadelphia’s “Intoxicated, Well Dressed” Gang Of Violent Heterosexuals.
This is how Twitter is supposed to work for cops. I will take a couple thousand Twitter detectives over any one real detective any day.
— Joseph Murray (@PPDJoeMurray) September 17, 2014
Here’s how Twitter user FanSince09 figured it out:
According to ABC 6, members of the group have already retained lawyers though no arrests have been made.
On a related note, openly gay Representative Brian Sims is now advocating for straight-bashing on Facebook:
You know, because fighting violence with violence is really the best way to handle this.
Queerty Editor
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