St Paul Somali Gang Films Assaults of Pedestrians and Posts on YouTube

 A group or perhaps even an organized gang of Somali men from St Paul and Minneapolis have been filming assaults they made against people unknown to them. The gang assaulted passersby, runners, bicyclists and even children, apparently solely for the purpose of filming the assaults.

Once they had accumulated a sufficient number of assaults on film, they then made a video out of the film and posted it on YouTube. They even filmed themselves, identifying themselves in the process and bragged that more videos were to come.

St Paul police have already identified all of the gang's members, but now they need the victims to come forward to press charges in order to prosecute any of the Somali perpetrators. At this point none of the victims are known to the police.

The first video is the local FOX affiliate's report of the assaults:

The second video is the actual video posted on YouTube by the Somali gang:

The quality of the group's film making leaves much to be desired.

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Subway Hammer Attack Caught on Video

A Philadelphia man is attacked on the subway by a hammer wielding man and it is all caught on tape. The attack was unprovoked and appeared completely random.

Thomas Scantling, 26, who was arrested by the Philadelphia police, has been charged with aggravated assault and attempted murder and is allegedly the attacker in the video.

Scantling is riding the subway with his six-year-old son after midnight, when he instructs his son to sit down.

Scantling then removes a hammer from a carry-on bag and allegedly begins to strike a sleeping passenger again and again with the hammer. The blows appear to be brutal, vicious and unrelenting. The attacker clearly means to harm the victim.

As the train rolls to a stop and the exit doors open, the attack moves from the train to the platform with the victim attempting to defend himself.

The first video is a short report on the incident by a Philadelphia TV station and includes raw footage of the attack:



Although several other passengers are aboard the train, none of them make any effort to help the victim. In fact, some of them quickly leave the area.

Police identified the victim as 20-year-old Dewayne Taylor, who was on his way home after work. Taylor made his own way to a local hospital after the attack, was treated for head and neck wounds and released.

Taylor said he did not know his assailant and knew of no reason for the attack.

Scantling’s family had him committed to a mental institution after the attack, and then called authorities identifying him as the attacker.

Scantling has a long criminal history including rape, robbery, assault, and narcotics violations.

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey criticized the reaction by the passengers on the train to the assault.

"They better pray they're never a victim, because if someone was attacking them that way they would certainly hope someone would step forward and help, and it starts with stepping forward and doing something yourself," Ramsey said.

The second video is a more in-depth report of the assault by NBC:



See video of the hit-and-run incident referred to in the second video.
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Defendant: Guns Were OJ's Idea

Charles “Chuck” Cashmore told NBC’s Matt Lauer on the Today Show that OJ Simpson is the one who asked his co-defendants to bring guns with them when Simpson and a few associates allegedly robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at the Palace Station Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas in early September.

Cashmore was one of the “associates” who accompanied Simpson on the botched mission to rescue some of OJ’s memorabilia that he claims were rightfully his. The accompanying photo shows a football that was one of the items that OJ allegedly stole from the hotel room.

OJ claims that the memorabilia was stolen from him years ago, and he was merely retrieving his own property. The Las Vegas police have a different view of the “retrieval” and have charged Simpson with two counts of robbery with a deadly weapon, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, conspiracy to commit robbery and burglary with a deadly weapon and kidnapping.

Cashmore claims to have only met Simpson that very day saying, “I did not know Mr. Simpson before that evening. A mutual friend of ours asked me if I wanted to meet the gentleman. I just had a cocktail with him and it went from there.”

NBC reports that Cashmore has pled guilty to being an accessory to a robbery and is cooperating with the prosecuting attorneys. If Cashmore testifies that the guns were OJ’s idea, that could prove to be one important nail in Simpson’s coffin. Simpson initially claimed that there were no guns involved in the alleged robbery.

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