Yo, Philly in the News

• We're starting off with a very weird and disturbing story this morning. Shortly after midnight on Thursday, on the SEPTA subway near the Fairmount Avenue stop, a bearded, stocky, 5-foot-9, thirty-something black man in a yellow shirt and black pants, accompanied by a three- or four-year-old child, took out a hammer and, with no provocation whatsoever, began using it to viciously beat a 20-year-old man who was dozing off in his seat nearby. Surveillance cameras show that the attack continued for five minutes, as ten other passengers stood idly by, and even spilled out onto the platform, where the attacker tried to push his victim onto the tracks. The attacker and child then ran off, while the victim reboarded the train and rode it to Temple University Hospital, where he received several staples and sutures and was discharged. The attacker is still on the loose. Call police at 215-686-3093 or -3094 with any information.
• Some kids got sick at Council Rock High School North in Newtown, Bucks County yesterday after taking a drug called Snurf. We'd make fun of the Daily News for doing their research on Snurf at the Urban Dictionary, but really, that's where we'd probably end up, too.
• In a twist on the old story, where the neighbors can't believe someone near them could be capable of committing some heinous crime, none of Andre Butler's neighbors are surprised that he stands accused of crashing a stolen Cadillac Escalade into a police cruiser, killing Officer Isabel Nazario. Meanwhile, the Inquirer takes a look at the effect Nazario's death is having in the Latino community.
• Fumo's defense in his federal corruption trial will be to claim that he was just following the instructions of his former attorney, Richard A. Sprague, when his office deleted e-mails and other documents from computers before federal authorities executed a search warrant for the material. Your lawyer made you do it? That's the best you could come up with? Oh, boy.
• A Philadelphia developer is wrapping up a deal to buy the Boyd Theater, which he intends to use as the anchor for a $95 million hotel-and-entertainment complex inspired by Atlantic City's Borgata (but don't worry, he just means it'll have similar amenities—no gambling).
• A 46-year-old scumbag named Greg Mullen was found trying to break open the collection box at an Upper Darby church—on Sunday, even. He fled to a drugstore where he was found by police. Even worse, this was the second time he'd tried to steal from this particular collection box; the first time he convinced the Reverend not to call the police. Not so this time.
• Pennsylvania's smoking ban takes effect Thursday.
• A judge has ruled that George Banks, the Wilkes-Barre man who was given the death penalty for killing 13 people in 1982, five of them his own children, is too mentally ill to be executed. The prosecution has vowed to appeal.

Image Credit: Flickr user buddhakiwi