PHILADELPHIA, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Police in Philadelphia are pleading for witnesses to come forward in the deadly beating of a young man in the historic Old City neighborhood.
Kevin Kless, 23, died Saturday at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, hours after he was attacked. He had just left a restaurant with two woman friends shortly after 2 a.m., The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Police were told Kless was trying to hail a taxi and apparently yelled at a driver who had failed to turn off his taxi light even though he had passengers. Three passengers in a car described as a maroon Mazda, who may have thought Kless was yelling at them, got out and administered a savage beating, including pounding Kless' head on the granite wall of the Second Bank of the United States.
The assault was a shock because it occurred in a neighborhood popular with locals and tourists and generally considered safe. The area is also heavily trafficked on weekend nights.
Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said witnesses should report what they saw, WTXF-TV, Philadelphia, reported.
"There were people out there that night, people walking, people driving. There are people who saw it," he said.
Kless, who graduated in 2010 from the Fox School of Business at Temple University in Philadelphia, was from Warwick, N.Y.. the Inquirer said. He worked for an insurance company in Harrisburg, Pa., until getting a job with the Philadelphia office of Marsh, a major insurance brokerage, and returning to the city six weeks ago.
