Thugs hack off thumb of student   BY RICHARD SCHAPIRO, JEGO ARMSTRONG and CARRIE MELAGO DAILY NEWS WRITERS A gang of teens beat up a student outside a Bronx school yesterday and then hacked off his thumb with a machete, police said. The thugs targeted Robert Bell, 17, of Manhattan, near Jane Addams Vocational High School on Tinton Ave. because they mistakenly believed he had stolen one of their cell phones, his relatives said. Surgeons at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx were trying to reattach the severed digit last night, family members said. Police were searching for the gang who chased Robert, hit him with a baseball bat and then sliced off his left thumb. "It just goes to show you, you can be in the right place and still have a problem," said Robert Bell, 52, the victim's father. "You don't have to be looking for trouble for trouble to find you," Robert, who is entering his senior year at Bronx Leadership Academy, was outside his summer school at 1 p.m. when the group tossed bottles at him, then chased him. "They were after everybody, but they went for him," said Robert's sister Robyn Bell. When one teen swung a baseball bat at him, Robert fell on a car and put out his arm to protect himself, his father said. Then another punk chopped off his thumb, the dad said. The finger was still lying on the car when a 21-year-old resident of the nearby McKinley Houses, walked by. "I thought it was fake. That's why I didn't pay it any mind," the man said. The thumb was put on ice and rushed to the hospital with Robert. Doctors told his father that it could likely be reattached. Originally published on July 27, 2005 http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/332124p-283805c.html Back To Guvment Skool Page 7 COPYRIGHT "DUHMAG.COM" 2005