The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page reported that the City of Brotherly Love — and yes, I have been using that title sarcastically for a long time — has suffered through 412 homicides as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, September 30th. 412 murders ÷ 273 days = 1.509157509157509 killings per day x 365 days = 550.8425 homicides projected for the year.
The 2020 census reported that 1,603,797 live in Philly. With 499 homicides in 2020, that gives the city a homicide rate of 31.11 per 100,000 population. With a guesstimated 2021 population of 1,607,667, and the city on track for 551 murders, the city’s homicide rate has jumped to 34.27 per 100,000 population.
Former Mayor Michael Nutter produced a chart of Philadelphia homicides per year from 1960 through 2020. It was rather self-serving, as he added the name of the Mayor of Philadelphia, given that it showed there were fewer homicides per year under his regime than under other recent mayors, but, in fact, there was no year in which murders reached the 400 mark under Mr Nutter and his Police Commissioner, Charles Ramsey. I have reproduced the chart for all of the years with 400 or more homicides, and sorted it by the number of killings. Note that with 412 killings, 2021 is 16th out of 18 years with more than 400 homicides, having passed 1994 and 2006, and there are still three full months left in the year!
Since the end of the Labor Day weekend, 24 days ago, there have been 49 murders reported in Philadelphia, or 2.0417 per day. If that rate continues for just one more week, the total would jump to 426, jumping up five more spots.
Then there’s this:
Philly’s top cop says she and DA Krasner ‘just don’t agree’ on how to reduce shootings
“Fundamentally, there are very key disconnects there,” Outlaw said, “as far as which crimes we prioritize, and who believes what are the main drivers of the violent crime that we’re seeing.”
by Anna Orso | September 30, 2021
Philadelphia’s top law enforcement officials don’t agree on which crimes they should prioritize while seeking to address the city’s record-setting gun violence crisis, a notable disconnect made public yet again this week.
The Philadelphia Police Department is focused on arresting people for dealing drugs and illegally carrying guns, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said this week, but top brass don’t see the District Attorney’s Office prioritizing the prosecution of those crimes.
During a biweekly news conference with Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday, the city’s top cop said she and reform-minded District Attorney Larry Krasner “just don’t agree” on whether illegal gun and narcotics charges can reduce violent crime, making it hard to progress in slowing the bloodshed.
”Fundamentally, there are very key disconnects there, as far as which crimes we prioritize, and who believes what are the main drivers of the violent crime that we’re seeing,” Outlaw said.
Jane Roh, a spokesperson for Krasner’s office, said violent crimes “have always been the top priorities” and said all law enforcement should be squarely focused on shooting and homicide investigations. She pointed to low clearance rates, saying that so far this year, police have made arrests in just 29% of homicides and 15% of nonfatal shootings.
“No public official should be defending that, much less spinning it,” she said in a statement. “Our communities and our neighbors who have been wounded or killed by gun violence deserve real leadership and action.”
There’s more at the original, but both are right: the Commissioner should not be throwing shade at the District Attorney when their clearance rates are so low, but the DA’s office should not be minimizing arrests for dealing drugs and illegally carrying firearms, because drug dealers and gang bangers are the number one perpetrators of shootings. Mr Krasner, whom The Philadelphia Inquirer actually endorsed for renomination, has more of a history of letting thugs go free so that they can then go out and murder people:
- In June 2018, Maalik Jackson-Wallace was arrested on a Frankford street and charged with carrying a concealed gun without a license and a gram of marijuana. It was his first arrest.
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office recommended the Frankford man for a court diversionary program called Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition (ARD) that put him on two years’ probation. His record could have been expunged if he had successfully completed the program.
But Jackson-Wallace, 24, was arrested again on gun-possession charges in March in Bridesburg. He was released from jail after a judge granted a defense motion for unsecured bail. And on June 13, he was arrested a third time — charged with murder in a shooting two days earlier in Frankford that killed a 26-year-old man.
It seems that in his eagerness to keep Mr Jackson-Wallace out of jail, the District Attorney did him no favors. Instead of a potential sentence from 2½ to 7 years in the clink, Mr Jackson-Wallace faced the rest of his miserable life behind bars.
It’s true enough that the city’s police are not closing homicide cases at a satisfactory rate, but there are homicide cases which would not have occurred at all if Mr Krasner were more interested in locking up the bad guys than he is at attacking the police.
The left have, for years, decried “mass incarceration,” but lenient law enforcement has proven to be a bad idea even for the criminals. We have previously noted how John Lewis, AKA Lewis Jordan, who slew Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy, and Nikolas Cruz, accused of the mass murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, were given every possible break. Had they been in jail at the time they committed their murders, yeah, they might have served a year or three, but Mr Jordan wouldn’t be on death row today, looking at spending the rest of his miserable life in prison, and Mr Cruz wouldn’t have the same kind of sentence looking him dead in the eye.
Are Messrs Jordan and Cruz somehow better off today because lenient law enforcement kept them out of jail? Is Andrew Brown, with his 180-page-long rap sheet, better off today because, despite many criminal convictions, he was out of jail the day he decided to start a gunfight with several Pasquotank County, North Carolina, deputies trying to serve a couple of warrants? Was 21-year-old Hasan Elliot better off on that Friday the 13th when he should have been in jail, and would have been in jail had not Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office declined to have him locked up on a serious parole violation, and he had a shootout with police?
Treating the petty criminals seriously is better for everyone in the long run. It’s better for society, as it gets the bad guys off the street, and lowers the overall crime rate, and it’s better for the criminals themselves, because when they are locked up for crimes that leave them with hope of eventually getting out of prison, they don’t have as much time on the streets, usually in their prime crime committing ages, they are likely to commit the big crimes which will have them locked up for the rest of their miserable lives.
And so, after finishing 2020 in second place all time for homicides, the thugs of Philadelphia have basically said, “Hold my beer,” and are looking to not just break, but completely shatter the record number of murders.
There are three more months in 2021, and at the current annual rate, the gang bangers are poised to break the city’s murder record on Thanksgiving day. Lenience in law enforcement has not worked, and the price that has been paid is measured in the blood on Philly’s streets.