On Thursday, October 12th, Philadelphia Police Officers Richard Mendez, 50, and Raul Ortiz, 60, were when the officers attempted to stop a gang of goons from attempting to break in and steal a car in a parking garage at the Philadelphia International Airport. Officer Mendez was killed, and Officer Ortiz wounded. The officers returned fire, and one of ths suspects was wounded. Teenager Jesus Herman Madera Duran was wounded, and his accomplices threw him in the back of their Dodge Durango — which was reported stolen a weak earlier — and dumped him on the floor of a parking garage at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and then fled. Young Mr Duran, of Camden, New Jersey, was pronounced dead at CHOP. Continue reading
Author Archives: Dana Pico
2 + 2 ≠ 5
Why should the taxpayers be on the hook to pay for other people’s transportation?
The money lines are far down in the story:
The authority projects an annual operating deficit of $240 million beginning next July 1 as the last of its federal pandemic aid is spent, a situation dubbed the “fiscal cliff” that afflicts most transit systems in the United States.
SEPTA and the state’s other public transit agencies are pushing for the legislature to adopt a measure that would give them a greater share of the sales tax to support operations.
This is how Hitler got good Europeans to load Jews into cattle cars!
If anyone still wonders how the Nazis were able to get millions of good, mostly nominally Christian, Europeans to round up and herd the Jews into railcars, to be shipped off to an unknown but obviously dire fate, just watch this video, and your eyes will be opened. Continue reading
Trial by public opinion.
We reported, on October 5th, on the charges against Cody Monroe Heron, the (alleged) numbskull who road raged against a delivery driver, who jumped on the trunk of her car, stomped out the rear window, showering kids in the back seat with shattered safety glass.
Philadelphia police have charged a Frankford man in the viral Center City motorcyclist assault
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday afternoon they had charged Cody Monroe Heron with aggravated assault and possession of an instrument of crime.
by Beatrice Forman and Rodrigo Torrejón | Wednesday, October 4, 2023 | 8:16 AM EDT | Updated: 4:20 PM EDT
Philadelphia authorities say a 26-year-old man who stomped on and shattered the windshield of a woman’s car while her two children were in the back seat in a now-viral Center City assault has been charged with aggravated assault after he was arrested Tuesday night.
Police have charged Cody Monroe Heron, of the 4500 block of East Stiles Street in Frankford, for destroying the back windshield of a car being driven by a woman making deliveries for Uber Eats, with her girlfriend and their two children in tow, near City Hall on Sunday night. He also allegedly pointed a handgun at her and headbutted her with his motorcycle helmet.
With what is Mr Heron charged? As reported by Fox29’s Steve Keeley, the most serious of the charges are three counts of aggravated assault under Pennsylvania Title 18 §2702. No one was actually injured, but under section (a)(9),
attempts to cause or intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causes serious bodily injury to a child less than 13 years of age, by a person 18 years of age or older.
could be classified as a first-degree felony under section (b). Sentencing guidelines would normally be between ten and twenty years in the state penitentiary, along with a fine of up to $25,000.
Mr Keeley reported, District Attorney Krasner requested that bail for Mr Heron be set at $5,000,000, though the judge cut that in half, to $2,500,000.
The Eighth Amendment to the Constitution states, “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
We also researched Mr Heron’s street, noting that his apparent living situation did not seem to be the type which would support being able to make such a huge bail amount, though whether he had family who could help with that was undisclosed. In the end, Mr Heron was not able to make bail, and requested a reduction in the amount:
Bail hiked to $4 million for motorcyclist accused of stomping out a mother’s car windshield in viral Center City incident
An attorney for Cody Heron requested a bail reduction in the viral assault case. Instead, the judge raised it by 60%.
by Max Marin | Monday, October 16, 2023
A Philadelphia judge on Monday raised the bail of a man who police say stomped out the windshield of a car occupied by two women and two young children in Center City earlier this month.
Common Pleas Court Judge Vincent W. Furlong raised the bail of Cody M. Heron, 26, of Frankford, from $2.5 million to $4 million and cleared the way for the case against him on assault and reckless endangerment charges to move to trial.
Authorities say Heron was near City Hall on the evening of Oct. 1 with a crowd of ATV, dirt bike and motorcycle riders, when he dismounted his bike and stomped out the rear window of a burgundy Ford Fusion before pulling a gun on the driver and then head-butting her with his bike helmet. The scene, which was captured by a tourist riding a nearby double-decker bus, garnered millions of views on social media.
The driver, Nicki Bullock, 23, got out of her car and confronted the motorcyclist, who then pointed a handgun in her face. Ignoring the threat, Bullock fought back, at one point pushing the motorcyclist off his bike before he fled the scene.
If the police correctly identified the assailant — the crime was captured on a now-viral video, and his attorney has as much as conceded that his client was correctly identified — Mr Heron is both stupid and violent, and if convicted, deserves to go to prison for a long, long time. But, at least thus far, Mr Heron has been convicted of nothing, and he is legally innocent until proven guilty.
Mr Heron’s next court appearance, his formal arraignment, is scheduled for Monday, October 30th. That means, unless there is a surprise development, that Mr Heron will have spent four weeks in jail for the crime of which he has been accused, but has not actually been either tried or convicted. He couldn’t make the $2,500,000 bail, yet Judge Furlong increased the bail amount anyway, in an obvious attempt to keep Mr Heron behind bars, despite the Eighth Amendment and despite Mr Heron not having been convicted of any crime. Judge Furlong is, in effect, punishing Mr Heron in advance.
Yes, the crime was a blatant one, and it was caught on video, but it is also true that no one was injured. People were outraged by it, but public outrage is no excuse for denying Mr Heron, about whom no media reports have painted as a flight risk, the reasonable bail required by the Bill of Rights.
Money talks University presidents are learning the hard way: promoting anti-Semitism costs schools deep-pockets donors
As we previously reported, on Friday the 13th, Marc Rowan, University of Pennsylvania alumnus, Wharton school of business graduate and CEO of Apollo Global Management based in New York, called on UPenn alumni and supporters to “close their checkbooks” until President Liz Magill and Chairman Scott L. Bok step down, saying that under their leadership, the college had embraced anti-Semitism. The linked article from The Philadelphia Inquirer noted that all four of the protesting trustees were Jewish.
And now there’s this:
Penn president said university ‘should have moved faster’ in opposing Palestine Writes speakers with a history of antisemitism
Liz Magill’s comments came within days of a trustee’s resignation over Penn’s handling of the event and after several heavyweight donors withdrew funding support.
by Susan Snyder | Sunday, October 15, 2023 | 2:53 PM EDT | updated: 6:12 PM EDT
The University of Pennsylvania “should have moved faster” to share its position strongly against some speakers with a history of antisemitism appearing at the Palestine Writes festival held on campus last month, the school’s president said in a statement to the campus community Sunday.
Liz Magill’s email comes one day after major donor Jon Huntsman Jr., former governor of Utah and former U.S. ambassador to Russia, China, and Singapore, said his family’s foundation would halt donations to Penn, which he said has “become deeply adrift in ways that make it almost unrecognizable,” according to the Daily Pennsylvanian, the student newspaper, which obtained and published his email to Magill. Continue reading
Another (alleged) groomer arrested The Philadelphia Inquirer's editors must be hopping mad!
Well, I got it wrong!
When I first heard about this story, via a tweet from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News, I guessed that, when and if The Philadelphia Inquirer covered this story, a crucial piece of information would be omitted. After all, when the newspaper covers crime, it routinely censors all references to race in its crime stories, so, even though race is not involved in this story, I guessed that censorship would be used.
Special education teacher charged with sex assault of students at Burlington County elementary school
Vincent Root, 58, of Philadelphia, worked at Chatsworth Elementary School. He was taken into custody Thursday morning, prosecutors said.
by Robert Moran | Friday the Thirteenth, October 2023 | 9:08 PM EDT | Updated: 9:30 PM EDT
A 58-year-old Philadelphia man has been charged with sexually assaulting students while working as a special education teacher in Burlington County.
Vincent Root, who taught at Chatsworth Elementary School, was taken into custody Thursday morning at the Burlington County Prosecutor’s Office in Mount Holly and was being held pending a detention hearing.
School district officials said Root has been placed on administrative leave and has been banned from school property, Burlington County Prosecutor LaChia L. Bradshaw said in a news release.
“There are no friendly civilians!”
From First Blood:
Colonel Trautman: “Look John, we can’t have you running around out there killing friendly civilians.”
John Rambo : “There are no friendly civilians!”
It was inevitable, of course, that our nation’s major newspapers would allow opinions on the Israeli-Hamas War from ‘both’ sides, but I have to ask: is there really more than one ‘side’ in response to a deliberate terrorist attack which has killed more than a thousand Israeli civilians, including children and infants? Apparently Karen Attiah of The Washington Post believes that there is! Continue reading
This is what’s wrong with Cracker Barrel!
Laying in bed this morning, I saw this story on my iPad news reader:
‘The over-65 group is particularly value-conscious’: Older Americans are losing their appetite for restaurants such as Cracker Barrel and Olive Garden — here’s what’s keeping them away
by Serah Louis | Thursday, October 12, 2023 | 8:00 AM EDT
Several fast-casual restaurant chains have reported declining foot traffic and sales following the COVID-19 pandemic — especially among their older clientele.
Company representatives at Cracker Barrel CBRL: (%) and Darden Restaurants — owner of Olive Garden and Longhorn Steakhouse — have pointed to increased prices and ongoing health concerns alienating some of their over-65 customers.
“We just have not yet recovered the visits with that group [over 65 years old] to the extent we thought we would, really, since the pandemic,” Cracker Barrel CEO Sandra Cochran said during a September earnings call.
But while some of these eateries have taken these changes in spending in stride by appealing to different demographics, it’s possible that others are being held back by their original consumer base.
Well, Sandra Cochran, net worth $51 million, you need to pay attention to that last quoted paragraph. From further down in the article:
When the chain introduced plant-based breakfast sausage last year in an effort to accommodate more consumers, there was a mix of praise and backlash on social media.
“Stop pushing this woke garbage,” wrote one outraged user in response to a Cracker Barrel Facebook post promoting the new product. “We go to Cracker Barrel for Traditional Values and Traditional Country Cooking… If you want to serve Lefty food, open an alternative store.”
You know, I really don’t care if Cracker Barrel has a “plant-based breakfast sausage,” as long as they have their real breakfast sausage available as well. The far bigger problem is their biscuits and gravy. Southern-style biscuits and gravy uses a sausage gravy, but the restaurant replaced that with their “sawmill” gravy years ago, and it really should be named sawdust gravy, because they removed the sausage and replaced it with some combination of spices which they somehow believed would taste the same.
Well, it doesn’t taste the same, and doesn’t taste even remotely close. Sawdust gravy would be a far more accurate name for the stuff. That’s what you need to fix first! If you want the older customers, the ones you’ve lost since the panicdemic, to return, the best way is through returning to better food!
How many people knew about Josh Kruger’s (alleged) activities?
We have previously noted the perhaps-not-so-surprising developments in the murder of Josh Kruger, something of a minor celebrity in the City of Brotherly Love. Mr Kruger was shot at his residence in the Point Breeze neighborhood, and the alleged killer’s family have made the claim that Mr Kruger had a sexual relationship with the shooter when the shooter was only 15 years old. Continue reading