Category Archives: Crime

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Perhaps we should start telling the unvarnished truth instead of hiding behind euphemisms

It was with some amusement that I saw the screen blurb screen captured to the right in Wednesday morning’s Philadelphia Inquirer “Newsletters” section of their website main page.

When schools move ‘tough-to-teach’ kids | Morning Newsletter

by Paola Pérez | Wednesday, December 17, 2025 | 6:00 AM EST

It’s not unusual for students to switch schools after the school year begins. However, some Philly principals point to one “concerning” trend behind a bump in transfers from charters.

The Inquirer spoke with a dozen current and former district administrators who say some pupils with behavior problems are pushed by charters out to Philadelphia School District schools. Charter leaders dispute claims that kids are sent to district schools over disciplinary issues. . . . .

Deep frustration: The bar is much higher for district administrators to remove students; they “can’t turn kids away,” another principal said. Making matters more difficult is a lack of additional funding to attend to more students.

Notable quote: “It’s just not fair,” said a third principal. “We’re not getting their best kids.”

Reporter Paola Pérez newsletter referenced a larger Inquirer article:

It’s an open secret that some charter schools push out kids with behavioral problems, Philly principals say

Principals say students offloaded from charters to Philadelphia School District schools are often “counseled out,” while they can’t remove students from traditional public schools for those reasons.

by Kristen A Graham | Wednesday, December 17, 2025 | 5:00 AM EST | Updated 12:16 PM EST

The trickle begins in the fall, some principals say: Students with a history of behavior or disciplinary problems or other issues show up in Philadelphia School District schools, often from city charters.

“(A) history of behavior or disciplinary problems,” huh? Is that the 21st century formulation of what those of us from the quill-pen-and-inkwell era referred to as juvenile delinquents? At least it’s better than “tough to teach.”

“(N)ot getting their best kids”? Nope, the public schools are getting their worst kids!

But at times, it seems like some students are off-loaded from charters because they’re tough to educate, according to interviews with a dozen district administrators. In district schools, administrators can’t remove students for such issues.

We also used a term, “reform school,” which AI defined as:

A reform school, an outdated term for juvenile correctional or therapeutic facilities, housed troubled youths for behavior change through discipline, education, and vocational training, aiming to reform rather than just punish. Today, these institutions are typically called residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools, or youth correctional facilities, focusing on mental health and specific behavioral issues with modern therapeutic approaches, though historical ones featured strict discipline, labor, and sometimes harsh conditions.

Maybe the name and ideas of reform schools are what’s needed. Instead of sending juvenile delinquents those youth with behavioral or disciplinary problems to regular public schools, perhaps we need to send them to old-fashioned reform schools, perhaps we need to get them and their disruptive-to-other-students behaviors away from normal kids.

But, like the kerfuffle over President Trump calling Minnesota Governor Tim Walz “seriously retarded,” you’re just not allowed to use the politically incorrect words, and “reform school” and “juvenile delinquent” are just as politically incorrect as “retard.” Perhaps, just perhaps, if we admit that the delinquents are delinquents, and put them in real reform schools, rather than warehousing them in mainstream public schools, the vast bulk of our students would wind up being better educated than they have been.

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Philly ADA Paul George disbarred from federal court, but so far, his boss, Larry Krasner, has skated

When an attorney of many years experience gets disbarred by a court, it is not a trivial thing, but a serious, serious punishment, and not something judges take lightly. But, congratulations to Philadelphia’s George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating District Attorney, Larry Krasner, for getting one of his minions kicked out of practice for deliberate lying to a a federal district court. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

A supervisor in Philly DA Larry Krasner’s office has been disbarred in federal court

A panel of judges said Paul George “lied repeatedly” while seeking to overturn the death sentence of Robert Wharton, who killed a Mount Airy couple and left their 7-month-old baby behind to die.

by Chris Palmer | Thursday, December 11, 2025 | 12:33 PM EST

A veteran lawyer in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has been disbarred in the region’s federal courts after a panel of judges concluded he “lied repeatedly” while seeking to overturn the death sentence of a man who killed an East Mount Airy couple in their home and left their infant daughter inside to die.

Paul George, an assistant district attorney who handles appellate cases, was a key player in his office’s attempts to have Robert Wharton’s death penalty reversed so he could serve a life sentence instead.

U.S. District Judge Mitchell Goldberg denied that request, but not before finding that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office had provided incomplete and misleading information in its efforts to free Wharton from death row.

After Goldberg made his decision, George and a colleague who handled the case faced federal disciplinary proceedings to examine whether their conduct — which was also criticized by an appeals court — was intentionally deceptive.

We get it: Mr Krasner is a long-time opponent of capital punishment, having campaigned on, among other things, never seeking a death sentence in a capital murder case.

But this paragraph, from the same article, shows the ridiculousness of Mr Krasner’s moves:

Krasner says his defense work doesn’t make him soft on crime, but rather someone who can differentiate between redeemable defendants and hardened criminals.

Mr Krasner and his minions are not seeking to have Mr Wharton released, or be granted a new trial, but simply to convert his death sentence to life in prison. We fail to understand how the District Attorney could consider Mr Wharton, now 62 years old, to be a “redeemable defendant” and still want to keep him locked up for the rest of his miserable life. Mr Wharton was tried and convicted in 1985, forty years ago. Here is Judge Goldberg’s memorandum opinion from May 11, 2022, noting all of the appeals filed in Mr Wharton’s behalf to save him from execution.

There’s also a particular degree of stupidity in all of this. Despite the current case being federal, as Mr Wharton’s attorneys, now joined by Mr Krasner’s office, sought relief under the Sixth Amendment, the killer was tried and sentenced in Pennsylvania’s state courts; he’s under a Pennsylvania capital sentence, not a federal one. The Commonwealth has executed exactly three men since the restoration of capital punishment in 1976, all in the late 1990s, and all having voluntarily dropped all of their appeals. Pennsylvania’s governors do not have the authority to commute sentences or pardon criminals on their own, but the two most recent governors, Tom Wolf and Josh Shapiro, the current Governor, have declared moratoria on executions, and refuse to sign death warrants. Ed Rendell, Governor from 2003 up until 2011, signed 78 death warrants, and his successor, Republican Tom Corbett, signed 48, but none were actually carried out due to various stays and legal appeals. The chances that Mr Wharton will actually be executed are slender, and Mr Krasner as well as Mr George have to know this. Why lie to the court, why deceive the court, why risk the legal sanction Mr George has now received, for this?

Maybe they’ll try next for Lewis Jordan, who’s only 39, and was sentenced to death for killing Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy, since Mr Krasner hates the police.

Remember: Mr Krasner wanted to find state charges he could bring against the January 6 Capitol kerfufflers after President Trump pardoned them, even though most had already served their federal sentences.

There is an issue of culpability here. Yes, Paul George and Nancy Winkelman were the ADAs making the appeals on Mr Wharton’s behalf, but Larry Krasner is their boss, should have known what they were doing, and taken action against it. If anyone should be disbarred, it’s Mr Krasner, but instead he was just re-elected for another four miserable years as District Attorney, to continue a previous eight years of lax and lenient prosecution, eight years which may have influenced the eight young gentlemen who thought they could rob a Dick’s Sporting Goods store in Polk County, Florida, and get the same no-consequences treatment in the Sunshine State, a story which made the national news as well as two Philadelphia television stations, but somehow, some way, never made the Inquirer.

OK, OK, that last sentence violated all sorts of run-on sentence rules, but it’s the truth nevertheless.

Larry Krasner is all about politics, not about justice, and not really about the law. He uses the law as a tool where he can, but he’s still nothing but a partisan hack.

 

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Killadelphia: Crimes of absolute stupidity

It was a good day for law enforcement, and a bad day for bad guys. Tyvine Jones, the (alleged) hitman for the Blumberg gang was arrested without incident by Federal Marshals in Lansdowne:

A North Philly gang hit man, ‘the very worst’ of society, taken into custody for three killings, officials say

U.S. Marshals arrested Tyvine Jones early Wednesday in Lansdowne. Investigators say he is tied to three murders in the city.

by Vinny Vella | Wednesday, December 10, 2025 | 2:33 PM EST

A North Philadelphia street-gang hit man wanted in connection with three killings, including the execution-style shooting of a 16-year-old boy, was taken into custody Wednesday morning in Delaware County, officials said.

Tyvine “Blumberg Eerd” Jones, 25, was apprehended by U.S. marshals in an apartment where he had been hiding at the Stratford Court complex in Lansdowne, authorities said. Jones was considered one of the city’s most wanted fugitives, and in October, marshals issued a $5,000 reward for information leading to his arrest.

Eric Gartner, the United States marshal for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, said Jones’ “unrestrained existence serves only to diminish our great city,” and his arrest demonstrates the agency’s commitment to keep Philadelphians safe.

Investigators say Jones is a suspect in three slayings that took place between 2020 and 2022: the killings of Heyward Garrison, 16, Wesley Rodwell, 20, and Ryan Findley, 23.

No, of course The Philadelphia Inquirer did not include Mr Jones mugshot, just as the newspaper has had zero coverage of the eight Philly juveniles busted for shoplifting in Florida. The newspaper article did include an arrest photo, showing the back of the (alleged) murderer, just enough to show his long dreadlocks, which makes me wonder: if the newspaper’s mission, as defined by Publisher Elizabeth Hughes, is to make it an “anti racist news organization” and “Examining (their) crime and criminal justice coverage with Free Press, a nonprofit focused on racial justice in media,” why publish a photo which did not inform readers what the suspect looked like, but one which let readers know that he is black?

However, if it’s a good thing that an (alleged) hit man is off the streets, two more Philadelphians were sent untimely to their eternal rewards in another crime gone bad:

A man and teen were killed during attempted sale of a Rolex in Germantown, police say

The attempted sale erupted in gunfire Tuesday, leaving Tyree Ware and Quaneef Lee dead.

by Ellie Rushing and Jillian Kramer | Wednesday, December 10, 2025 | 4:03 PM EST

A man and teenager were killed Tuesday night in Germantown when investigators believe a meeting for the sale of a Rolex watch turned into a robbery, and a shoot-out erupted.

Tyree Ware, 30, drove to the 500 block of West Queen Lane to sell a Rolex he’d listed for sale online, police said. Quaneef Lee, 16, arrived with an acquaintance to purchase it, they said.

Detectives believe Lee and the other male then attempted to rob Ware of the watch at gunpoint, according to a law enforcement source who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Rolex watches are ridiculously expensive, and are status symbols for the men who wear them. They are supposed to say, “I’m successful and wealthy and better than you” to other men, and “I’m successful and wealthy and you should go to bed with me” to women. Police recovered the Rolex from Mr Ware’s vehicle, and one of three guns used in the shooting.

We don’t know young Mr Lee’s intentions in attempting to buy acquire a Rolex; he may have had a second buyer for it, may have wanted it for status, or a number of possible reasons. But whatever his reason, he’s now stone-cold graveyard dead over (allegedly) attempting to steal a watch from a man who was willing to sell it to him. All three parties to this incident were armed, which one assumes means they were anticipating trouble. If so, trouble found them! Police recovered eleven bullet casings from the scene.

One last paragraph from the story:

The shooting comes as Philadelphia is on pace to record the fewest number of homicides in 60 years. Still, violence persists. Lee is one of at least 12 children shot and killed in the city this year.

Yes, violence persists, and two men are now dead over a watch, while Tywine Jones is possibly going to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars, for (allegedly) killing three other people. These are all crimes of violence, but they are also crimes of absolute stupidity.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boys! Apparently, no one told them that you can't get away with crime outside of Philly!

It is of absolutely no surprise to me that a site search of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website for “Polk County” turned up exactly nothing on these eight fine but misunderstood young men from the City of Brotherly Love being so unjustly arrested in Polk County, Florida. But, Alas! the newspaper’s lack of coverage was not able to keep the story from Philadelphians, as both 6ABC and NBC10 News did cover it:

8 Philadelphia youth football players face charges in Fla. theft case

By Corey Davis | Tuesday, December 9, 2025 | 9:05 AM EST

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) — Eight teenagers from the Philadelphia area are facing felony charges in Florida after authorities say they stole more than $2,000 worth of merchandise from a sporting goods store.

Neither 6ABC nor the NBC 10 News story named or showed mugshots of the arrested teens, but the Polk County Sheriff’s Office did. Sheriff Judd is rather famous for naming and shaming criminals arrested in Polk County, something this website absolutely supports. You can click on the image to the right to enlarge it to fill screen. The video of Sheriff Grady Judd’s news conference on this is embedded below, below the fold. Continue reading →

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Import the third world, get the third world. Is it any surprise that immigrants from a country in which stealing from the government is a way of life would steal from the government here?

Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) was just terribly, terribly upset that President Donald Trump used “hateful behavior and this type of language” when Mr Trump described him as “seriously retarded.”

“We have fought three decades to get this out of our school. Kids know better than to use it,” Walz told (NBC’s Kristen) Welker. “But look, this is what Donald Trump has done. He’s normalized this type of hateful behavior and this type of language. And mainly, look, at first, I think it’s just because he’s not a good human being, but secondly to distract from his incompetency.”

But when the Governor, and 2024 Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, decided that junior high and high school boys needed tampon dispensers in their public school bathrooms, “seriously retarded” seems appropriate. Right now I’m reminded of season three, episode 8, of Shameless, where Sheila reclaims the dreaded “r” word. 🙂

Mr Trump wasn’t chastised, but ” target=”_blank”>doubled down on his characterization of Tampon Tim.

However now we have the stories, sourced from state workers, concerning how Governor Walz and the Minnesota state agencies ignored evidence of fraud perpetrated by Somali groups to raid federal funds. From The New York Times:

How Fraud Swamped Minnesota’s Social Services System on Tim Walz’s Watch

Prosecutors say members of the Somali diaspora, a group with growing political power, were largely responsible. President Trump has drawn national attention to the scandal amid his crackdown on immigration.

By Ernesto Londoño, Reporting from Minneapolis | Saturday, November 29, 2025 | Updated: Sunday, November 30, 2025

The fraud scandal that rattled Minnesota was staggering in its scale and brazenness.

Federal prosecutors charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed during the Covid-19 pandemic.

At first, many in the state saw the case as a one-off abuse during a health emergency. But as new schemes targeting the state’s generous safety net programs came to light, state and federal officials began to grapple with a jarring reality.

Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided.

Federal prosecutors say that 59 people have been convicted in those schemes so far, and that more than $1 billion in taxpayers’ money has been stolen in three plots they are investigating. That is more than Minnesota spends annually to run its Department of Corrections. Minnesota’s fraud scandal stood out even in the context of rampant theft during the pandemic, when Americans stole tens of billions through unemployment benefits, business loans and other forms of aid, according to federal auditors.

Note that the embedded link behind “rampant fraud” is dated April 9, 2024, when President Biden was still in office; this isn’t just some accusation by President Trump against his political enemies.

From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

The SBA estimates more than $200 billion of the $1.2 trillion it disbursed during the pandemic was obtained fraudulently, according to the Office of Inspector General.

Fraud was rampant during the panicdemic — not a typographical error, but exactly how I saw it — as it will always be whenever money from the government, federal, state, and local, is available, and while Minnesota is a blue state, it happens in states run by Republicans as well. From Breitbart:

The fraud has been so endemic in Minnesota that even the usually far-left Times is joining Breitbart News and calling it out. Indeed, the paper even noted that early on many liberals waved off the fraud as a “one-off abuse,” but as each new case rolled out from federal prosecutors the sense of alarm has grown and the blame is undeniable.

“Over the last five years, law enforcement officials say, fraud took root in pockets of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora as scores of individuals made small fortunes by setting up companies that billed state agencies for millions of dollars’ worth of social services that were never provided,” the Times reported.

The paper does not spare exposure of the Somali community.

Macalester College professor Ahmed Samatar, a Somali native, said that the fraud among Minnesota’s Somali migrants should not be surprising. The Times added that “Somali refugees who came to the United States after their country’s civil war were raised in a culture in which stealing from the country’s dysfunctional and corrupt government was widespread.”

Import the third world, get the third world!

The fraud has been so deep that it has undermined all of the state’s welfare programs.

“No one will support these programs if they continue to be riddled with fraud,” federal prosecutor Joseph H. Thompson told the media. “We’re losing our way of life in Minnesota in a very real way.”

Hey, the losses to fraud are very acceptable if they can somehow end welfare programs! But I seriously doubt they will.

Naturally, the left leapt to the defense of the Somalis:

Above and beyond this massive fraud and theft, investigators are also finding that Somali migrants have sent millions in taxpayer dollars to the African Islamic terror group known as Al-Shabaab.

A long list of Democrats have been rushing to stick up for the Somali community in Minnesota, including Rep. Ilhan Omar and a growing number of local officials.

Well, of course they did. After all, to note that the (alleged) fraud committed (allegedly) by Somali groups is raaaaacist. Is it any surprise that our friends on the left would leap top their defense? After all, they want to fight President Trump on everything, including his policies of enforcing our immigration laws. But the Herald-Leader story referenced a white husband and wife caught, prosecuted, and convicted of stealing from the COVIDiocy relief funds.

It’s simple: a clear pile of our taxpayer funds goes not to government agencies, but non-governmental organizations which promise, promise! to do only good things with the money, but which are only lightly, if at all, supervised or audited. That is not to say that government employees can’t commit fraud, but the sheer number of NGOs receiving taxpayer dollars multiplies the opportunities for fraud exponentially.

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Will these bad guys finally do some serious time?

Will the left be mad about this as well? They’ve been defending drug runners since President Trump has ordered action to sink their boats in the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of America, so this ought to get them grinding their teeth as well. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

How law enforcement built a sprawling case against a longstanding Kensington drug gang

Philly police and federal authorities used wiretaps, cameras, and confidential informants to target dealers on Weymouth Street.

by Chris Palmer and Jesse Bunch | Tuesday, November 25, 2025 | 5:00 AM EST

Ramon Roman-Montanez knew the police were watching.

One day last April, as Roman-Montanez prepared to hand out free drug samples to users on Weymouth Street — a common tactic that dealers use to attract customers — he stood in the middle of the Kensington block and spotted a problem.

The cops had put up a pole camera.

Using binoculars, Roman-Montanez scouted out the new device at the end of the block, prosecutors said in court documents. But he had a business to run — and so, after talking with a few associates in the street, he decided that giveaway day would move forward as planned.

Clearly, Mr Roman-Montanez and his “associates” — is that the new euphemism for gang-banger? — did not see it as very much of a problem, not in a city in which George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police hating Larry Krasner is the District Attorney. If caught, what would they get, a slap on the wrist?

Whatever their thought processes, they (allegedly) went ahead and did it.

The camera, however, was just one hint of what authorities now say was a sprawling, multiyear investigation into the gang Roman-Montanez helped lead — a group that sold thousands of doses of heroin, fentanyl, crack, and cocaine over the course of more than a decade, and effectively took over a residential block in a neighborhood that has long suffered from crime, open-air drug dealing, and neglect.

The results of the probe came to light last month, when FBI Director Kash Patel came to Philadelphia to announce that 33 people, including Roman-Montanez, had been indicted for drug crimes. Patel called the case a model for law enforcement across the country, and an example of how to take out a drug gang terrorizing a community.

The most important part of this? This is a federal case, so Mr Krasner can’t deal out lenient plea bargains!

In August, for example, Roman-Montanez was charged in state court with drug possession and related crimes after police found fentanyl, crack, and $20,000 in cash in his house — the result of a raid on Weymouth Street that was part of the investigation into his gang.

But a few weeks later, his attorneys persuaded a Philadelphia judge to reduce his bail and he walked out of jail. The 40-year-old — who federal prosecutors now say was the de facto chief operating officer of one of the city’s biggest drug conspiracies — was only taken back into custody this month, when federal authorities unsealed his indictment.

No wonder Mr Roman-Montanez didn’t see much downside: in the state prosecution, which means the prosecution under Mr Krasner, nothing happened.

Other interesting paragraphs:

In 2020, Angel Rios-Valentin was convicted in federal court of illegal gun possession after officers found him carrying a loaded handgun that he’d taken from Roman-Montanez’s house. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was on supervised release when he was arrested again last month.

Police found four guns in Rios-Valentin’s house, a discovery that prosecutors said showed his ongoing commitment to the gang.

Roman-Montanez, meanwhile, was arrested twice in the last three years, court documents show — but in both cases managed to avoid significant consequences.

In October 2022, police searched his house and found 96 grams of fentanyl, four loaded guns, and nearly $125,000 in cash, prosecutors said. Roman-Montanez was charged in state court, but the case was withdrawn.

The article continued to tell us that scheduling issues with attorneys and witnesses delayed proceedings for more than a year, and prosecutors — there’s that Mr Krasner again! — withdrew the charges.

The investigation has dragged on for years, and the (alleged) principals managed to distribute tons of drugs into Kensington. There’s a reason that neighborhood is internationally infamous — the government of Mexico has actually used photos of Kensington in ads to discourage drug use in Mexico! — and is simply a waste case, because years and years of law enforcement looking the other way, the city government being oh-so-sympathetic as far as drug use and junkies are concerned, have left the bad guys in charge, the addicts littering the streets, and the decent people living there stuck in their homes, afraid to come out of doors any more often than absolutely necessary. After eight years of neglect under former Mayor Jim Kenney, current Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins has made some moves to do something about the neighborhood, but Mr Krasner has attempted to throw roadblocks into that effort where he can.

The federal investigation dates from the beginning of President Trump’s first term, continued through the Joe Biden years, and finally, nine months into Mr Trump’s second term things are getting done. I only have to wonder how quickly new ‘entrepreneurs’ will replace the 33 gang-bangers now under arrest.

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Another victory for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner!

Another victory for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner! Mr Krasner just loves to put Philadelphia Police Officers in jail, and to release bad guys who are in prison.

Homicide detective Philip Nordo was clearly a bad cop, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

A former Philadelphia homicide detective was arrested Tuesday and accused of grooming and sexually assaulting male witnesses during criminal investigations, then intimidating them to keep them silent — part of what prosecutors concluded was a pattern of misconduct during nearly a decade in one of the Police Department’s most prestigious units.

The accusations against Philip Nordo, 52, who was fired in 2017 after 20 years on the force, were unveiled in a grand jury presentment following a long-running probe into the ex-detective’s conduct. The charges include multiple counts each of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and sexual assault.

Mr Nordo was convicted on multiple charges and then sentenced to 24½ to 49 years in prison, which at his age 56, at the time of sentencing, is effectively a life sentence.

The District Attorney then began investigating convictions in which Mr Nordo had been involved, including the conviction of Arkel Garcia, then 21, for the murder of Christian Massey. Mr Krasner then got that conviction overturned:

A Philadelphia judge on Friday overturned a 2015 murder conviction after prosecutors said they believe the lead detective — who has since been charged with raping and sexually assaulting male witnesses during his time on the force — built a questionable case while also attempting to groom potential witnesses as sexual targets.

The District Attorney’s Office said in court documents that it no longer believes the defendant, Arkel Garcia, is guilty of killing Christian Massey, a 21-year-old man with special needs who was shot dead in Overbrook in 2013 over a pair of headphones.

Instead, prosecutors wrote, they believe ex-Detective Philip Nordo obtained a false confession from Garcia — the main piece of evidence supporting an otherwise weak case — as he simultaneously tried to pursue sexual relationships with two men he interviewed as part of the investigation.

“Nordo had ulterior motives during this investigation that had nothing to do with solving this murder,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Garmisa said in court Friday.

So, Mr Garcia was freed after 11 years in the big house. Great thing, right? Well, maybe not so much.

A man whose murder conviction was overturned for its connections to a disgraced ex-detective is now wanted for another murder

Arkel Garcia is suspected of beating an elderly acquaintance to death inside an apartment in Northwest Philadelphia.

by Ryan W. Briggs and Chris Palmer | Saturday, November 15, 2025 | 11:01 AM EST | Updated: 1:45 PM EST

A man whose murder conviction was overturned because of its connection to disgraced former Philadelphia homicide detective Philip Nordo is now suspected of committing another homicide, according to police.

Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Arkel Garcia, 31, for the fatal beating of an elderly acquaintance on Wednesday inside a fourth-floor apartment in the city’s Stenton section in what authorities believe was a robbery, according to law enforcement sources.

Shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday, 35th District officers responded to a report of a person with a weapon at an apartment unit on the 4900 block of Stenton Avenue, according to a police report. After a maintenance worker let officers into the unit, they discovered David Weinkopff, 68, in a wheelchair, with blunt force trauma to his face and stomach, his apartment ransacked.

Paramedics pronounced him dead a short time later.

Further down:

After Krasner’s office charged Nordo with sex crimes, it began reinvestigating more than 100 cases the detective helped build, and prosecutors later moved to overturn at least 15 convictions tied to him. Some reversals were considered exonerations — instances in which a conviction was overturned and charges dropped — while others were overturned and resulted in guilty pleas to lesser charges.

The District Attorney decided not to prosecute Mr Garcia again after the conviction was overturned.

Garcia’s impending arrest marks at least the second time that a person whose case was overturned due to Nordo’s misconduct was accused of committing another crime.

James Frazier was sentenced to life in prison after he confessed to being an accomplice in a 2012 ambush slaying of a man and his girlfriend. But he later appealed, arguing Nordo had coerced him into signing a false statement of guilt.

Frazier’s conviction was overturned in 2019. But he was later charged with shooting a man twice in the leg in 2021, apparently as part of a botched drug deal. He pleaded guilty the next year and was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in jail, court records show.

If Mr Garcia is actually the man who murdered Mr Weinkopff — and he is presumed innocent until proven guilty — then it is obvious: the criminal-loving prosecutor’s efforts to release Mr Garcia are directly responsible for Mr Weinkopff’s death. Mr Garcia had previously confessed to assault in the killing of Mr Massey, a young man with ‘special needs,’ though he denied being part of the killing, but the throwing out of the convictions meant the assault to which he had confessed was also thrown out. He did assault several sheriff’s deputies in the courtroom, witnessed by the judge and everyone else in that room, and was sentenced to 5 to 10 years for aggravated assault, which is why he was not released from prison until about a year ago.

That former Detective Nordo is a bad guy does not mean that all of the cases he investigated were bad ones. But when the city’s chief prosecutor apparently believes all non-police officers are helpless and innocent little lambs, that’s what the City of Brotherly Love gets.

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These fine people were demonstrating in support of a government which forced them to flee their home country!

That Donald Trump sure is a malevolent, four-dimensional chess master evil genius. Who would ever have thought that he could get the American left out on the streets, protesting in favor of street crime, of criminal illegal immigrants, and drug dealers? But here we are. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

‘Hands Off Venezuela’ protesters in Philly call for a stop to U.S. aggression amid attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats

The U.S. has been conducting military strikes against boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since September.

by Michelle Myers | Saturday, November 15, 2025 | 4:59 PM EST

More than 60 people gathered on the north side of Philadelphia City Hall Saturday afternoon and then marched through city streets to protest what they called the U.S. war on Venezuela.

“Long live Venezuela, long live the Venezuelan people, enough Yankees, enough, Venezuela will live on,” the protesters chanted.

Well, of course they did!

In response to the newspaper’s advertising of the article on Twitter — I refuse to call it 𝕏 — George Tausell commented, “Philadelphia doesn’t want any disruption of drugs coming into their city.” The good people of the city, having just re-elected the George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating District Attorney, Larry Krasner, it seems to me that Mr Tausell’s comment is right on target. We previously reported on Mr Krasner’s displeasure with Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ plans to try to clean up Kensington, the infamous Philly neighborhood that’s been destroyed with homeless junkies sleeping in the streets and SEPTA’s Allegheny Station.

The “Hands off Venezuela” demonstration comes two days after Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth put a name to the military strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean that the U.S. has been conducting since September: Operation Southern Spear.

“This mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people,” Hegseth announced on X. “The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood — and we will protect it.”

So, the protesters are appalled that the Trump Administration is trying to reduce the flow of narcotics into our country. Skipping down a couple of paragraphs:

Calling for a diplomatic solution and the respect of Venezuela’s right to self-determination, a coalition of local peace organizations marched in Center City Saturday afternoon to protest the Trump administration’s escalation of military aggression.

“CodePink Greater Philadelphia proudly adds our voice to the call to end the U.S. government’s attempt to meddle in the affairs of yet another sovereign nation, militarily or otherwise,” CodePink Philadelphia organizer Steve Malloy said in a statement.

What “self-determination” by Venezuela does Mr Malloy support? What “affairs of yet another sovereign nation” does he want left alone? The ‘right’ of Venezuelan gangs to ship illegal narcotics to the United States?

A few decades ago, Venezuela was the most prosperous country in South America. Then the ‘Bolivarian Socialist’ Hugo Chavez was elected President, and started destroying everything. Who knows? Perhaps Señor Chavez really believed that socialist bovine feces he spewed, but he, and later his successor — President Chavez died in 2013 following a years-long battle with cancer — Nicolas Maduro have transformed Venezuela from a prosperous, capitalist nation into a militarily-backed authoritarian dictatorship, wracked with poverty. The United States should stay out of Venezuelan affairs to the extent possible, but we do need to defend ourselves from drug shipments, and I have yet to figure out why anyone enjoying the fruits of American freedom and society would be defending the authoritarian dictatorship that Venezuela has become, unless it’s just a reflexive response generated by #TrumpDerangementSyndrome.

Even the Inquirer couldn’t ignore it:

Some of the protesters expressed support for the Venezuelan militia, the very forces that have prompted many Venezuelans to flee the country over the years, and were critical of U.S. capitalism.

These idiots fine people were supporting a regime that forced them to flee their own country! Can someone make sense of that?

Well, fine! ICE should arrest any of the demonstrators who are here illegally, and ship them right back to Venezuela, since they love it so much. Venezuela would doubtlessly refuse to take any of them back, so the US should simply put them on a boat, beach it, and just push them ashore.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Drug criminal released early under President Biden caught back to his old ways

Khyre Holbert, mugshot by Omaha Police Department, and is a public record.

Another one of the violent criminals released early by Biden White House staffers misusing the President’s autopen signature — no, no one will admit that it was one of the staffers, but I’d bet 20€ that’s what happened — has returned to his previous life, a life of violent crime, to the surprise of absolutely no one. From Fox News:

Felon freed by Biden arrested after shooting, raising fears of more ‘second chances’ gone wrong

Case highlights concerns over 2,490 inmates freed in Biden’s final clemency wave for drug and gun offenses

By Stepheny Price | Sunday, November 9, 2025 | 8:00 AM EST

A Nebraska felon whose prison sentence was reduced under a Biden administration clemency initiative is accused of possessing a gun linked to multiple crimes, intensifying scrutiny over whether reform efforts have come at the expense of public safety.

Federal prosecutors say 31-year-old Khyre Holbert, who had served roughly seven years of a 20-year federal sentence for gun and narcotics offenses, was arrested after an Oct. 4 shooting in Omaha’s Old Market district.

Investigators allege Holbert discarded a loaded handgun fitted with a high-capacity magazine as officers closed in, a weapon later tied to several other violent crimes across Nebraska.

Holbert’s sentence had been commuted in January 2025 despite objections from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which warned of his gang ties, long criminal record and prior weapons convictions. Months later, he’s accused of reoffending and his case has thrust former President Joe Biden’s clemency program back into the national spotlight.

This is where the Fox News headline is bad. “(S)econd chances”? Mr Holbert has a “long criminal record and prior weapons convictions,” so it would seem to me that “second chances” were far back in his rearview mirror.

I have said it before: we should allow leniency, some leniency to first-time offenders, in the hope that a reduced sentence and some probation might show them the error of their ways and give them a chance to straighten up and fly right. But second and subsequent offenses? Such criminals have clearly not learned to become civilized men, and should be sentenced to the maximum allowed under the law. At second and subsequent offenses, justice should be about protecting the public.

Mr Holbert (allegedly) discarded a gun following a shooting in a public place, a firearm with an extended magazine, and which was ballistically linked to other crimes. It would seem that Mr Holbert simply went back to the same group of bad guys he ran with seven years earlier.

The linked story continues to note other felons released under the autopen clemency program; Mr Holbert is not the only one who quickly returned to a life of crime.

For Michael Rushford, founder and president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Holbert’s arrest is more than a tragedy. It’s a warning. . . . .

This is my morning coffee as I write this!

“You have to look and see if there was a real injustice in the case,” Rushford said. “With the Biden administration, I’m not sure that was done. The Justice Department under him was not really interested in fighting crime.”

The concern extends beyond Nebraska. In March 2025, authorities in Alabama arrested Willie Frank Peterson, another Biden clemency recipient, on new drug- and gun-related charges, just months after his release.

According to a federal complaint, Peterson, who had served more than a decade of a 20-year sentence, was caught with cocaine, meth and a loaded handgun. His sentence was also commuted in Biden’s Jan. 17, 2025 clemency wave, which freed 2,490 inmates, mostly for drug and gun offenses, according to the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Rushford said that by the time offenders reach federal prison, most have already exhausted their “second chances.”

Mr Rushford also questioned whether President Biden was really directly involved with the clemencies, implying what I stated directly, that I believe that many of the pardons and commutations were begun by young, #woke staffers, with little if any input from the doddering Delawarean. Mr Biden was, as a Senator before he began losing his marbles, involved in passing stricter sentences for drug dealers and traffickers.

Now what we have is an epidemic of crime by previously caught criminals, criminals released by judges — often with little choice — and criminals arrested but not prosecuted by criminal-loving and police-hating prosecutors like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner. The time has come, the time has long passed, when we need to protect the decent, law-abiding people in our society rather than give the bad guys uncountable second chances. Remember: the criminal who is in jail is not out on the streets committing more crimes.