The anonymous Twitter sleuth who first identified the alleged assailants in last month’s horrific gay bashing in Philadelphia stopped by The View this week to explain how he outwitted Philadelphia police and, more importantly, to give this story a louder national voice.
Rosie O’Donnell sat down with @FanSince09 to first ask why he chooses to remain anonymous. He was interviewed facing away from the camera, and said he’s always operated the sports-related account under anonymity because his identity is not important.
“I did maybe about 45 minutes of work,” he went on to say, explaining how he used Facebook’s check-in feature and images from a surveillance video police released to identify suspects:
“When I saw the surveillance video, I thought, I had 5,000 people following me at the time, these people were in my demographic and I figured somebody knows somebody. I felt we could probably put a dent in this.
…
I had a bunch of people retweet it, including a friend of mine who’s a Pro Bowl offensive guard for the Eagles, Evan Mathis, he sent it out to 60,000, so we got this in front of about 100,000 eyes and I figured, the 15 people we’re looking for, somebody is going to recognize somebody and know somebody.”
The man’s detective work led police to suspects 24-year-old Kathryn Knott, 24-year-old Philip Williams, and 26-year-old Kevin Harrigan, who have been charged with aggravated assault, simple assault, recklessly endangering another person, and criminal conspiracy in connection to the crime. They’re currently awaiting a December court date when a judge will determine if there is enough evidence to convict them.
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They are, of course, still maintaining their innocence. Check out the interview below:
Cam
Great job by this guy!
Billysees
Good for LGBT’s to have friends and helpers in various places.