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Man Sentenced To Up To 37 Years In Prison For Theft Leading To Senseless Mayhem

By Tony Hanson

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - A 24-year-old man has been sentenced to up to 37 years in prison for theft leading to senseless mayhem in his Kensington-Port Richmond neighborhood.

Prosecutor AJ Thomson says Jamar Hunter was confronted stealing cash from a friend. He fled, his next stop a neighbor's house where he brutalized a five-year-old girl and beat her pop-pop, beating him over the head with a wooden stick.

"The guy went berserk, he went into this house, choked the little girl, beat up a veteran, he goes outside and carjacks somebody, crashes that car, carjacks another car," says Thomson.  "I mean this is the kind of behavior you would see either in a video game or movie, and it started out innocently enough, two 20-year-old guys just playing video games, and, like I said, I don't know what he was playing, but it was almost like he acted one out."

The defendant told the court he's a good guy. He had a run of bad luck, was stabbed in a robbery, hit by a car, shot at a bus stop, and he turned to drugs -  and he doesn't remember anything about what the prosecutor has called a maniacal spree of assaultive behavior.

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