Violence stirs riders' fear and worry over security
Several violent incidents in recent months have sparked worries among SEPTA riders about security: _ Sean Patrick Conroy, 36, a Starbucks manager, died of a fatal asthma attack after thugs jumped him and beat him, breaking several of his ribs, in the underground concourse at 13th and Market streets on March 26.
Several violent incidents in recent months have sparked worries among SEPTA riders about security:
_ Sean Patrick Conroy, 36, a Starbucks manager, died of a fatal asthma attack after thugs jumped him and beat him, breaking several of his ribs, in the underground concourse at 13th and Market streets on March 26.
Five North Philadelphia teens were arrested.
* On April 2, about a dozen teen-agers pounced on Tyesha Tazwell, 24, and beat her in the underground concourse near the Gallery mall, at 8th and Market streets, about five blocks from where Conroy was attacked.
Police made several arrests. Tazwell incurred partial vision loss and innumerable cuts from the attack.
* Two days later, as a 30-year-old Southwest Philly man boarded the Market-Frankford El near 13th and Market, he was struck in the face and robbed of $20 by three men in their 20s who wore black wigs.
* A psychotic man with a hammer - accompanied by his 5-year-old son - attacked Dewayne Taylor as Taylor sat dozing and listening to his iPod on the Broad Street Line on Sept. 4.
About a dozen passengers on the northbound car from City Hall watched the assault without intervening, and one even stole Taylor's cell phone.
Thomas Scantling, 26, was arrested.
Taylor, 20, a laboratory assistant at the University of Pennsylvania and a regular SEPTA rider, is recovering. *
- Staff writers Dana DiFilippo and David Gambacorta
