Category Archives: Crime

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Killadelphia The bad guys are just as bad, but the good guys have gotten a bit better

I will admit it: I was a bit, a bit, mind you, more optimistic when I saw the article by Robert Stacy McCain screencaptured at the right yesterday evening. I’m something of a numbers geek, because numbers, at least accurate numbers, tell a truth not shaded by human lies.

Mr McCain’s article began with a screen capture of his own, of an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer — archived version here, to get around the newspaper’s paywall — noting yet another gruesome killing in the City of Brotherly Love. This story actually made the Inky because it was different from the usual gang “clique of young men” being shot by a “rival street group,”[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading so that is at least interesting.

Mr McCain’s article did something that what I have frequently called The Philadelphia Enquirer[2]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. naturally did not: he included a mugshot of the suspect, Ahmad Shareef.

Ahmad Shareef, photo via The Other McCain. Click to enlarge.

Mr McCain wryly implied that, with a name like Ahmad Shareef, most readers would automatically think that the suspect was black. I asked the question more directly a few months ago: is the Inquirer actually perpetuating a stereotype it wishes to avoid? Is the newspaper, by censoring all mugshots, contributing not only to the stereotype that most criminals are black, but actually pushing a message, that all criminals are black?

Mr Shareef is not black. Rather, he is Syrian. The Inquirer would probably say that he is “brown” if the #woke[3]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading writers there were asked, but he’s clearly Caucasian.

When I said, at the beginning of this article, that I was actually a bit optimistic when I first read Mr McCain’s original, it was expressed in this comment on his article:

Surprisingly enough, Killadelphia’s murder pace has slacked a bit, with ‘just’ 478 homicides in 339 days, which puts the city on pace for ‘only’ 514.66 murders for the year.

However, since Hallowe’en, there have been just 33 killings, in 35 days. If that particular rate continued through the end of the year, there would be ‘just’ 23.57 more murders, which works out to ‘only’ 501.57. Just a couple off from that average, and the City of Brotherly Love could actually finish at 499 for the year!

Alas! it didn’t take but this morning’s check of the city’s homicide statistics to dampen that optimism. Two more homicides, which once again raises the numbers. 480 killed ÷ 340 days elapsed = 1.411764705882353 homicides per day x 365 days in the year = 515.2941176470588 projected murders for 2022.

Taking just the reduced homicide rate since Hallowe’en, 35 killings in 36 days yields 0.9722222222222222 homicides per day. With 25 days remaining in the year, that works out to 24.3055555555555556 more in December, or a total of 504 killed.

The chances of the city seeing fewer than 500 homicides starts to get beyond any margin of error.

Nevertheless, the numbers are fairly starkly different. In 2021, there were 41 killings between December 7th and the end of the year, a completely different pace than we are seeing now.

That different pace, however, isn’t indicative of what it might seem. According to the Philadelphia Shooting Victims Dashboard, there had been 2,187 shooting victims in the city through December 5th, compared to 2,183 on the same date in 2021. It’s not that the cliques of young men blasting away at rival street groups have slacked off; it’s just that they haven’t been quite as successful in killing rather than wounding their enemies. Much of that is due to the Philadelphia Police Department’s “scoop and scoot” policy of placing shooting victims in patrol cars and taking them directly to the emergency room rather than waiting on the ambulance, along with even more experience in dealing with gunshot wounds by emergency personnel.

In other words, the bad guys are just as bad, but the good guys have gotten a bit better.

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups.” If you think you’ve read this footnote previously, you have: its mocking nature is such that I have it saved for frequent use.
↑2 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.
↑3 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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Progressives can’t see the forest because of all the trees

According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, there have been 473 people murdered in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, December 1st. So, about what was District Attorney Larry Krasner worried on Thursday?

Advocates sound alarm on murders of transgender women in Philadelphia

Fox 29 News | Thursday, December 1, 2022 | 5:57 PM EST

PHILADELPHIA – Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner was among a group of LGBTQ activists who spoke about a troubling trend of deadly violence against trans women in the city over the recent years.

Investigators say on Thanksgiving morning, Sharee “Diamond” Jackson-McDonald – a transgender woman – was found shot to death inside a Germantown apartment. The murder of Jackson-McDonald was the 35 killing of a transgender or gender-non-conforming person in the United States this year.

Because I’m including the video from Fox 29 News, the rest is below the fold. I will warn the reader in advance: this is not politically correct in the slightest, and if that offends you, stop reading now. Continue reading →

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#HelenGym Flaherty wants to do for all of Philadelphia what Larry Krasner has done for law enforcement

The City of Brotherly Love finished the 11th month of the year with 472 homicides, 38 fewer than the total on November 30, 2021, a 7.45% decrease. That’s the good news, though 472 murders can hardly be considered as anything good.  That’s still 1.4132 per day, for a projected 515.81 for the year. Yet, as we have previously noted, homicides have been falling this fall — pun very much intended — and have been nothing like the surge seen between Labor Day and New Year’s Eve in 2021.

With 445 homicides at the end of Hallowe’en, there have been slightly less than one murder per day for November, actually 0.9 per day. If that rate continued through December, it works out to 27.9 more killings in 2022, which would put the city at ‘only’ 500 murders for the year, perhaps even 499 or 498, depending upon the vagaries of chance and just pure, dumb luck. That would leave 1990’s old record of an even 500 homicides in second place.

We did note, at the beginning of the month, that the city had initially posted 2020 as seeing 502 murders, something which, alas!, I failed to screen capture for documentation . . . but fortunately another person did not. I do not know, but I strongly suspect that someone in the city government did not want the number of murders to reach 500, and it was close enough for the city to push the number down somehow, by moving some to 2021, or by perhaps reclassifying three deaths as ‘suspicious’ rather than homicides. Thus, I have little real confidence that 2020 ended below 499, but, of course, I can’t prove it. Nevertheless, if 2022 can finish with just 500, or perhaps even a couple fewer homicides, that would be something of a victory.

However, the city is still seeing more shootings than last year, 2,154 so far in 2022, versus 2,144 through the end of November last year. It’s not that the gang-bangers, oops, I’m sorry, “cliques of young men”[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading, aren’t just as violent, but that they’re poorer shots, and the Philadelphia Police Department’s “scoop and scoot” policy of putting shooting victims into patrol cars and taking them to the emergency rooms themselves, rather than waiting for an ambulance, along with even more hard-earned experience dealing with gunshot wounds, may have reduced the death toll somewhat.

Now comes former city councilwoman Helen Gym Flaherty[2]Even though Mrs Flaherty does not respect her husband, attorney Bret Flaherty, enough to have taken his name, The First Street Journal will not show him a similar disrespect., who wants to reverse that:

Helen Gym makes it official and launches a run for Philadelphia mayor on a pledge to address gun violence

The now-former Council member and leader of the city’s progressive movement launched her run at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Center City.

by Anna Orso | Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Former City Councilmember Helen Gym announced Wednesday that she will run for Philadelphia mayor on a pledge to address the city’s alarmingly high rate of gun violence, saying, “Everything is at stake right now.”

In remarks to a room of about 350 supporters gathered at the William Way LGBT Community Center, Gym centered her message on public safety, vowing to declare a state of emergency on her first day in office and prioritize improving homicide clearance rates.

I am amused that Mrs Flaherty chose a homosexual ‘Community Center’ as the place in which she announced her long-anticipated candidacy.

But while the longtime activist who is typically aligned with the Democratic Party’s left wing said violence is “destroying our city and our people,” she was far from taking a tough-on-crime tone.

“I will not use this crisis to roll back the clock on civil rights,” she said. “While many people in this race will talk about public safety, let me be clear: Decades of systemic racism and disinvestment brought us to this place.”

There’s more at the original.

Naturally, I went to Mrs Flaherty’s campaign website, to see how she had addressed the issues . . . and found out that she hadn’t; there was no specific “issues” page. Thus, we are left with secondary sources as to what she would do as Mayor.

Gym has opposed tax cuts for businesses and corporations, and has been critical of the Police Department, championing legislation to ban the use of tear gas on protesters and rejecting calls to bring back stop-and-frisk. In 2020, she voted against a planned increase to the Police Department’s budget — along with a majority of Council, including Green.

And here’s what Mrs Flaherty tweeted in 2019.

I support reducing the prison population by 50% from 2019 levels, We must center transformative and restorative justice practices in Philadelphia.

Can any policy have failed as badly as District Attorney Larry Krasner’s ‘decarceration’ program has failed the city since then? Murders get the most attention, and yes, they’re down a bit, but shootings, and every non-self-defense shooting is an attempted murder, are up. A Twitter friend who goes by the handle Over Salted Pretzel — and really, there’s no such thing as an over salted pretzel, though there are certainly under salted ones — did a lot of the research, and has the graphs here.

Mrs Flaherty apparently wants to move Mr Krasner’s policies into City Hall as well.

It may be smart politics: despite the huge increase in murders, the vast majority of them in Philadelphia’s “black and brown” neighborhoods — and Philly is our second most internally segregated large city, so there really are segregated “black and brown” neighborhoods — Mr Krasner was re-elected in 2021, with his greatest support coming from those areas of the city. As Mrs Flaherty appears to be running on the same things as Mr Krasner has, and to the left of the other candidates, she might very well win the Democratic primary, which, in Philly, is virtually the same thing as winning the election.

There are really only two possibilities:

  • The candidate truly believes the things she has said in the past, which proves that she is just boneheadedly stupid; or
  • The candidate knows that those policies not only do not work, but are actively harmful, but she doesn’t care because she thinks they’ll win her votes, in which case she is actively evil.

You can choose for yourself which one you believe is correct.

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“
↑2 Even though Mrs Flaherty does not respect her husband, attorney Bret Flaherty, enough to have taken his name, The First Street Journal will not show him a similar disrespect.
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For Jennifer Rubin, black lives really don’t matter

We have previously mentioned Washington Post columnist and dedicated #NeverTrumper Jennifer Rubin many times before. Most recently we noted a tweet of hers at the end of October:

Crime has shown up as one of the major issues in the upcoming election, so naturally Mrs Rubin has made a silly claim trying to blame Republicans for crime, due to the rather odd attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, by a Canadian nudist hippie who somehow has morphed into an evil reich-wing extremist.

The tweet to the left is actually a screen capture; when someone like Mrs Rubin tweets something dumb — which is fairly frequently — I always assume that she might decide to delete it, but, alas! the internet is forever when there are [insert plural slang term for the anus here] like me around.

As we have reported previously, Pennsylvania’s firearms control laws are pretty much uniform across the Commonwealth; state law prohibits municipalities from imposing restrictions which are stricter than those provided for under state law. In 2020, there were 1,009 murders in the Keystone State, 499, or 49.45%, of which occurred in Philadelphia. According to the 2020 Census, Pennsylvania’s population was 13,002,700 while Philadelphia’s alone was 1,603,797, just 12.33% of Pennsylvania’s totals.

Now there’s a “here she goes again” moment!

Law enforcement is failing to crack down on domestic terrorism

By Jennifer Rubin | Tuesday, November 29, 2022 | 9:00 AM EST

Given the spate of domestic terrorism attacks in recent years — the slaughter at the Tree of Life synagogue, the massacre in Buffalo, N.Y., and the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection; for example — you would think law enforcement agencies are engaged in a robust effort to combat such violence, right? Wrong.

Note how Mrs Rubin characterizes the Capitol kerfuffle as “domestic terrorism.”

Earlier this month, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee released a largely overlooked — yet damning — report detailing the failures of national security agencies on this front.

“Over the past two decades, acts of domestic terrorism have dramatically increased,” the committee reports. “National security agencies now identify domestic terrorism as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat to the homeland.” The uptick is predominately attributable to “white supremacist and anti-government extremist individuals and groups.” Yet “without better data, it is difficult to evaluate whether federal agencies are appropriately allocating resources and setting priorities.”

The report arrived just as billionaire Elon Musk opened the floodgates to right-wing extremists and purveyors of disinformation on Twitter. The committee notes, “Social media platforms have played an increasing role in the spread of extremist content that translates into real world violence, due in part to business models that incentivize user engagement over safety.” It also found that these companies’ business models “are designed to increase user engagement (i.e., keep people viewing content online) and that, as experts testified before this Committee, more extreme content tends to increase user engagement, thus leading such content to be amplified.”

Well, of course Mrs Rubin is upset, as are so much of the left, that Twitter is reducing — it has not eliminated — censorship of views which she does not like.

The extent of the threat is staggering. The report mentions a 2021 study from the Center for Strategic and International Studies that found there were 110 domestic terrorist plots in 2020 alone, a 244 percent increase from 2019. The Anti-Defamation League also reports that over the past decade, domestic extremists have killed 443 people. More than half of the deaths were attributable to white supremacists. Had foreign terrorists committed such crimes, Republicans would have raised a ruckus.

Perhaps Republicans have “raised a ruckus,” but not the kind of ruckus the left like. She noted that “over the past decade, domestic extremists have killed 443 people,” but as of 11:59 PM EDT on Hallowe’en, more than that, 445 to be precise, had been murdered in Philadelphia alone. But, of course, they weren’t killed by “domestic extremists” or “white supremacists” but other Philadelphians, mostly other black Philadelphians.

That number is up to 472 now, but phht! nobody really cares.

According to the Philadelphia shootings victims dashboard, through Monday, November 28th, there had been 147 total shootings in the City of Brotherly Love, 23 of which had been fatal. From 2015 forward, there have been 2,118 fatal shooting victims in Philly, 76.74% of the total, along with 154 black female victims, 5.58% of the total. In a city which is not majority black, 82.32% of all homicides by gunfire victims have been black.

Hispanic males, which are counted separately, and can be either white or black, constitute 283, 10.25%, of the victims, while Hispanic females suffered 36 such deaths, 1.30%. 93.87% of the homicide by shooting deaths in Philly have been among people The Philadelphia Inquirer would classify as “black or brown,” and though the statistics do not tell us the racial makeup of the known killers — and the Philadelphia Police have a rather low rate of actually solving homicides — we know that, generally speaking, the vast majority of homicides involve intraracial, not interracial violence.

The St Louis Metropolitan Police Department, which does publish racial statistics of apprehended killers, noted that, as of November 29, the vast majority of murder victims, 163 out of a total 179, or 91.06%, have been black, and out of 125 identified homicide suspects, 121, or 96.80%, have been black.

The Census Bureau puts St Louis population as being 45.7% black.

As noted above, Republicans in Pennsylvania have “raised a ruckus,” and are impeaching Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, blaming him for the city’s huge surge in murders, but naturally, the Democrats, including The Philadelphia Inquirer, are appalled, and fighting to save the George Soros-sponsored Mr Krasner.

Mrs Rubin, of course, doesn’t mention any of that, but in just one American city, not even the one with the highest number of total killings, more people have been killed in less than a year than the 443 she told us were murdered by “domestic terrorism,” much of which was perpetrated by “white supremacists.” What am I to conclude other than, for the Post’s august columnist, black lives really don’t matter much?

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Let ’em loose Larry Krasner doesn’t like it when police officers aren’t in jail

We have previously noted the hostility of the George Soros-sponsored defense lawyer who has become Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, when it comes to police officers. Simply put, he hates their guts.

Mr Krasner has charged three officers with murder from three separate incidents. On November 17th, we noted that while the District Attorney’s Office was able to get a manslaughter conviction against former officer Eric Ruch, though he was acquitted of the third-degree murder charge Mr Krasner sought, but Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott sentenced Mr Ruch to just 11½ to 23 months in jail, well below the state advisory minimum of 3½ years.

Mr Krasner waxed wroth:

DA Larry Krasner seeks a tougher sentence for convicted cop Eric Ruch

by Craig R McCoy | Tuesday, November 29, 2022

District Attorney Larry Krasner has asked a Common Pleas Court judge to reconsider the sentence she gave a former Philadelphia police officer who shot and killed an unarmed man, saying it was too lenient and appeared to blame the victim.

Krasner filed the motion with a persistent nemesis, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott, criticizing her decision to sentence former officer Eric Ruch, 34, to 11½ to 23 months in county jail last month after a jury convicted him of voluntary manslaughter. It was the first such conviction for an on-duty police killing in at least 50 years.

Under advisory state sentencing guidelines — which judges don’t have to follow — Ruch faced a minimum sentence of 3½ years, Krasner pointed out during a news conference Tuesday at the District Attorney’s Office.

Because McDermott’s sentence was under two years, state law mandates that Ruch serve his time in the Philadelphia prison system, rather than in the far-flung and grimmer archipelago of state prison system. It also meant that McDermott, and not the state Parole Board, retains control over whether to grant him early parole.

Mr Krasner’s petition is unlikely to result in a stricter sentence, not only because judges in the Keystone State have fairly wide discretion, but because it seems that the DA’s Office went out of its way to piss off Judge McDermott:

In a 17-page appeals motion, prosecutors wrote that McDermott “improperly and excessively blamed the victim in this case.”

The ‘victim,’ 25-year-old Dennis Plowden, Jr, led police on a high-speed chase that ended when he plowed — yes, pun intended — into parked cars in the Olney section of Philadelphia. After Mr Plowden emerged from the car, he sat down, and, believing that he was using his right hand to pull a weapon, Officer Ruch fired, striking him in the hand and head. Judge McDermott did state that Mr Plowden caused the entire incident, and yes, she blamed him.

Of course, to Mr Krasner, people fleeing the police are never at fault.

McDermott and Krasner have also been at odds in another one of the cases the district attorney has brought against a former police officer. She presided over the murder case against ex-officer Ryan Pownall.

In that role, McDermott rejected Krasner’s attempt to limit the grounds on which Pownall’s defense lawyers could argue that police have a legal right to shoot suspects. Her decision was affirmed this summer by the state Supreme Court.

Note that important part: Judge McDermott’s decision was upheld by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court! She was right, and Mr Krasner was wrong.

Three months after that, McDermott tossed out Pownall’s case entirely. She said Krasner’s prosecutors had bungled the grand jury process that led to Pownall’s being charged.

Mr Krasner could appeal to Superior Court, but he’d have a tough time winning there. Judge McDermott could grant an early parole to Mr Ruch, and, as noted in a previous story:

McDermott suggested she would have let Ruch, 34, walk out of court with no prison time would it not diminish the severity of the voluntary manslaughter charge, which calls for a minimum of 4½ years in prison, according to state sentencing guidelines.

I’d hope that Judge McDermott would grant that early parole to Mr Ruch, though any time served lower than nine months, the time possible to earn good behavior credits, would be problematic.

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Hold her accountable! Judge Traci Brislin's decisions and lack of action contributed to the murder of a Lexington woman

We reported, on Saturday, on the murder of Talina Henderson, allegedly by her husband Stephon Henderson. Today, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Taylor Six told us more:

‘No imminent threat.’ Lexington woman was killed days after requesting EPO against husband

by Taylor Six | Monday, November 28, 2022 | 1:44 PM EST | Updated: 5:51 PM EST

Judge Traci Brislin, from Kentucky Court of Justice, and is a public record.

Just three days before 47-year-old Talina Henderson was allegedly shot and killed by her husband, she filed for an emergency protection order against him, court records show.

However, family court Judge Traci Brislin said there was “no imminent threat” to Henderson, and no protective order was entered into the court’s file. A hearing was set to take place on Nov. 30, according to online court records.

Henderson filed for the emergency protection order on Nov. 20 and said that her husband, Stephon Henderson, 59, was verbally and emotionally threatening her. She stated in court records that weapons were involved, and thought her husband to be armed and dangerous. Talina Henderson wrote in court records that her husband would “put hands on (her), or have someone else do harm.” . . .

During Henderson’s court arraignment on Monday, the EPO violation charge was dropped because no official order of protection had been filed against him.

How is it that Talina Henderson reported that her husband, a previously convicted felon, was “armed and dangerous” did not result in the police being notified and sent to search his residence and him? Why wouldn’t notifying the court that a convicted felon was probably armed not generate a response?

Some people keep arguing that we need more gun control, but in this instance, when the courts are notified of a potentially violent person, in probable violation of an existing gun control law, shouldn’t that have led to a quick response?

A previously convicted felon in possession of a handgun, is a violation of KRS §527.020 (2)(a), a Class C felony, punishable by a minimum of five and maximum of ten years in the state penitentiary under KRS §532.060, even if he never uses it. Stephon Henderson could have been taken into custody, locked up, and charged with that offence before he (allegedly) killed his wife.

If the information in Miss Six’s story is correct, isn’t Judge Brislin responsible, at least in part, for Mrs Henderson’s murder? She decided, despite being faced with a plea from a distraught and threatened woman, that Mrs Henderson was not facing an “imminent threat” from her husband, that no emergency protection order would be filed.

“Tonight when he was threatening me, he was so close to me that I was afraid of being hit or hurt,” Henderson stated in her Nov. 20 petition. “I called the police and was recommended to file this EPO because as they were talking to him they could hear the anger that he had in his voice.”

Why wouldn’t Judge Brislin, upon seeing that in Mrs Henderson’s petition, not file the EPO? How did the Judge determine that Mrs Henderson was not threatened when she said he was, e3specially when she claimed that the police told her to do so? Instead, she scheduled a hearing on the matter ten days after the petition.

Judge Brislin needs to be held accountable for the consequences of her decisions and her apparent inaction in not having the Lexington Police Department notified that a previously convicted felon was in probable possession of a firearm. Because Judge Brislin did the wrong thing, Talina Henderson is stone-cold graveyard dead.

This is important: lenient judges, lax prosecutors, and inept parole boards around the country have exposed Americans to serious danger, and all need to be held accountable for the consequences of their rotten decisions. If we can start holding them accountable, we’ll soon see maximum prosecutions, maximum sentences, and very few early releases, which will keep criminals off the streets!

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What punishment is too harsh for child molesters?

Good writers know that they need to have good opening paragraphs to entice the reader to continue on, and Washington Post reviewer Peter Marks sure nailed that one!

Take a deep breath and try to ruminate calmly on the position playwright Bruce Norris takes in his scintillating new play, “Downstate”: that the punishments inflicted on some pedophiles are so harsh and unrelenting as to be inhumane.

The obvious question for the reader quickly becomes: is any punishment for pedophiles harsh enough and unrelenting enough to be unjustified? I read the rest, because I wanted to see Mr Marks’ answer:

‘Downstate’ is a play about pedophiles. It’s also brilliant.

Bruce Norris’s off-Broadway work is tough stuff, questioning how society treats those convicted of heinous acts.

by Peter Marks | Wednesday, November 23, 2022 | 1:26 PM EST

NEW YORK — Take a deep breath and try to ruminate calmly on the position playwright Bruce Norris takes in his scintillating new play, “Downstate”: that the punishments inflicted on some pedophiles are so harsh and unrelenting as to be inhumane.

Are you still reading? It’s almost impossible to broad-brush the perspective at the heart of this impeccably acted drama without sounding as if one is advocating some extraordinary level of consideration for individuals who have committed unspeakable crimes. And yet Norris proposes a variation on this proposition at off-Broadway’s Playwrights Horizons: He is questioning what degree of compassion should society fairly hold out to those who have served their time for sexual abuse, assault or rape.

Obviously, I cannot quote the entire 949-word review, but with Mr Marks describing the crimes as “unspeakable,” the obvious question becomes: are any punishments for “unspeakable” crimes themselves unspeakable?

“Downstate,” directed with exceptional astuteness by Pam MacKinnon, seizes on our reflexive response to these crimes and shifts our emotional focus to the perpetrators. Living together in a group home in downstate Illinois, their movements monitored electronically (and their windows broken by irate vandals), four men of diverse age and backgrounds eke out marginal existences in menial jobs and managed routines. The house is like an island whose shores are washed with waves of contempt. Any protest or request is treated by their harried caseworker Ivy (played with brittle cynicism by Susanna Guzmán) as that of a passenger in steerage daring to ask for a clean blanket.

Norris, who won a Pulitzer Prize for “Clybourne Park,” a bracingly funny play about race and gentrification inspired by “A Raisin in the Sun,” goes here for another societal jugular. And his provocative efforts result in one of the best theater evenings of the year. (Its pre-covid premiere occurred in 2018 at Steppenwolf Theatre in Norris’s hometown, Chicago.)

He’s loaded the dice to some degree in “Downstate,” as the predators who’ve completed their prison terms are depicted not as monsters but rather as complicated, troubled souls. Felix (Eddie Torres) is a taciturn loner, keeping to himself in a screened-off alcove. Gio (Glenn Davis) is a smarmy operator with a job at a local office supply superstore. Dee (K. Todd Freeman) is a clearheaded ex-stage performer who is fiercely protective of the oldest resident, wheelchair-bound Fred (Francis Guinan), a onetime piano teacher of serene disposition.

Here’s the problem: if Mr Norris’ play depicts the predators “not as monsters but rather as complicated, troubled souls,” does that not beg the question: can such people be both monsters and troubled souls? It’s obvious to me that those with pedophilic tendencies are “troubled souls,” men who ought to be wishing that they had some other inclination, any other inclination, because they have to know that engaging in their sexual preference is fraught with the risk of being caught and locked up. I’d like to think that, perhaps deep down, they might even realize the harm they are causing to their victims, but if any do, the actual offenders don’t seem to see that as problem enough not to commit their crimes.

There’s no sweeping under the threadbare rug in “Downstate” of the heinous offenses for which the men have been severely punished. We learn about what each of them has done, and we are in effect asked to judge for ourselves what magnitude of ongoing torment each deserves. It develops here as an agonizing moral question, one that our retributive correctional culture would rather not have to debate.

I was living in the Keystone State when the revelations of the crimes of former Penn State University assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky were revealed. The testimony came out in dribs and drabs, but most people were persuaded. When former graduate assistant Mike McQueary testified that he heard a “skin-on-skin smacking sound”, as he walked in and caught Mr Sandusky anally raping a young boy, a boy who had his “hands up on the wall” to brace himself, everyone knew what that meant: to put it bluntly, not only was Mr Sandusky sodomizing a boy around 10-years-old, but he was doing it vigorously. Pennsylvanians were, as Mr Marks put it, “judging for (themselves) what magnitude of ongoing torment (Mr Sandusky) deserve(d).” If anyone I knew thought that the former coach was being treated too harshly, none of them ever expressed that to me.

Scranton attorney Kathleen Kane made her 2012 campaign for state Attorney General based in part on criticism that then-Governor Tom Corbett (R-PA) had acted too slowly when he was Attorney General in bringing the case against Mr Sandusky, and she “received more votes than President Obama or Senator (Bob) Casey did in Pennsylvania during the 2012 elections; her total number of votes was then the fourth highest of any politician in Pennsylvania electoral history.”[1]Considering that Mrs Kane’s personal legal problems all came from her being Attorney General, she probably wishes she’d never run that race.

The way that Mr Marks puts it is interesting: he states that the perpetrators already “have been severely punished,” but how many people would say that any punishment shorter than life without the possibility of parole is severe enough? Mr Sandusky was sentenced to the statutory minimum of sixty years in prison; he will be eligible for parole no earlier than October 9, 2042, when he will be 98 years old. I never heard of anyone saying that he was sentenced too harshly.

Mr Marks goes on to describe a meeting between “Fred,” the wheelchair bound offended, and “Andy,” one of his victims who arrives seeking some kind of ‘closure’ over having been molested.

Fred’s loss of mobility came about after he was set upon and beaten brutally in prison. Context is all, for as Andy stumbles through a recitation of his psychic pain and suffering, we have the physical evidence of the price that Fred has already paid. Norris’s juxtaposition in this regard feels cheap. There was a way, I think, to acknowledge the damage that’s been done to Andy without judgmentally minimizing it.

How many of us would really think that a sex offender, especially a child molester, being beaten severely enough to wind up in a wheelchair is a bad thing?

The bad thing, as I see it, is that child molesters ever get out of prison. At around the same time, also in Pennsylvania, in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, the Rev Edward Avery, 69, was allowed to plead guilty to “involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child”, and sentenced to a whopping 2½ to 5 years in prison. Former priest James Brennan, whose first trial ended in a hung jury, then pleaded no contest to simple assault before a retrial, and received two years probation. Monsignor William Lynn was charged with child endangerment for moving accused priests around, but not of any sexual abuse himself, and got the more stringent sentence of 3 to 6 years in prison; he served 33 months before his conviction was overturned due to the law being incorrectly applied.

Mr Marks concluded that there will be a lot of potential playgoers who will simply not like it, due to the subject matter. While I am not averse to examining the thoughts and motivations of child molesters, to try to figure out what could possibly make them tick, the fundamental concept that child molesters do get released is offensive enough.

References

References
↑1 Considering that Mrs Kane’s personal legal problems all came from her being Attorney General, she probably wishes she’d never run that race.
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Killadelphia Things aren't as bad as last year, but they're sure not good

The weekend is over, and we’ve finally got the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page updated reliably. The news, though certainly bad enough, is a lot less bad than last year. Homicides are down 6.56% from the same date last year, and while a murder rate of 1.4199 per day (470 ÷ 331) works out to 518.2779 homicides for the year, that’s not only lower than last year by a significant amount, but lower than the 534.2928 the numbers at the end of October projected.

The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer noted the numbers, in a kind of weird way:

As of Tuesday, there have been 465 homicides in our city. All but 30 have been fatal shootings. The tally of the nonfatal kind, the kind that can leave physical and emotional scars that last a lifetime, stands at 1,688.

That includes four Overbrook High School students who were shot Wednesday morning after the West Philadelphia school let out early for Thanksgiving.

If we stay under last year’s record of 506 shooting deaths, it may be a victory of luck — an inch to the left, an inch to the right — or of the talented professionals at our overworked trauma centers. Either way, Philadelphians will be left holding their breath, wondering what next year will bring.

I notice that the police-hating Editorial Board gave no credit to the Police Department’s “scoop and scoot” policy of loading shooting victims into the initial patrol car on the scene and rushing them directly to the hospital rather than waiting for an ambulance. I can’t say that I find that surprising at all.

Looking at those numbers, there were 506 out of 562 total homicides in Philly last year, meaning that 56 murders, 9.96%, were committed by other means. This year, according to the Inky’s statistics, only 30 homicides, 6.45%, were committed with something other than a gun.

The numbers work out to 1.3344 shooting deaths per day, 487.0399 for the year, so the “inch to the left” argument tells me that the Editorial Board didn’t bother to actually do the math, but that’s another thing I don’t find a surprise.

Of course, even with the reduction in total homicides anticipated, it still means that the law enforcement team of Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia), District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-Philadelphia), and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw will have supervised five of the six bloodiest years since 2007. The only years Mr Kenney had that weren’t at the top of the chart was when Mr Krasner was not District Attorney, but I’m certain, certain! that that has nothing, nothing at all, to do with it.

The Census Bureau guesstimated Philadelphia’s population, as of July 2021, to be 1,576,251, a drop from the 2020 census figure of 1,603,797. Using those numbers, Philly had a homicide rate of 31.11 per 100,000 population in 2020, and 35.65 in 2021. Using 2021’s population guesstimate, and a projected homicide total of 518, the 2022 numbers work out to 32.86 per 100,000, but that’s provisional. It’s an improvement over last year, but certainly nothing about which to brag.

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What is he thinking right now? I’d bet he isn’t thinking, “Hey, I sure got around those gun control laws, didn’t I?”

Stephon Henderson. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Meet Stephon Henderson. Mr Henderson, 59, allegedly shot and killed Talina Henderson, 47, his wife, at a residence in the 2800 block of Bay Colony Lane. Mrs Henderson was shot “multiple times,” which tells us that this was no accident. This was Lexington’s record-breaking 41st murder of the year; the previous record of 37 was set in 2021.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader and Fayette County Detention Center records, Mr Henderson was charged with murder (domestic violence), violation of an emergency protection order/domestic violence order, and possession of a handgun by a previously convicted felon.

Now, you would think that any person with an IQ above room temperature who was the subject of a domestic violence protection order would be smart enough to not have a handgun. You would think that any such person who is a previously convicted felon would be smart enough to realize that possession of a handgun, a violation of KRS §527.020 (2)(a), is a Class C felony, punishable by a minimum of five and maximum of ten years in the state penitentiary under KRS §532.060, even if he never uses it, and the existence of a protection order could easily result in the police searching his home.

Bay Colony Lane, near Masterson Station Park in Lexington is hardly a bad area. It’s something of a cookie-cutter development, of decent single-family homes with actual front and back yards. While Zillow shows no homes currently for sale on Bay Colony Lane itself, 2657 Wigginton Point, a couple of streets away in the same development, is a three bedroom, three bath, 2,056 ft², built in 2020, very similar home listed for $327,900. There is a lot of new development in that area off of Leestown Road. The neighborhood is neat, clean, racially integrated, and not run-down at all.  Simply put, there was no particular self-defense need for Mr Henderson to be packing.

This tells me of just how ridiculous it is for the left to tell us we need more gun control laws. Mr Henderson — assuming that he is guilty of the charges — was obviously able to obtain a handgun, despite being legally barred from buying one. More, he knew that it was illegal for him to own one, yet he chose to do so anyway. Then, after doing something — the newspaper does not tell us what it was — to cause his wife to seek an emergency protection order, he still kept the gun, even knowing that the police could come at any time and search his residence for a weapon, and knowing that simple possession of the weapon was enough to send him back to the big house for five to ten years. All of those reasons not to have a firearm, and he chose to have one anyway.

He was subject to a restraining order, but he was near his wife anyway. I guess that piece of paper didn’t do very much to defend her.

Mr Henderson is 59 years old, and the possible sentences for murder in the Bluegrass State include death, life in prison without the possibility of parole, 25 years to life, or a 20-to-50-year sentence. If convicted of murder, there is no way Mr Henderson would be out of jail until he’s 79 years old, and possibly not until he’s stone-cold graveyard dead. He threw the rest of his miserable life away.

And for what? Sometimes I fantasize about what other people can be thinking. As he sits in his cell, is he thinking, “Damn, I sure showed her!“, or is it more probable that he’s thinking, “Boy, did I f(ornicate) up this time”? I’d bet one thing though; I’d bet he isn’t thinking, “Hey, I sure got around those gun control laws, didn’t I?”