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Attacker with hammer gets 4-10

Thomas Scantling, the mentally ill man who made national headlines last year after a surveillance camera caught him attacking a subway passenger with a hammer, yesterday was sentenced to four to 10 years in state prison followed by 15 years of probation.

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.

Comments   
Posted 07:39 AM, 11/14/2009
themeeg
He deserves to spend the entire ten years in prison. He is too dangerous to be freely walking around with the rest of society. The long he stays in jail the safer the public will be.
Posted 08:17 AM, 11/14/2009
Ticogringomike
Perhaps it would be best for all involved if Scantybrain was permitted to smoke just as much PCP as possible every single day until he collapses and dies on the floor of his cell. I'll put up the first $20.....
Posted 09:55 AM, 11/14/2009
CopJustice
This is a mockery of the justice system. He should be executed or at least caged for life. He will reoffend when he is let out early by the over crowded system.
Posted 10:48 AM, 11/14/2009
CleanupPhilly
Guys like this have to be on probation for life. You can't just end their probation in 15 years. This offender could be out of PA state prison after serving half his sentence, so the lower number. So expect to see this repeat violent offender on the street in 2-4 years, given the way the Philly DA and the state Board of Probation and Parole operates. He's only 27 years old, so he'll be out in plenty of time to smoke some more wet and have some more hammer adventures. Look at the damage he's done not only to the victim, but to his own family, taking a little kid to witness the attack. His own family is incapable of monitoring him or dealing with his illness effectively on the outside.
Posted 10:51 AM, 11/14/2009
CleanupPhilly
This is one more example of why PA needs mandatory minimums. What kind of sentence is "4 to 10?" What does it mean to have a spread of six years? Which is the operating number? What are the criteria that dictate what will be served and eligibility for parole? Sentences in PA have become meaningless, and the most critical person who thinks so is the criminal himself.
Posted 10:53 AM, 11/14/2009
CleanupPhilly
The victim here is also everyone who is thinking of community on the Broad Street Line. Sentences like this for crimes like this make anyone considering using the BSL regularly feel revulsion, on top of the crumbling stations, dirty cars, and urine smell. Philly's judges are letting the city drop into the toilet.
Posted 09:34 AM, 11/15/2009
John Law
"Mind over Matter" CleanupPhilly...Rendell and Nutter don't "Mind" and we don't "Matter"! It's all about shorting Public Safety to save money for "other things" like "No Bid" Contracts. Each Prison bed cost over $30,000 per year! Keeping an Inmate on the street costs about $2,700... Rendell is releasing 2,000 Prison Inmates per month (about 600 per month for Killadelphia)! Nutter was told what's been going on over 18 months ago, 4 months before SGT. Liczbinski was brutally murdered and he's done nothing, except to walk at the head too many Police Funerals and play the "I'm Angry" song... and us. Philadelphia hasn't started to bleed yet. Look at all the dead... all the rapes... all the shoot outs... just in the last year alone. We've even been called "The City of Death". The FEDs need to "Step Up"...and Rendell and Nutter and our opportunistic, press hungry, gubnitorial candidate (Corbett)need to "Step Off". Mr. U.S. Attorney General...you listen'n?
Posted 09:40 AM, 11/15/2009
John Law
"Mind over Matter" CleanupPhilly...Rendell and Nutter don't "Mind" and we don't "Matter"! It's all about shorting Public Safety to save money for "other things" like "No Bid" Contracts. Each Prison bed cost over $30,000 per year! Keeping an Inmate on the street costs about $2,700... Rendell is releasing 2,000 Prison Inmates per month (about 600 per month for Killadelphia)! Nutter was told what's been going on over 18 months ago, 4 months before SGT. Liczbinski was brutally murdered and he's done nothing, except to walk at the head too many Police Funerals and play the "I'm Angry" song... and us. Philadelphia hasn't started to bleed yet. Look at all the dead... all the rapes... all the shoot outs... just in the last year alone. We've even been called "The City of Death". The FEDs need to "Step Up"...and Rendell and Nutter and "Bad Bet" Corbett, need to "Step Off". Mr. U.S. Attorney General...you listen'n?
Posted 09:49 AM, 11/15/2009
John Law
This is part of the bottomline regarding "The Rendell Murders". Rendell hasn't spent State Budget Funds necessary for Public Safety since 2003. He saved over $60 MILLION for his blatant "No Bid" and "Inappropriate" contracts to his law firm, champaign contributors and "Friends" He reportedly collect $250,000 per year from his firm and they have billed the state for over $3 Million! Beard (DOC) and McVey (State Parole) have been his puppets and should also be looked at by the FEDs for Civil Rights Violations and by the State for Involuntary Manslaughter. Rendell even repeatedly allowed McVey to refuse to turn over documentation to State Auditors to hide their crimes. This deadly, vile corruption is so strong...the State Legislature, Mayor Nutter, City Council and Tom Corbett (State Attorney General) have done NOTHING, murder victim after murder victim, destroyed family after destroyed family. The State Legislature even financed 2,000 Prison Inmates being released PER MONTH! They paid for “The Great Escape”! "Killadelphia" is now the largest Open Air Prison in America and 1st in the Nation in COP KILLINGS! We have 49,000 probationers and over 9,000 murders (like Burgess, the Serial Killer and Rapist), armed robbers (like the ones who just shot the latest Philly COP), Drug Dealers (like the PIAZZA Murderers), Rapist(like the one that raped and savaged that 11 year old girl) = State Parolees. Hell, even the guy who stole the Phillies World Series Ring is a State Parolee. There are even over 500 DOC and State Parole Escapees at large right now in Killadelphia, released for no other reason than M-O-N-E-Y...which is spent on "NO Bid' contracts. We have 1/6th the population of New York City but 6 TIMES the Crime…why? Unsupervised State Parolees. MR. ERIC HOLDER, Attorney General for the United States of America...where the hell are you!? Our President has promised us a new day...justice and an end to such murderous, unbelievable corruption. Are you that promise Sir?
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