Teen Girls Laugh During Beating of Woman
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WPVI/ABC News(PHILADELPHIA) — Four teenage girls caught on videotape laughingly beating a defenseless woman are remorseless and defiant even as they are about to be arraigned on criminal charges in a Philadelphia court, police said Friday.
The girls videotaped the beating and posted it on Facebook. Someone who saw the video called the cops.
Four of the six teens involved have been arrested and they are aged 16 and 17, according to the Chester Police Department. Authorities are searching for the other two girls.
The cell phone video shows five girls standing on the street Tuesday night, playing around for the camera before the assault began.
“It’s a group of girls on a corner chatting, rapping, goofing around,” Chester Police Det. James Nolan told ABC News. “Then they decide, from the audio, you hear them say they’re going to ‘f**k this b***h up.’ They plot the thing as they walk up.”
The teens approach a woman sitting on her doorstep and a girl takes the first punch. They chase her into the house where the woman screams as the girls laugh and beat her with their hands, fists, feet and a chair. The video shows the girls pushing each other out of the way and then delivering a flurry of punches to the defenseless woman.
“It’s 90 seconds or so that they beat on her and then they run out,” Nolan said, calling the beating “senseless.”
Surveillance footage from outside shows the six girls run out of the house and down the street. The victim did not call the police. Police said it “seems to be the case” that the woman suffers from “some diminished capacity,” but they do not know the details of her mental capacity.
After the video was reported to police, the 48-year-old victim was interviewed by police and treated for injuries. She sustained treatment for her injuries.
The girls have been charged with simple assault, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, burglary, harassment, and criminal trespass, Nolan said. The district attorney’s office has decided that the girls will be tried as adults and they could face up to 20 years in prison, if convicted.
Police knew of only one attorney retained so far for one of the suspects and the attorney did not immediately respond to request for comment.
Nolan said that the girls are not showing any remorse.
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