Philadelphia lawyers have been ordered to apologize after blasting a neighborhood with a recording of a woman screaming for an hour as part of a test for a lawsuit.
The blood-curdling screams began at 5:30 a.m. Sept. 23 in south Philadelphia. Neighbors living in the area rushed out of their homes after being awoken by the screams, just to find a speaker accompanied by police and attorneys, as reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Rachel Robbins, a resident, said that the unsettling sounds lasted for an hour, even after the nearby day care opened. She told the outlet, "It was so jarring. It was just really awful."
U.S. Judge John F. Murphy ruled Thursday that the lawyers involved with the "scream test" must apologize to the residents of the area for creating "a deeply disturbing and potentially dangerous situation," as reported by the Associated Press.
One man wrote in an email to the judge, "[T]here are firearm owners in this area and we all thought a woman was being raped," according to court documents obtained by the Inquirer.
The test was created by the lawyers of Termaine Hicks, a man whose rape conviction was overturned by the city in 2020 and is now suing the city for the wrongful conviction.
In Hicks' case, he argued that he was not her attacker, but was actually trying to help the woman. His claims about being able to hear the victim's cries for help from two blocks away were being disputed, which led his lawyers to create the test.
City officials said they knew the test was going to happen, however they did not know what the test sounded like and that it was of a woman screaming, as reported by NBC Philadelphia.
Emma Freudenberger, one of Hicks' lawyers, wrote in court documents obtained by the Inquirer that although they coordinated with the city and police, they "did not appreciate the impact of the study on the community or the impact that it could have on trauma victims — although in hindsight we should have."
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