Mayor Speaks Out About Taking Action After Confrontation Outside City Hall
By Todd Quinones
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Mayor speaks out about a tense encounter caught on camera.
The video shot by an eyewitness and first aired on CBS 3 shows a homeless man cursing at and getting into a tussle with a member of the Mayor's security detail and Mayor Michael Nutter himself gets involved.
Tuesday night CBS 3 Eyewitness News showed the video to the 56-year-old man.
(Reporter:) "Did you have any intention on harming him?"
"No, no not at all," he said.
"You know things turned pretty quickly," said Mayor Nutter.
Nutter downplayed the confrontation Tuesday night outside his City Hall office where just across the street the man has been spending a lot of nights often sleeping under the stairwell in the concourse next to the Municipal Services Building.
In the video, Nutter can be seen pulling him off the police officer and helping subdue him.
"In my main role here, quite frankly, was really just try to calm him down," said Nutter.
The man says the homeless in the city are running out of places to stay.
(Reporter:) "Do you fear you are going to be forced out of here for when the Pope comes?"
"Yeah, we're going to be forced out of here when the Pope comes," he said.
(Reporter:) "What about a shelter?"
"Mr. Quinones, a shelter is not a nice place," he said.
The altercation happened Monday after the Mayor and some city officials were there talking about issues related to the concourse, but a spokesperson wouldn't go into more detail.
For his part, Mayor Nutter says he has no plans on increasing his security detail.
"Seven and a half years we've never had any kind of situation and again I was not harmed, I was not threatened, I didn't feel threatened, I mean I'm from West Philly. I can take care of myself," said Nutter.
No one was injured in the scuffle and the man was not arrested.
