PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — All three suspects facing charges in connection with the assault of a same-sex couple in Center City surrendered to police Wednesday morning.
Each one of the suspects faces two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of simple assault, two counts of recklessly endangering another person and one count of conspiracy.
I said in the comments yesterday that it was obvious to me from the beginning that these were young adults from the suburbs, not locals. The point wasn't that outside agitators are causing all of the violence in Philly, or that gaybashing couldn't be a local thing. We have plenty of horrible and deadly violence committed by locals for various reasons. But a certain kind of "bar fight"-type violence, with people getting liquored up and taking swings at strangers for no bigger slight than "he looked at me funny," is generally a young suburban male phenomenon. Those "Philly" Eagles fans who get in fights in the stadium are generally from the suburbs. They aren't drunk because they had a couple of $8 Miller Lites, they're drunk because they've been tailgating since 8am.
I spent some time growing up in the burbs here, I know how younger people out there see the city. It's an urban playground, a place to go get drunk where rules don't apply. They see public spaces as anything goes spaces, rather than shared spaces where we all need to figure out how to get along.
To their credit, at least they usually don't have guns.