We have previously mentioned the questionable nature of Philadelphia’s homicide statistics. Following Ben Mannes report, the website Broad + Liberty has now undertaken to keep and report the numbers themselves, using data from several sources, including inside information:

With Philadelphia’s homicide total surpassing the 500 mark for two consecutive years, and with questions swirling about how the city tracks and tabulates that statistic, Broad + Liberty has launched an independent tracker to list homicides (what the city police call M-jobs) as well as special case/suspicious deaths (S-Jobs) in the city.

On any given day, the number of items (rows) entered in the tracker may not correlate precisely to the number of homicides in the city, which is, in part, why our outlet has embarked on this project.

In order to hold the city accountable for accurately reporting criminal deaths in the city, Broad + Liberty is also tracking cases that have traditionally been excluded from the Philadelphia Police website, which includes vehicular and suspicious deaths, in an effort to ensure that they are regularly and properly reconciled to Philadelphia’s own published homicide tally in the year that they occurred.

By carefully tracking each homicide, found body, and suspicious death, we hope to either provide greater confidence in Philadelphia’s published tally, or we hope to expose and correct flaws and to help give a voice to concerned citizens, victims, and survivors throughout our city.

One of the most important columns in the tracker is “Source of Information” which will transparently show you if the information was received directly from Philadelphia Police, or from some other source.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Broad + Liberty’s homicide tracker is higher than the city’s. The very first homicide listed, of a 31-year-old black male in the 3000 block of Clifford Street is not listed in the city’s shooting victims database, even though the wounding of a second person in the incident is listed. We reported on this earlier.

Triple homicide leaves three dead, one injured in Northeast Philadelphia

Officials said they believed the shooting was a targeted attack.

by Rob Tornoe and Rodrigo Torrejón | Tuesday, January 10, 2023 | 11:13 AM EST

Three young people are dead and a fourth is in critical condition after a shooting Monday night in Northeast Philadelphia, police said.

The shooting occurred near the intersection of Rowland Avenue and Guilford Street in the Mayfair Monday night around 10 p.m., Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters.

Actually, Rowland Avenue and Guilford Street do not intersect; Guilford Street has a roughly 45º intersection with Crabtree Street, which intersects with Rowland Avenue a short way down.

Two of the bodies were found near 50 spent shell casings at the intersection, Small said. A third victim was rushed to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital but later died, and a fourth person who was shot was hospitalized in critical condition.

The three men who died were ages 18, 19, and 24, police said. The fourth man, who was listed in critical condition as of Tuesday morning, is 28 years old, they said.

According to the city’s shooting victims database, which records only three victims, not four, and only two fatally shot, not three, as of 12:22 PM EST on Tuesday, January 10^th, the victims were all Hispanic white males; what I have often called The Philadelphia Enquirer^[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. doesn’t want to tell you that part. As of this writing, the 18-year-old victim does not appear on the database.

As of the Inky’s report, the police believe that the four males were deliberately targeted, all knew each other, and were physically together. “Near” fifty spent shell casings makes it sound like a targeted drive-by, or perhaps a hidden ambush, but the police have no motive as of yet.

This is not a dilapidated rowhouse area, but one of neat and spacious duplexes. While Zillow does not show any homes currently for sale on Guilford Street, nearby properties such as this one are listed above $250,000. The Mayfair area is not considered part of the Philadelphia Badlands.