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Video at link: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/philly-mob-beats-man-hammer-wood-slight-cops-article-1.2183202
Two people have been arrested and Philadelphia cops are searching for several more suspects in a vicious gas station beating during which a mob used a hammer, pepper spray and a piece of chair leg to put a bleeding 51-year-old man in a coma.
Shareena Joachim, 24, and Aleathea Gillard, 34, were both arrested Tuesday shortly after they fled the scene, a Sunoco gas station along North 5th St., in a minivan. But police later released horrifying video that shows as many as six different people pull up to the gas station, jump out of the car and begin the vicious assault on the victim, described by police as a homeless man.
The entire confrontation began after a 10-year-old boy, jockeying with the man over who would next pump a customer’s gas for spare change, told his mother the man had hit him, police told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
But cops, reviewing hours of footage, found no such bump or hit take place. Instead, investigators unearthed the horrifying, family beatdown on the defenseless victim.
"Just watching, you see the viciousness of it," Lt. Dan Brooks of Northwest Detectives told the Inquirer.
The sequence begins with five people pouring out of the van and running up to the man, who tries to take cover as the first blows rain down. One woman runs up with a hammer and strikes the victim in the head, sending him onto the sidewalk as the rest of the group uses fists, feet and a rocking chair leg to repeatedly hit the man, prone on the sidewalk in the fetal position.
Joachim tried to Mace her victim, but instead used it on a member of the gang, seen in a red shirt in the video. He grabs his face in pain and runs back to the van after he was accidentally pepper sprayed.
The relentless attack continues, even as the unmoving man lies still on the ground.
As the group prepares to leave, one adult grabs the 10-year-old boy and brings him over to the critically hurt man to show off the group’s handiwork.
At least two juveniles were involved in the attack, police say.
The victim remains in a medically induced coma and in critical condition after he suffered several skull fractures and broken bones.
Joachim and Gillard, held without bail, are each charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, possessing instruments of crime, simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.