It was crazy, but we’re recovering. Last night, after the Phillies beat the Tampa Bay Rays in Game 5 with a score of 4 to 3 for the second World Series win in their history, fans poured out onto the streets and wreaked delirious havoc until dawn.
"I wouldn’t say the city got a black eye, but it was a little bruised," Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey reported this morning, adding that city police (many of them suited up in riot gear) made 76 arrests overnight.
Philly’s emergency room at Hahnemann Hospital also reported heavier traffic than usual, with about 15 people admitted for Phillies-celebration-related injuries—the worst being a foot getting run over by a car. Fortunately, there were no homicides.
The largest street celebration took place along Broad Street in Center City, where windows of several stores were smashed and merchandise was looted. Fans also set several fires along the street, which were quickly quelled by police.
The morning of the game, a man who the police have not yet identified robbed a PNC Bank, allegedly using the money to pay for a shopping spree to buy Phillies gear. Twenty minutes after the robbery, police caught the suspect making his way out of a Modell’s Sporting Goods store at the Roosevelt Mall.
At a press conference today, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter urged appropriate behavior at tomorrow’s victory parade for the Phillies. “You can be joyous; you cannot be a jackass,” he said, adding that there were, “in proportion, a very small number of people who engaged in inappropriate actions” last night.
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