What’s Behind the Flash Mobs
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Hour 2
Last Saturday, hundreds of kids gathered in a flash mob on South Street in Philadelphia, disrupting traffic, damaging property, and occasionally assaulting pedestrians. On Wednesday afternoon, the police foiled another attempted flash mob in West Philadelphia. In recent months, a number of flash mob incidents have wrecked havoc in Center City and South Street, scaring residents and damaging the city’s reputation. This hour, Everett Gillison, Philadelphia’s Deputy Mayor for Public Safety, and Howard Stevenson, Associate Professor and Chair in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, discuss what’s behind these flash mobs, why they turn destructive, and what the city is doing about it.
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[audio: 032610_110630.mp3]
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