As If....

As if I needed another reason to hate teenage boys:


Teen thugs film attack

Nab 4 in brutal assault on immigrant

BY CORKY SIEMASZKO
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

In a sick sequel to the Florida fools who were videotaped beating a homeless man, four Philadelphia teens grabbed a camera, picked a victim at random and filmed themselves pounding the man to a pulp.
The victim, a Haitian immigrant, suffered a busted jaw and narrowly escaped being hit by a car before the teenage terrors were nabbed and charged with attempted murder.

"The sad thing is that it doesn't seem like it was a big deal to these kids," said Philadelphia police spokesman Lt. John Walker. "It was like they were making a documentary."

The oldest suspect, 18-year-old Tyrez Osbourne, was caught crying to his mommy by the local ABC affiliate, WPVI-TV.

"I'm not even on camera assaulting the man," Osbourne insisted. "I don't understand why I'm here."

Walker said witnesses can place Osbourne and the other suspects, whose names have not been released because they are 17 and 16, at Friday's crime scene.

"They're pretty much laughing through the movie, even when one of them tries to throw the victim in front of an oncoming car," he said.

Officials would not release the footage, but Walker said it shows the alleged hoodlums "doing some gangsta rapping and then they're walking and talking about how bad they are."

Finally, said Walker, one of the teens said "just pick somebody out for me."

"Unfortunately, that's when the victim shows up in the video," the officer said. "You can see a teen step in front of him. He strikes him in the jaw and the man falls against a wall. He's screaming, 'Why are you doing this to me?'"

The other teens can been seen pounding on the prone man and then the hulking 17-year-old who landed the first punch allegedly pushed the victim in front of oncoming traffic, Walker said.

The victim, a 30-year-old engineering student from Haiti who attends Drexel University, told investigators he intends to return home to Haiti, because he feels safer in his chaotic homeland.