Black mob with bats and pipes besieges and invades white family in their Philadelphia home

Because the second paragraph of the article, from the Philadelphia Daily News, didn’t seem to follow from the second, I had to read the two paragraphs about three times before they made sense. This is what the story tells us. Dozens of blacks with bats and pipes were chasing (or threatening) two white boys in a residential neighborhood. The two boys approached Mark Lavelle, a white man, on the street and asked for his help, and he ran with them into his house, whereupon the mob surrounded and broke into the house. One man hit Lavelle with a pipe. A second punched him in face. A third brandished a gun, and Lavelle wrestled with him until the sound of police sirens led the mob to flee.

The reporter does not explain why, since the incident occurred on September 9, it is only being reported today, September 27. Evidently it took the staff at the News two and a half weeks to come to terms with reporting a black mob invasion of a white home.

Posted on Tue, Sep. 27, 2011
Chased home: Mob attacks man in his house
BY JULIE SHAW
Philadelphia Daily News

ABOUT 11 P.M. on Sept. 9, dozens of youths with bats and pipes descended on a tidy residential area of Port Richmond looking for white teens who allegedly had attacked an African-American kid at Stokely Playground a couple of hours earlier.

Two fearful white teens spotted Mark LaVelle on Indiana Avenue near Belgrade Street and asked for help. Suddenly, the mob appeared. LaVelle, who said that he didn’t know the two kids, who looked to be 13 or 14, ran with them into his nearby house.

” ‘We got you, you white mother——!’ ” LaVelle said he heard someone yell in the “mob” of black and Hispanic youths.

Inside his house, LaVelle, 37, called to his wife, Kim, 30, to go to their bedroom with their twin 13-month-old boys, Mark and Mason, and to call police. He also ordered his two other sons, 11 and 17, and his nephew, 7, to stay upstairs.

With the two teens hiding in the house, LaVelle, 5 feet 10, 220 pounds, a well-known sports-league organizer and coach in the community, went outside to try to calm the angry mob.

They were standing on his steps. One shouted, ” ‘Something’s going to happen now!’ ” LaVelle recalled in an interview Friday at his house. LaVelle got nervous and went back inside, locking his door with a deadbolt.

But the attackers pounded on his front windows and kicked his wooden door so hard, it flew open and some of them entered his house.

“The first guy hits me with a pipe. The second guy knocks me in the face. All I’m hearing is my wife and kids screaming,” said LaVelle, who feared that the next time they saw him, he would be in a casket.

He said that he was able to push the attackers out the door, but then a third man—who had a gun—tried to extend his arm. LaVelle grabbed onto the gunman’s lower arm and shoulder so he couldn’t raise the weapon. Then, police sirens screamed in the neighborhood, and the mob turned and ran.

LaVelle was able to identify three of the people from the melee. He said he did not know if they had been chasing the white teenagers, or if they were just trying to find someone to attack.

Police arrested Bergson Morin, 21, of Rosehill Street near Wyoming Avenue, Feltonville, as the man with the gun. They arrested Enrique Delgado, 32, of Rockland and C streets, Feltonville, as the man who hit LaVelle with the pipe. And they arrested a 17-year-old juvenile as the one who punched LaVelle in the face, giving him a black eye.

LaVelle said that the next day the mother of the juvenile came back with some other people, banging on his door, screaming. LaVelle, who was at a charity sports event, was called back to the house by one of his sons.

When he got home, LaVelle said, the mother yelled at him, “‘You white mother——, you got my kid locked up! You got my son locked up because he’s black, you’re white!’ ” The mother claimed that her son had been “a witness,” not an attacker. To that, LaVelle said if that were true, it would come out in court.

But the mother, according to LaVelle, then yelled: ” ‘If you make it to court! I know where you live!’ “

Police public affairs could not confirm yesterday if the mother has been arrested for making threats.

Patty-Pat Kozlowski, president of the Port Richmond on Patrol and Civic Association, said that police told her that the attack on LaVelle stemmed from the incident at Stokely Playground, Indiana Avenue and Thompson Street, a few blocks from LaVelle’s house.

She heard that an African-American “kid got knocked off his bike or fell off” and white kids were laughing at him. The group of African-Americans and Hispanics came back for retaliation, Kozlowski believes.

She said she didn’t know any of the people involved in the playground incident or in the attack on LaVelle. LaVelle said he also did not know anyone involved.

Morin and Delgado, who face charges of aggravated assault, conspiracy, burglary, weapons and related offenses, were scheduled to face a preliminary hearing in Municipal Court today, but the hearing got postponed to Nov. 7. Delgado, who is in state prison, was not brought down to the city. Also, both defense attorneys requested a lineup in the case, which the judge granted. Morin is in custody in county prison. Their family members could not be reached for comment Monday.

Freddy Godoy, Delgado’s attorney, said yesterday that someone Delgado knows “was probably related to the child” who was attacked in the playground. But he contends that Delgado was not one of the people who attacked LaVelle.

Richard Patton, Morin’s attorney, declined comment yesterday.

Kozlowski, a legislative aide to City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski and a lifelong Port Richmond resident, wrote about the attack in The Spirit community newspaper, which serves the river wards. Since then, the story has created a lot of buzz in the predominantly white neighborhood.

Kozlowski and Maryann Trombetta, president of the Port Richmond Town Watch, both recalled the murder of Sean Daily, a white teen who was beaten and shot by bat-wielding youths, mostly Latino, in May 1989.

They don’t believe that the attack on LaVelle started as a racial incident, but believe that there was a racial element to it when the mob “called him a white mother——” and when the juvenile’s mother allegedly threatened LaVelle.

LaVelle, who runs sports leagues composed of youths and adults of different races, said he doesn’t want any retaliation on the people who attacked him. But the attack has instilled fear in him and his family, and he hopes that there will be more of a police presence in the neighborhood.

His wife is afraid to stay at home, and “every time I hear a car, I’m looking out the door,” he said.

“It’s not a good way to live.”

shawj@phillynews.com 215-854-2592

—end of initial entry—

Mark A. writes:

I recall several readers disagreed with me that concealed carry is not the answer to inner city crime due to repercussions from one’s “neighbors.” This story about the attack on the white family in Philadelphia illuminates my point, as the protagonist’s life is already threatened by merely shielding himself from violence and from being at the scene of an arrest.

I read the following passage with horror:

LaVelle said that the next day the mother of the juvenile came back with some other people, banging on his door, screaming. LaVelle, who was at a charity sports event, was called back to the house by one of his sons.

When he got home, LaVelle said, the mother yelled at him, ” ‘You white mother——, you got my kid locked up! You got my son locked up because he’s black, you’re white!’ ” The mother claimed that her son had been “a witness,” not an attacker. To that, LaVelle said if that were true, it would come out in court.

But the mother, according to LaVelle, then yelled: ” ‘If you make it to court! I know where you live!’ “

LA replies:

I don’t get your point. It seems to me that if Mark Lavelle’s life is being threatened he would be better off with a firearm.

Lydia McGrew writes:

Does Pennsylvania have a castle doctrine for defending your home? LaVelle was lucky to have been strong enough to fend off an armed mob while unarmed himself. My impression is that he would have been entirely within the law had he used firearms to defend himself once the mob entered his house. Don’t most states have such protections for homeowners? This isn’t a matter of concealed carry, which is usually covered by a different set of laws from home defense.

LA replies:

Of course you’re right. Concealed carry is not the issue here.

Jonathan W. writes:

I don’t think Mark A.’s point makes sense. He originally argued in the past discussion that concealed carry is not a good solution to combating inner city crime because of possible recrimination from the thug’s family or friends. But if merely shielding himself from violence and being at the scene of an arrest will lead to that retaliation anyway, one might as well have an effective means of self-defense.

Matthew H. writes:

Note how the writer puts “mob” in quotes in the third paragraph. What, you mean it wasn’t a mob? What other possible meaning could the word have? [LA replies: I think that the quotation marks showed that this was Lavelle’s word.]

Note too how pusillanimously the locals touch on the shockingly racial nature of the attacks:

They don’t believe that the attack on LaVelle started as a racial incident, but believe that there was a racial element to it when the mob “called him a white mother——” and when the juvenile’s mother allegedly threatened LaVelle.

“A racial element”? I’ll say!

This is a gritty blue collar (white) area of the city. These people, one might have expected, would still feel unconstrained from calling a spade a spade. Apparently they have been well trained by TV to watch their words very carefully.

There seems to be a spirit in black and Hispanic America that is increasingly fearless in its willingness to express its hatred for and commit violence against peaceful whites. Combined with the government’s relentless favoritism toward them it’s looking more and more like the beginnings of a serious long-term ethnic cleansing campaign.

James Manning called it right when he predicted that Obama’s election would only make blacks angrier and more aggressive. (I don’t have the link).

Lara writes:

The attack in Philadelphia reminds me of the murder of Eddie Polac in 1994. A mob chased him through the streets of Philadelphia and beat him to death with a baseball bat. I do not know the race of the mob. Mark LaVelle likely saved the lives of these two teenagers.

Another big issue with the murder of Eddie Polec was the incompetence of the 911 operators who were black. There were at least eighteen 911 calls about the crime and they were all mishandled.

JC in Houston writes:

Of course Lavelle would have been within his legal right to use a firearm to defend his home when a criminal mob broke in. An AR-15 carbine loaded with a 30 round magazine of 5.56mm ammunition would have made short work of the intruders. I keep one handy at the house for just such an eventuality. Lavelle’s other problem seems to be that he lives in fairly close proximity to large numbers of blacks.

Mark A. replies to LA:

Indeed. But relating to our discussion on the original thread, after he used that firearm, he and his family could no longer live in Philadelphia. His life is already threatened for doing essential nothing (except for slamming his door), imagine what would happen if he had shot a perp? Thus, the focus of traditionalists should be on the dysfunction of the community and the inability of certain people to live in what a proper historian would call “civilization” rather than asserting that a solution to this behavior rests in an individual’s use of armed force. Separation is essential.

D. Edwards writes:

Lydia McGrew writes:

“Does Pennsylvania have a castle doctrine for defending your home?”

Yes:

Pennsylvania’s Castle Doctrine Law Takes Effect Tomorrow

Friday, August 26, 2011

Tomorrow, August 27, House Bill 40 takes effect. This NRA-backed Castle Doctrine legislation was signed by Governor Tom Corbett on June 28.

Introduced by state Representative Scott Perry (R-92), HB 40 would permit law-abiding citizens to use force, including deadly force, against an attacker in their home and any place outside of their home where they have a legal right to be. It would also protect individuals from civil lawsuits by the attacker or the attacker’s family when force is used.”

LA replies:

Well, this would seem directly to answer Mark A.’s concern, expressed at VFR last month, over civil lawsuits facing individuals who use firearms to defend themselves. In fact, the bill was signed into law in June and took effect in August.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at September 27, 2011 11:45 AM | Send