A Hammer? Really?

A friend sent me this post on Jossip and I remembered a recent YouTube search. I was looking for this video of a kid being hit in the head with a basketball and did a simple YouTube search:

One thing about the Internet: It loves kids getting hit in the head with things. But some people, man. I don’t really think I want to see a kid hit in the head with a shovel.

The video I was originally searching for is part of our funny Internet video heritage, having been passed around for almost 10 years now, I’d guess. It also stands along with the kid being kicked by the breakdancer among the best “kid hit by something” videos on the Internet. This one is better because the kid immediately gets right back up, so he’s probably okay. And that makes it less awful to laugh at.

Another awesome basketball video is the 90-foot buzzer beater.

Yes, this post has nothing to do with anything. I’m just trying to appease all the kid getting hit in head searchers out there.

Wacky SEPTA Rider Hits Man WIth Hammer

Around eight years ago, a homeless man from Nebraska went up to the Liberty Bell and hit it with a hammer. (This was before 9/11. Now, he’d be shot on site for attempting to forget.) We all had a good laugh at that guy, but here’s another hammer attack that’s not quite as fun: This one dude on the subway attacked another dude on the Broad Street Subway.

The attacker had a small child with him; cops say after talking to the child, he reached into his bag, pulled out a “double-claw hammer” and hit some sleeping dude with it. The attack spilled out onto the Fairmount platform, but the dude who was just minding his own business stayed on the subway and rode to Temple Hospital. This is faster than waiting for an ambulance, and since this happened midnight on Thursday, the Fairmount stop was certainly closed early like it always is. He escaped serious injury.

The Daily News and the police seem mostly concerned nobody random on the train stopped to help take down the “psycho” with the hammer. I guess if somebody had stopped the dude on the subway there’d be less work for them to do? The Daily News, I mean.

Through it all, disgusted investigators said, at least 10 passengers stood by and did nothing as the random attack moved from the train to the platform, when the hammer-wielding maniac tried to push his victim down onto the train tracks.

When the beating was finished and the suspect fled with the little boy, the victim staggered back onto the train, bloodied, confused and alone, said Detective Kenneth Roach, of Central Detectives.

And even then, no one tried to help him. “Somebody should have helped this guy,” Roach said. “I understand the [other] guy had a hammer, but they outnumbered him at least 10 to one.”

Aww, it’s our own little Kitty Genovese story! Only, you know, without a dead white woman to further people’s outrage.

So, you know, next time a dude with a hammer attacks somebody on the subway and you’re there, you can jump on his back and try to stop him. In the meantime, feel free to complain about the subway passengers on the Philly.com comments with the dude who wrote this, “what a bunch of pussies on that train, every one of you are cowards. and you should all throw your self in front of the next train you are near.” Oh, and this other dude calls for the “Hell’s Angels,” somehow confusing ‘em with these guys.

Psycho hammers subway passenger [Daily News]
Man Attacked by Hammer-Weilding [sic] Man on Subway [KYW 1060]