{"id":166200,"date":"2026-04-15T06:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166200\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T06:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T06:23:19","slug":"south-philadelphia-neighbors-alarmed-after-masked-man-seen-on-roofs-overnight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/166200\/","title":{"rendered":"South Philadelphia neighbors alarmed after masked man seen on roofs overnight"},"content":{"rendered":"

A South Philadelphia<\/a> resident checking a trail camera meant to monitor raccoons instead discovered footage of a man walking across their roof deck around 2 a.m. Saturday, prompting concern among neighbors.<\/p>\n

“I check it every now and then, and I checked it and saw that 2 in the morning Friday night going into Saturday morning, there was some guy on my roof, on my roof deck,” said the resident, who asked not to be identified.<\/p>\n

Another neighbor, Bill Fitch, said he saw the same man that night, right around the same time.<\/p>\n

\"IMAGE:<\/p>\n

IMAGE: Residents are on edge after a person was seen on their roof deck over the weekend.<\/p>\n

“He looked down at me, and I thought maybe it’s just a guy on a roof in the middle of the night,” Fitch said. “I don’t know, I gave him the benefit of the doubt for no reason. But later, when we went upstairs, I saw him clearly with a ski mask on up on the roofs, with a flashlight, looking to like gain entry into stuff. Like he was checking windows.”<\/p>\n

Fitch called 911, but the man was gone by the time officers arrived minutes later.<\/p>\n

Neighbors asked that the street not be identified publicly, saying they do not want to draw more unwanted attention. They believe the man accessed the roofs through a broken alleyway gate next to what they think is an abandoned house.<\/p>\n

Fitch said the incident has left him uneasy.<\/p>\n

“I feel like he’s gonna come back. I feel paranoid, really. We’re locking the doors. We’re double-checking things. We’re putting bikes in front of doors and things so that if someone were to get in, they’d have to knock stuff over.”<\/p>\n

Philadelphia police said criminal trespassing can apply even when a person does not enter a home’s interior. Anyone on a private residence without authorization, including on a roof, may face charges.<\/p>\n

The resident who captured the footage said the experience was disturbing.<\/p>\n

“It was very violating. Definitely don’t recognize the guy, don’t know what he was doing up there. He was poking around; it looked like he might have been checking the window or something,” they said. “So we have a no trespassing sign on our roof now, crazy as that sounds.”<\/p>\n

Installing gates in city alleyways is illegal, but it remains a common practice. Residents often pool money to put up a gate and share keys; the responsibility ultimately falls on property owners.<\/p>\n

Philadelphia police are looking into this incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A South Philadelphia resident checking a trail camera meant to monitor raccoons instead discovered footage of a man…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":166201,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[74954,69,71,70,2245,74955],"class_list":{"0":"post-166200","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-bill-fitch","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-philadelphia-police","13":"tag-roof-deck"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}