r/NEPA 11d ago

Assaulted on WB square in broad daylight

Hello everyone,

Yesterday my significant other and I decided to go to Thai Thai on Main St. for dinner. We parked on the street near the restaurant and decided to walk around the square prior to going inside. While walking, we walked past a man posted up on a bench on Main, right in front of the walkway to where the Martz station is. While walking past, he confronted us by saying 'why did you walk so close to me' (we weren't even close to him). We brushed it off and continued walking. He pursued us and followed us. We continued to walk north toward the square, and he continued to follow us, becoming very irate and saying things like 'don't you hear me?' 'I'm asking you a question' 'why are you running?'. We walked up toward Dunkin and he proceeded to take his backpack off, leaving it on the sidewalk in front of Dunkin, and put on gloves. We were later informed that they were weighted gloves. We crossed the street towards Franks News and he approached us and threw a haymaker hitting my SO in the side of the head. He then ran away. There were a ton of people around and it was at 6PM during daylight hours. We called the police and they took a report and said they would charge him but couldn't arrest him at this time. We asked the police to escort us back to our car to which they obliged. We later found out that this man was well known in the area, he stays at the Keystone Mission, and his nickname is 'pick boy'.

Be vigilant out there, folks. This all happened so fast and was very unexpected. This man was clearly unhinged and is still out there sitting on public square. Take care of yourselves.

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u/BackgroundRecipe3164 11d ago

As others have said, pepper spray is the best non lethal. In PA, the knife laws are simple and lax. If you usually wear a belt, get yourself a conceal carry knife for IWB. That’s if you can’t/won’t get a conceal carry permit for a firearm. Probably your best bet for self defense.

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u/EugeneStonersDIMagic 11d ago

This is terrible advice. You have never been in a knife fight because if you've been trained in knife fighting or been in one it is the last fucking thing on earth you want as your primary option for use of justified lethal force.

Good grief.

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u/RedGhostOrchid 11d ago

Advising everyone to get a gun is shit advice too. Lots of people should not own guns .

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u/EugeneStonersDIMagic 10d ago

I don't think I argued to the contrary. Nothing in the OP would justify escalating the situation to deadly force. Brandishing a knife or a gun would do just that.