Havoc in Havertown: Police increasing patrols after groups of kids cause "ruckus" in Delaware County
HAVERTOWN, Pa. (CBS) -- It's not just happening in the city. Groups of kids are causing havoc in Havertown. They're attacking other young people for no apparent reason, and they're creating a panic in the Delaware County town.
Police are fed up, saying this will not be tolerated. They're increasing their patrols to track them down.
CBS Philadelphia spoke with one parent whose son was attacked. In that incident, it was 10 teens on one, them delivering blows, punches and kicks. Police are working to identify the people responsible and promise arrests will be made.
Groups of teens have created panic along Darby and Manoa Roads and Brookline Boulevard on weekend nights.
"A lot of kids that are just trying to cause as much problems as they possibly can," Sam's Boardwalk Pizza employee Eamon McElhone said. "Like they want to cause a ruckus."
Bars, restaurants and other shops along Havertown's normally calm business hub have been forced to put up with them.
"I won't tolerate their baloney," Tom Thornton said. "I think what we're seeing is a direct result of our leadership across the country now. I mean, you look at the situation in Wildwood, the situation in North Philly a couple nights ago. There's just no ramifications."
This past weekend, the stakes were raised when groups of nearly a dozen teens swarmed a single victim at a time and unleashed beatings. Several attacks occurred.
"The violence, that's worrisome," McElhone said.
CBS Philadelphia has blurred video to protect the identity of the young man punched and kicked, but the savage nature of the attack is easily heard and hard to believe.
His father isn't sure when he'll return to school.
"Ten-on-one is a bad situation," his father said. "So he got out of it unscathed, not hurt. But the what ifs?"
Jennifer Brennan's son was also surrounded by a similar group and says he narrowly escaped being assaulted.
"We need to take Havertown back," Brennan said, and get things back under control."
A theme we heard from business owners they insist the lack of consequences is driving the bad behavior.
"We have a lot of unsupervised kids that are coming into areas and causing a lot of mischief," Rich Blye said. "Some of it's peer pressure, some of it is just want and destruction."