PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA – There was a chaotic scene on the night of Fourth of July on South Street in Philadelphia, PA. According to police, teenagers caused thousands of dollars in damages after terrorizing local businesses.
The crowd is believed to have originated from Penn’s Landing and they made their way up to South Street. The crowd gained in size and caused almost $7,000 in destructive damages, police say.
It all started around 10 p.m. on Thursday, with a lot of South Street being put into lockdown. What began as some teens running around, escalated and turned into violence with one man being jumped by a group, then police swiftly rushed in to intervene on 8th and South Street.
“Multiple people, minors, adults, a whole lot of crowd just moved up from South Street, lower end from Penn’s Landing,” Brianna Lostritto said who is a City Diner manager.
The crowd continued to move west on South Street, and businesses open for business at the time either had to choose or the police advised them to lock up their businesses.
“They had to lock our doors up. They blocked our doors from people coming in,” Lostritto mentioned.
Police say the crowd grew to about 60 people by the time the large group of youngsters made it to 18th and South Street.
Police said Walgreens was hit by the large crowd, with dozens breaking in and entering the store, and they looted the store’s interior.
According to eyewitnesses in Philadelphia, they say this type of behavior has gotten out of control with large groups of teenagers causing brief chaos.
“They don’t have any discipline. They don’t have no respect, they don’t respect their elders, they don’t respect us,” said one woman.
Police say they’re searching through the surveillance video to try and identify the people involved in the destruction of property and violence.
A curfew would have gone into effect on South Street just a half hour after the crowd was passing through.
