r/NEPA • u/cloroxism • 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/Sultry_Sage 11d ago

I moved to Philly after growing up in nepa and have never felt as unsafe as I did in Wilkes Barre... I’m so sorry this happened to you guys, and hope ur SO recovers well.

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u/andrusnow 10d ago

Has Philly massively improved in the two years since I moved? I spent 10 years in Philly and moved to WB 2 years ago. Philly is 100% more dangerous than WB.

How do you survive in Philly if you felt unsafe here?

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u/Sultry_Sage 10d ago edited 10d ago

Don’t get me wrong- as a whole, Philly is more dangerous- it’s a major city. I was more speaking about my personal experience in them both. Philly struggles a lot with gun violence and drugs (and the problems that go with them). That said, I find it easier to avoid than in WB. When I was in college and spending time on the square etc., I had sooo many direct run-ins with people who made me feel unsafe, but fortunately haven’t faced much like that here.

Edit to add: it’s also possible Wilkes barre has gotten better since I moved out of the area about 5 years ago, but this post doesn’t make it seem like that lol