March 29, 2016
Police have identified a group of young children seen on two videos using foul language and throwing punches at passengers on SEPTA's Market-Frankford Line.
The videos were posted to Patrick Coyle's personal Facebook page on March 24. In the first video, four boys are moving around the train, disturbing other passengers, when they notice Coyle is recording them and start using explicit language.
The second video shows the boys shouting racial and homophobic slurs, making sexually suggestive comments, hitting Coyle, threatening to beat him up and spitting at him.
Eventually the boys get off at the York-Dauphin Station, and a woman — who at one point had told the children to "watch your mouth" — exits the train with them.
SEPTA Police Chief Thomas Nestel said on Twitter late Tuesday that the family seen in the videos has been identified and is being connected with social services.
The family in the YouTube video shown on tonight's news has been identified. They are being connected with social services. Thanks to ALL!
— Thomas J. Nestel III (@TNestel3) March 29, 2016
It is unclear what started the incident in the first place, though Coyle claimed in a comment posted with the video on Facebook that he started recording after "they smacked some lady and cursed her out." He also claimed he got "punched in the balls" by one of the children.
Nextel had asked that the media not blur out the faces of the children, so they can be identified and authorities can help get them social services.
Nestel lamented the children's behavior before his department found the family in question.
"The behavior of these kids is horrible," Nestel said, "and I would love to get help for them before they become chalk outlines on some Philadelphia street."
PhillyVoice has chosen not to publish the children's faces because of their ages. FOX29 has published an edited version of the videos that blur the boys' faces. View them below:
