The Whole Twitterverse Is Watching

Jim Burroway

September 17th, 2014

Last Thursday, a gay couple in Philadelphia was attacked by what was described as a “gang of eight to twelve” at about 11:00 p.m. A witness described the attackers as “tall, masculine-looking dudes,” about 30 or 31 in age. One of the victims — they have chosen to remain unidentified — was reportedly sent to the hospital with multiple fractures.

Sources tell NBC10 the 27-year-old and 28-year-old victims were walking from a restaurant in the area of 16th and Chancellor around 10:45 p.m. Thursday. Suddenly they were approached by a visibly intoxicated group of two men and six women.

Witnesses say someone in the group asked, “Is this your f****** boyfriend?”

When one of the victims told them yes, the group allegedly attacked them, punching and kicking them in the face, head and chest. Police say one of the suspects then snatched a victim’s bag containing a cellphone, wallet and credit cards. The group then fled in an unknown direction.

On Tuesday, Philadelphia police released a video of a group of people that they identified as suspects in the attack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD8MglUjA50

Within hours, Real Housewives of New Jersey cast member Greg Bennett tweeted two photos from the video to his 157,000 followers, along with another photo of a group of people dining at a restaurant that night that he thought looked like some of the suspects:

Bennet tweeted that “a friend of a friend of a friend saw my tweet… (and) sent me the pic. I wanted to get the word out.” And things quickly moved from there. Other tweeps identified the restaurant as La Viola, and saw some that some of the people in the photo had checked in at the restaurant that night on Face book.

A local reporter then tweeted that lawyers for people in the group had called police to make arrangements for them to come in. No arrests have been made yet, but Philly police say that this is how crimes will be solved in today’s social media culture:

NPR’s Melody Kramer has documented the timeline here.

Nathaniel

September 17th, 2014

Jim, a great reminder that the power of a tool for either good or evil lies in how it is used, rather than any inherent qualities. BTB is serving witness to both possibilities in Twitter.

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