Scantling, 27, a drug abuser who in September pleaded guilty in the unprovoked attack of Dewayne Taylor on the Broad Street subway line, apologized in Common Pleas court.
"It's not about me; it's about Mr. Taylor. I truly apologize for my actions . . . I was not under the influence that night, but the buck stops here," said the bearded man, who pleaded to one count each of aggravated assault and possession of an instrument of crime.
"This is not just about mental illness, though you are mentally ill," Judge Rose DeFino-Nastasi told him. "This was about you wanting to use drugs and mental illness. That makes you dangerous."
Taylor, now 21, was still too traumatized about the Sept. 4, 2008, attack to attend the sentencing hearing, said Tracie Taylor, his mother.
"I look at him today, and I do not recognize the young man that I raised . . . He questions, why him?" Taylor said of her son, who was commuting home from his job as a lab technician at the University of Pennsylvania when he was attacked.
The SEPTA video shows Taylor napping and Scantling with his 6-year-old son standing nearby. Scantling said something to the boy, kissed his cheek and directed him to an open seat. He then pulled a hammer from a backpack and started hitting Taylor over the head.
When the train stopped, Scantling continued to beat the victim on the platform and attempted to push him onto the tracks.
Assistant District Attorney Charles Ehrlich had asked the judge to sentence Scantling to six to 20 years in prison due to the violent nature of the attack and the fact that Scantling made his mental illness worse by smoking the drug PCP.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MOST POPULAR PHILLY.COM PHOTOS
Daily Headlines
Subscribe now! Daily Headlines Newsletter
Philly.com news blogs
Philly.com Promotions
