Shootings and homicides have decreased in the City of Brotherly Love over the past two years, with 55 murders as of the end of March 5, as compared to 79 on the same date last year. But, as the aggregate numbers decrease, more attention gets paid to some of the individual cases. No one really cares all that much when one gang-banger kills another gang-banger, but when a seemingly innocent kid gets targeted and murdered, even The Philadelphia Inquirer takes notice.
The newspaper had a fairly long story, by reporters Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham, on the apparently deliberately targeted Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old student at Imhotep Charter, an African-centered school with a science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus.
About 3:45 p.m. Monday, as a group of students boarded SEPTA’s No. 6 bus to head home, police say, two young men in hoodies and masks ran up from behind, guns in hand.
They fired indiscriminately at close range at least 40 times, police said, spraying bullets among the crowd of kids and through the bus windows. In total, five people were shot, including a 14-year-old boy and a 71-year-old woman.
As the shooters closed in on the group in Ogontz, in North Philadelphia, police said, they strode toward Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old Imhotep student, and shot him multiple times. He died minutes later — targeted, police said, for reasons detectives don’t yet understand. Taylor, they said, was a respected student with no prior contact with law enforcement. And while investigators are looking into whether a fight at Imhotep earlier in the day may have led to the shooting, the motive remained unclear and no arrests had been made, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.
There’s plenty more in the story, much of it telling readers what a good kid young Mr Taylor was, which sadly reminded me of past Inquirer stories in which the innocent victims was, in the end, not quite as innocent as depicted. But I’ve grown cynical in my elder years, and I’ve heard no evidence that Mr Taylor was anything other than the innocent victim portrayed.
But what struck me the most were these two paragraphs:
The case brought District Attorney Larry Krasner to tears on Tuesday, and he vowed swift justice.
“This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted,” he said.
Oh, Mr Krasner was crying, was he? He was outraged, and he vowed swift justice, did he? That stupid piece of [insert vulgar term for feces here] is responsible for much of the killing on Philadelphia’s mean streets, because he has refused to take ‘lesser’ crimes seriously. He doesn’t like to prosecute crimes involving firearm possession, his minions and he allow very lenient plea deals, especially to juveniles, and he’s proud that the incarcerated population has dramatically declined on his watch. He delights on getting previously convicted criminals released, and on charging Philadelphia Police Officers whenever he can. He is at least indirectly responsible for this homicide, because he has done more than anyone else in Philadelphia to enable a culture and climate in which crime has been enabled.
Is he directly responsible? We don’t know yet, because the killers have not yet been identified. But it would surprise no one if, when the murderers are identified, they are individuals ‘known to the police,’ guys who have been arrested before and given lenient treatment by the city’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney. It would surprise no one if it turned out that the two gunmen both could and should have been behind bars on Monday afternoon.
And if it turns out that they could and should have been locked up on Monday, then Mr Krasner is directly responsible for young Mr Taylor’s murder. When will he be held accountable?
