Crack social media sleuths appear to have helped Philadelphia police track down a pack of well-dressed goons wanted on hate crime charges after they allegedly attacked two gay men in the street last week.
Several of the suspects have lawyered up and were preparing to turn themselves into police Wednesday, local ABC 6 reported.
Cops said the attack happened Sept. 11 at around 10:45 p.m. in Philly’s downtown Center City neighborhood.
About a dozen men and women — likely in their 20’s and dressed for a night out — were walking on Chancellor St. when they started mouthing off to two men walking nearby.
Police said the partygoers spouted homophobic slurs and then went after the pair, pummeling them with kicks and blows to their heads and faces.
Both men, 27 and 28, were later taken to Hahnemann Hospital, where one was treated for broken bones in his face and had to have his jaw wired shut, police said.
One of them also had his wallet and phone stolen by the preppy-looking crew.
On Tuesday, Philadelphia police released a surveillance video of the group and asked the public to help identify them.
That posting set off a flurry of social media activity that reportedly helped cops identify some of the suspects, as well as a restaurant where they dined before the assault.
According to a timeline stitched together by Gawker, a Twitter user in San Francisco cracked the case Tuesday afternoon by posting stills from the surveillance video along with a photo of a similar-looking crew posting together at a restaurant.
He later tweeted he’d received the restaurant picture from “a friend of a friend.”
From there, a New Jersey man using the handle @FanSince09 retweeted the pic and asked followers to help identify the restaurant, Gawker reported.
Several users recognized it as La Viola, an Italian joint on 16th St. serving comfort food faves like veal marsala and chicken in red sauce.
@FanSince09 then checked the surveillance stills against profiles of people who’d mentioned the restaurant on Facebook or Twitter.
“We found em,” he posted Tuesday evening, after a handful of exchanges with other users.
“Pretty confident I have at least 3 positive IDs,” he added.
The Internet bloodhound then contacted Philadelphia police, who acknowledged his crack gumshoe work in a shout-out a short time later.
“This is what makes my job easy,” Det. Joseph Murray wrote.
“This is how Twitter is supposed to work for cops. I will take a couple thousand Twitter detectives over any one real detective any day,” he said.
The case made news on several Philadelphia outlets Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
As of early Wednesday, though, no arrests had been reported.
Anyone with any tips was asked to call a local tip line at 215.686.8477 or text 773847.
The Citizens Crime Commission put up a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, while the owners of restaurant Philadelphia 6 said they’d pony up $10,000 toward the bounty, the Philadelphia Daily News reported.
