Some Vandalism Around City Mars Phillies' Revelry

KYW Newsradio Team Coverage

While most Phillies fans celebrated peacefully, there were some ugly exceptions.

KYW's Tony Hanson reports that South Broad Street was packed with people from Oregon Avenue to City Hall. At a few locations -- Broad at Chestnut and Walnut, and farther south at Shunk -- crowds grew wild, smashing windows, knocking down light poles and a bus shelter, setting small fires in the street, throwing bottles, damaging some cars and overturning a few others.

Police commissioner Charles Ramsey said, "The officers are well-trained and they handled themselves very well, but you can see the aftermath. This is not celebration. This is just hooligans out here destroying property. And it's unfortunate because the vast majority of people that came out were just here to celebrate and have a good time."


KYW's Hadas Kuznits reports that a total of 76 World Series-related arrests were made on Wednesday night.

• 1 robbery
• 12 assault on police
• 1 arson
• 3 theft
• 17 vandalism
• 1 obstruction of justice
• 5 trespassing
• 36 disorderly conduct

Officials say a majority of those 76 arrested were college students.

In addition, Mayor Nutter said on Thurday, authorities are looking for the vandals who ran amok and are asking the news media and the public to help by submitting to police any photos or videos taken of the vandalism as it happened.
 

KYW's Kim Glovas reports that street-sweeping machines and front-end loaders were out early Thursday morning, clearing debris from several streets including Broad Street and South Street (right). Workers employed by the Center City District cleared debris along Broad Street that included parking meters, police barricades, and dozens of steel poles with parking signs still attached. 

A plate glass window of the Robinson's Luggage store, at the corner of Broad and Walnut, was smashed.  At least one piece of luggage was lifted from the store and burned in the street.

Julius works at the University of the Arts:

"They beat up Robinson's Luggage, they beat up the Bistro, they were just going crazy."

Glovas: And what was over here?

"That was the SEPTA booth. They tore that down. They tore down all the flower pots, climbed the whole front of the building, the windowsills, they got up there."

"Up there" was the second floor of the University of the Arts, where a concrete railing flanked windows. Revelers climbed on top of the Italian Bistro restaurant's glass-enclosed sidewalk café to perch on that railing.

Pieces of the facade of that structure were torn off.  One witness said the restaurant had just completed a renovation about two months ago. 

A branch of the FYE music-and-video chain and a Commerce Bank branch at Broad and Chestnut were also vandalized.


So, why would people react to a Phillies' World Series win by tearing up public and private property? 

KYW's Karin Phillips reports that a local psychologist thinks he might know why.

Frank Farley, a psychologist at Temple University, speculates that the mayhem on Broad Street was started by a few knotheads -- what he calls "T-types," thrill seekers -- who react violently to exhilarating, out-of-control events. 

And the rest of the mob?

"This is the second win in 126 years, so the boundaries are gone, the limits are lifted, anything goes. And so that might loosen up some people to join in who otherwise wouldn't have if they had had a more reflective moment."

But Farley points out that even experts in his field don't really understand a lot about mob behavior because, of course, it's virtually impossible to do an in-depth study.

Farley says there's an element of mob rule in events like this, where some people lead and others follow, whether it makes sense or not.

 
(Photo #1 by KYW's Jim Melwert.  Photo #2 and #3 by KYW's Tony Hanson.  Photo #4 by KYW's John McDevitt)