Police nab second suspect in home invasions
The second of two suspects in a string of armed home invasions targeting Asian business owners across the city surrendered to police early Wednesday.
The second of two suspects in a string of armed home invasions targeting Asian business owners across the city surrendered to police early Wednesday.
Anthony Campbell, 33, turned himself in at the Sixth District in Center City around 2 a.m., said Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives.
Campbell, of the 100 block of North Dewey Street in West Philadelphia, will be charged with multiple counts of robbery, burglary, conspiracy, and related offenses in connection with eight cases between May 8 and Aug. 8.
Norman Bowen, 29, of the 5500 block of Addison Street in West Philadelphia, was arrested Friday and charged with the same offenses.
Both men are suspected in five other cases, and those investigations are ongoing, Walker said. Police said the duo may have been helped by a third person who served as a getaway driver.
"The Asian community has been terrorized the last couple months" by the home invasions, Walker said.
Police last week released video surveillance footage showing two heavily tattooed men wearing masks breaking into the businesses.
Trying unsuccessfully to avoid identification, Campbell and Bowen got new tattoos to cover up ones that were visible in the surveillance video, Walker said.
The two men usually targeted businesses in which the owners lived above the shop, typically a restaurant. They would force their way into the businesses between 4 and 6 a.m. Once inside, they went upstairs and roused the sleeping owners and terrorized them: The owners were bound, threatened, and sometimes assaulted before being robbed of cash, jewelry, electronics, and cigarettes.
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