"Downtown is not terror town," Dougherty said. "Philadelphia will not be a laughingstock because [of] a few individuals who decide to hunt human beings and laugh about it."
Dougherty ordered the oldest of the youths, a 17-year-old described as the ringleader, to a state juvenile detention facility, where he could be held until he turns 21.
He sent the other teenager, 16, to a residential school for delinquents, and placed the 11-year-old in his maternal grandmother's care pending a behavioral evaluation this month. For now, he will be fitted with a GPS monitoring anklet and forbidden from leaving the house without his grandmother.
The youths, all male, are not being identified because of their ages. All three pleaded guilty to assault, robbery, and riot charges. A 19-year-old, Raymond Gatling, was also arrested in the attacks. On Thursday, his scheduled hearing was postponed until October.
The two teens, who have been held at the Youth Study Center since the attacks, were led handcuffed into the packed courtroom. The 11-year-old, who had been held at a separate juvenile facility, was not handcuffed. He wore Sunday clothes, and smiled and waved through the back of a chair at his younger brother, who sat in his father's lap.
To begin the hearing, prosecutor Leslie Gomez read a narrative of the events from the night of the attack:
Around 9 p.m., 911 calls flooded in about a large group of teenagers walking south on 15th Street near Sansom Street.
Jeremy Schenkel, 23, of Northeast Philadelphia, was walking north on 15th when the 17-year-old punched him in the head. A half-dozen other teenagers then joined in. The 16-year-old and the 11-year-old tried to rip Schenkel's bag away from him.
