Category Archives: Crime

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Do ‘progressive’ prosecutors equal bloody streets? Correlation does not equal causation, but it sure looks interesting

We have previously noted that while Philadelphia’s homicide rate increased after Jim Kenney replaced Michael Nutter as Mayor, things really began to take off after Larry Krasner became District Attorney. Now my good friend Robert Stacy McCain has noted how homicides took off in Baltimore after another George Soros-sponsored wokester, Marilyn Mosby, became Charm City’s prosecutor:

Homicides in the city increased dramatically after Mosby became the state’s attorney for Baltimore, and the crime wave she unleashed has reverberated across Maryland and into neighboring states, for the simple reason that failure to prosecute criminals in the city means they are free to commit crimes in other jurisdictions. Criminals from Baltimore that Mosby turned loose are perpetrating felonies throughout Maryland, as well as in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Mr Krasner has been trying to pass the responsibility for Philly’s surge in homicides on everything but himself, claiming that they’ve surged everywhere, but there’s a noticeable difference. In Baltimore, they surged in 2015, after Mrs Mosby took office in 2015, while in the City of Brotherly Love, there was an uptick, but not a huge one, certainly not the 63.03% increase seen when Mrs Mosby took office in Baltimore. Homicides actually dropped by a small amount, from 280 down to 277, in Mayor Jim Kenney’s first year, though they then pushed up to 315, a 13.72% jump, in 2017.

George Soros sent $1.45 million to Mr Krasner for his 2017 campaign, which he won, and then murders jumped to 353 his first year in office, then 356, then 499, and then to last year’s record shattering 562.

Baltimore’s population in 2015 was a guesstimated 622,851, which put Charm City’s homicide rate at a whopping 55.23 per 100,000 population. The city’s population has continued to shrink, and was down to 576,498 in 2021, which means that its 337 homicides, seven fewer than in 2015, results in an even higher 58.46 per 100,000 homicide rate. Philly’s gang-bangers have a lot of catching up to do to match Baltimore’s bloody streets!

Correlation does not equal causation, but it certainly is interesting how two Interstate 95 corridor cities both saw huge spikes in homicides after Soros-sponsorship put ‘progressive’ prosecutors in office.

 

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Killadelphia: A reason for hope?

We have previously noted, several times, that, at the end of the Labor Day weekend in 2021, the homicide rate in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia had dropped to ‘just’ 1.4578 murders a day, which would yield 532 murders for the entire year, if that average was maintained.

It wasn’t maintained, as the drug dealers and gang-bangers somehow took that as a personal challenge, and in the period after Labor Day, the City of Brotherly Love saw a murder rate of 1.7155 per day.

As of September 5th, the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend this year, 373 people had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards, yielding a homicide rate of 1.5040 killings per day, or a projected 549 murders for 2022; the mid-summer ‘lull’ that had happened in 2021 didn’t occur this year.

But there may be some hope that the post-Labor Day surge that happened in 2021 might not happen, or not be as bad, in 2022. While this wouldn’t seem to be a cause for celebration in more civilized places, there has been only one recorded homicide in Philadelphia since Wednesday, September 14th, and the homicide rate has dropped below 1.50, down to 1.4809 per day, which projects out to 540.53 murders for the entire year.

That’s hardly a great number, but at least it’s better than last year’s record-smashing 562.

At the end of the Labor Day holiday this year, there had been 3.324% more homicides than the previous year; as of 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 19th, the increase is down to 1.042%, as the killing rate last year was higher.

Yes, I am a numbers geek to some extent, and yes, it has been only two weeks since the end of the Labor Day holiday, so it’s really too soon to note a real trend here, but at least it’s a reason for hope.

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They’ve got a big job ahead of them

As we have previously noted, the Philadelphia Police Department is seriously undermanned, by some 1,300 positions.

Philly Police have 72 new officers. They’ll start amid a shortage of more than 500.

The class of more than 70 academy graduates is the department’s largest graduating class in three years.

by Anna Orso | Friday, September 16, 2022 | 1:24 PM EDT

The Philadelphia Police Department got 72 new officers Friday when its largest class of recruits in three years graduated from the academy, an infusion of personnel that comes amid a shortage of hundreds of officers.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw welcomed the graduates during a ceremony at Temple University, acknowledging that they’re joining the force as the city is simultaneously experiencing a staffing crisis and a surge in gun violence, saying: “It’s been a pretty difficult time to be a police officer.”

“The narrative over the past few years surrounding police hasn’t always been positive or supportive,” she added. “At a time when it could have been easier to pick a different profession … you chose to pick something that wasn’t so popular, because you answered your call to serve.”

The Philadelphia Police Department has faced a critical shortage of police officers for months. There are more than 500 officer vacancies, and hundreds more police are out on injury claims, meaning the force is nearly 1,300 officers short of its full complement of 6,380.

There’s more at the original.

The Police Department will need more recruits, a lot more recruits, but remember: the 72 new officers are all rookies, and will need to gain experience, a lot of experience, before they can really become effective.

One note about The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website: they’ve gotten rid of the san serif Arial font they had been using, and started using something more professional; it looks good.

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Jamie Gauthier stands with Larry Krasner! Trouble is, that also means she stands with the thugs, the gang-bangers, and the killers in her city

Republican members of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives are considering the impeachment of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, and City Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier (D-3rd District) — and please pardon me for assuming her gender — is incensed!

I stand in support of District Attorney Larry Krasner, and wholeheartedly condemn the unconstitutional, partisan attacks against his office.

Sadly, that also means she stands in support of the criminals, thugs, gang-bangers, and wannabes. The death toll since Let ’em Loose Larry took office is stark: at least 2,157 people have been murdered in the city: 353 in 2018; 356 in 2019; 499 in 2020; 562 in 2021; and 387 as of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, September 14th of this year.

Last year’s 562 homicides didn’t just set the annual record for the city, it utterly smashed 1990’s record of an even 500 killings. Under Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, the city has seen two of the top three homicide totals in its history, and is on pace for between 549 and 582 homicides this year.[1]The math: at 1.5058 homicides per day, multiplied by 365 days in the year, the math projects 549.617 homicides. Done a different way, taking the daily percentage increase from last year, 387 ÷ 374, … Continue reading

Unless there is a drastic and wholly unprecedented change, Messrs Kinney, Krasner and Miss Outlaw will wind up presiding over three of the four deadliest years in the history of the City of Brotherly Love. But Miss Gauthier stands with Mr Krasner!

The chart to the right I began that last year, and it includes only those years with 400 or more murders. It’s kept on my computer as a Microsoft Excel file, and I’ll be adding 2022 to it once the city hits 400 homicides, something I anticipate right around the equinox, September 22nd, plus or minus a day or two.

The call for DA Krasner’s impeachment was made by three Republican politicians who live hundreds of miles away from Philadelphia yet claim to be concerned about the gun violence in our communities. Evena casual observer can see that this is a thinly veiled political stunt, as these lawmakers have time and time again refused to pass common-sense gun control legislation that would promote the welfare and safety of everyday Philadelphians. These proceedings set a dangerous precedent and violate the rights of Philadelphia voters to choose who represents them in government.

According to Philly Crime Update, 51 Democrats voted for House Resolution 227, “A resolution finding that Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is in contempt of the PA House of Representatives,” and which passed 162-38. It would seem that this action was bipartisan, not just an action by “Republican politicians”. More Democrats voted for it than against it.

If Republican State lawmakers truly cared about the well-being of Philadelphians, they would end this charade and pass new laws to get guns out of young people’s hands. Instead, they waste time on political theater, while countless lives hang in the balance.

Have you ever been to Philadelphia? Other than the Delaware River, the borders are just lines on a map, and the only way to know you’ve crossed into Bucks or Montgomery counties, that you’re in Liberty Hill rather than Philadelphia is a sign along Ridge Pike. Giving the city separate, stricter gun laws would be meaningless, because it’s just a drive down the road to get into or out of the city.

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.

It got worse last year: with 562 homicides in Philly, out of 1027 total for Pennsylvania, 54.72% of all homicides in the Keystone State occurred in Philadelphia. Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, was second, with 123 killings, 11.98% of the state’s total, but only 9.52% of Pennsylvania’s population.

The other 65 counties, with 78.11% of the state’s total population, had 33.30% of total murders.

Of course, when it comes to the gang-bangers and wannabes, it’s pretty difficult to see how the 14-year-old who (allegedly) killed Tiffany Fletcher while firing a “ghost gun” with an extended magazine, during a gun battle with other bangers would somehow have respected stricter laws when he (allegedly) violated the existing ones. Even at 14, he knew that he was breaking the law.

Miss Gauthier, like so many others on the left, want to blame gun laws, and really, they want to blame anything other than what is really the problem, the culture in our cities which both enables and encourages teenaged and twenty-something boys, primarily black teenaged and twenty-something boys, to think the gangsta life is something to emulate, something to seek out to prove what tough men they are. Miss Gauthier doesn’t want to put any blame on the (frequently single) mothers and (often absent) fathers for not rearing their children right, but the urban culture which says that it’s perfectly OK for women to screw around and destigmatizes unmarried motherhood is a culture which enables the very things which produce broken children.

That will be denounced as sexist, but I really don’t care: it’s still the truth. Every society on earth of which we have any social knowledge developed marriage as a societal norm to contain human sexuality in a responsible form, one in which children could be supported and reared; it is only in the enlightened ‘wisdom’ of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that we have discarded this as so much garbage.

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↑1 The math: at 1.5058 homicides per day, multiplied by 365 days in the year, the math projects 549.617 homicides. Done a different way, taking the daily percentage increase from last year, 387 ÷ 374, 3.4759%, multiplied by 562 killings in 2021, yields 581.53 projected killings.
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Killington Have Lexington's leadership been taking lessons from Philadelphia's mayor, chief prosecutor and top cop?

In 2019, Lexington set a new homicide record, with 30 for the year. In 2020, the city topped that with 34, and in 2021, set a new record with 37. Well, surprise, surprise, 2022 has already seen the 2019 and 2020 records topped, and is rapidly closing in on last year’s numbers.

1 person dies after shooting near downtown Lexington, according to coroner’s office

by Christopher Leach | Tuesday, September 13, 2022 | 8:37 AM EDT

Lexington police are investigating an overnight shooting that left one man dead, according to the Fayette County Coroner’s Office.

Police said the shooting happened shortly before 9:30 p.m. in the 500 block of West Sixth Street, which is near Coolavin Park. One victim suffered a gunshot wound and was transported to a hospital.

Police didn’t provide a description of the victim’s injuries. But shortly after 8 a.m., the coroner’s office announced the man died at the hospital. The victim was 22-year-old Doricky Harris, according to the coroner.

Further down:

This marks the 35th killing in Lexington of 2022, inching the city closer to the annual homicide record of 37 set last year. There have been six homicides in the last month.

In 2021, the 35th murder of the year didn’t occur until December 7th, 86 days later than this most recent killing. If the murder rate remains constant through the end of the year, one murder every 7.2857 days, Lexington is on schedule to see 50 — the math works out to 50.098 — homicides this year.

Boy, Mayor Linda Gorton, Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn, and Police Chief Lawrence Weathers sure are doing a bang-up job in protecting the people of Fayette County! Have they been taking lessons from Philadelphia’s mayor, chief prosecutor and top cop?

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Killadelphia: With “leadership” like this, no wonder Philadelphia is in crisis!

The George Soros-sponsored, police-hating defense lawyer who got elected as Philadelphia’s chief prosecutor, tells us just what is wrong with the City of Brotherly Love:

Larry Krasner’s tweets continued to say:

Our office will continue to hold juveniles appropriately accountable while ensuring that they receive the resources and attention necessary to steer them in the right direction.

and:

I also want to emphasize the importance of violence prevention funding, which is necessary to truly achieve justice & avoid incidents like this from occurring. @philadao is now accepting applications through @PhilaFound for community-based violence prevention group microgrants.

So, what was this “fair and just outcome” about which Mr Krasner spoke?

Juvenile Adjudicated for Attempted Murder on SEPTA Platform

September 12, 2022

PHILADELPHIA (September 12, 2022) — Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner announced on Monday the adjudication of a 14-year-old male in juvenile court who was charged with Attempted Murder, Aggravated Assault, and multiple firearm charges for a non-fatal shooting that occurred on the afternoon of July 12, 2022 on a crowded SEPTA platform located at 15th and Market Streets beneath City Hall.The incident began when the juvenile defendant engaged in a verbal altercation with the victim after the defendant exited a train car. The defendant alleged that the victim spoke expletives and asked him if he wanted to “take it upstairs.” The defendant subsequently shot the 19-year-old male three times at point blank range with a 9mm handgun less than 20 seconds later, claiming that the victim had started to pull a firearm from his waistband and that the shots were fired in self-defense. The victim sustained wounds in the hand, chest, and abdomen and was hospitalized for nearly two weeks. The crime gun was never recovered.

SEPTA surveillance cameras captured the entire incident on video and played a critical role in helping police identify and apprehend the shooter. Station footage also helped convince the judge that the defendant’s self-defense claim lacked merit, as the victim declined to cooperate with Philadelphia police and the District Attorney’s Office.“I’m grateful to Assistant District Attorney James Quinn of the DAO’s Juvenile Unit for achieving a fair and just outcome in this case,” said DA Krasner. “Our office will continue to hold juveniles appropriately accountable while ensuring that they receive the resources and attention necessary to steer them in the right direction. I also want to emphasize the importance of robust violence prevention funding, which is necessary to truly achieve justice and avoid dangerous incidents like this from ever occurring in the first place. My office is now accepting applications through the Philadelphia Foundation for community-based violence prevention group microgrants.”

“I’m proud to have prosecuted this case,” said ADA James Quinn. “I’m also grateful to all of the SEPTA police officers, particularly SEPTA Officer Aaron Kinchey, who responded immediately to secure the scene and in all likelihood saved the life of this 19-year-old victim. I also want to thank Philadelphia Police Department Detective Michael Rocks for his excellent work in this investigation.’The DAO has resumed our Violence Prevention Grant Program. Local, community-based nonprofits interested in applying must email GrantmakingServices@philafound.org.

That’s the entirety of the press release, but did you notice the one thing you don’t see in either Mr Krasner’s tweets or the District Attorney’s Office statement? Though both state that such juvenile criminals will be held “appropriately accountable,” there is exactly zero mention of what the young criminal’s actual punishment was.

Of course, we can read between the lines of the press release. That “the victim declined to cooperate with Philadelphia police and the District Attorney’s Office” tells all we need to know: this was a 14-year-old gang-banger who blasted away at a 19-year-old gang-banger, and the ‘victim,’ the 19-year-old wasn’t going to cooperate to get the 14-year-old locked up, because the ‘victim’s’ gang will mete out their own street justice to the 14-year-old.

“The crime gun was never recovered.” That means it’s still out on the street, most probably with the shooter’s gang, and now the 14-year-old has established his ‘street cred,’ that he’s a bad MF.

Attempted murder is a first-degree felony in the Keystone State, the sentence for which, under Chapter 11: §1103(1) a term fixed by the court for not more than twenty years in prison. If the crime is aggravated assault, which may be either a first- or second-degree, under the same section, the sentence can be 10 to 20 years if in the first-degree, or 5 to 10 years if second-degree.

While the ‘victim’ might not have cooperated, the entire crime was caught on tape! The District Attorney’s Office did not need the cooperation of the ‘victim’ to convict this ‘juvenile’ and send him to prison for twenty years, to get him off the streets for a long, long time.

So, what did happen to the 14-year-old wannabe gang-banger? Was he sentenced to a term in juvie? Was he released to his parents, possibly with an ankle bracelet? Did he perhaps get a really strong talking-to by Mr Krasner? Whatever it was, we know one thing: he’ll be out on the streets soon enough, doubtlessly with another, or perhaps even the same, 9mm in his waistband, and next time it might not be yet another banger he shoots, next time it might be an innocent bystander like Tiffany Fletcher, caught in the crossfire.

Of course, it’s also true that the ‘victim’ or his buddies will administer that street justice, and the 14-year-old never sees 18.

Then there was Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia)

The Mayor, who loves to blame everybody but himself, wants to blame the Republicans who control the state legislature. But what Pennsylvania law states is that no subordinate governmental unit may impose firearms control restrictions stronger than those under state law. Thus, while there might be a couple of tiny tweaks in there, the City of Brotherly Love is under the same firearms laws as the rest of the Commonwealth.

I lived in Jim Thorpe for 15 years, and during those 15 years we had two murders in Carbon County, one in 2004 and another in 2006. If there was another one, I never heard of it, and I did search through the data, which is, regrettably, by township and borough in the county, and found only the two mentioned. And, as I recall, neither involved a firearm!

So, if the problem is the Commonwealth’s firearms control laws, why are the homicide rates so very, very different in Philly?

I previously wrote that 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.

It got worse last year: with 562 homicides in Philly, out of 1027 total for Pennsylvania, 54.72% of all homicides in the Keystone State occurred in Philadelphia. Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, was second, with 123 killings, 11.98% of the state’s total, but only 9.52% of Pennsylvania’s population.

The other 65 counties, with 78.11% of the state’s total population, had 33.30% of total murders.

And this year? Philadelphia is ahead of the pace of killings in 2021’s record-setting year. As of 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 12th, 386 people have spilled out their life’s blood in the city’s mean streets, an average of 1.5137 per day, which works out to a projected 552.51 killings in Philly for the year, if that rate remains constant. Last year, it didn’t, with a real spike in murders after Labor Day, to a rate of 1.7155 for the rest of the year. Will that happen again in 2022?

Well, who can know? But we do know one thing: the city’s elected leadership will not take responsibility for what the city has become. Mayor Kenney is term-limited; he cannot run for re-election. Mr Krasner, on the other hand, can run for District Attorney as many times as he wants, and after two landslide victories, both promising and having a record of avoiding putting people in jail, it seems difficult to believe that that isn’t exactly what a substantial majority of the voters want. He’d rather let drug dealers and gang-bangers go free, and apparently so do his constituents.

Her Majesty the Queen died a few days ago, after more than 70 years on the throne, but she was still Princess Elizabeth, the heir apparent to His Majesty King George VI when Philadelphia’s last Republican mayor left office. Seventy years of unbroken Democratic policies have transformed the city on the Schuylkill into what it is today, our nation’s poorest and most internally segregated city of over a million people, as well as its deadliest.

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What happens when you leave dirty dishes in the sink for 70 years?

On August 17, 2020, The Philadelphia Inquirer published a long story about the open air drug markets clustered around the infamous Kensington and East Allegheny Streets intersection, and the SEPTA station there. The newspaper even published a photo, by staff photographer Tim Tai, showing what appears to be a junkie shooting up right in front of the Allegheny Street Station on the Market Street-Frankford line. I asked, What are Mayor Jim Kenney and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw doing about open air drug markets in Philly?

The answer, apparently, is nothing.

A triple shooting happened outside this Philly elementary school. But for Kensington families, the risk of violence is constant.

“We don’t play in the parks, ever,” said Jasmine Albury, a mother of five. “There are shootings everywhere.”

by Kristen A. Graham and Ellie Rushing

Jasmine Albury doesn’t like to linger on Philadelphia’s streets. She and her five kids are an “in-and-out family,” she says — they leave the house only for the things they need.

“We don’t play in the parks, ever,” said Albury, who lives in North Philadelphia. “There are shootings everywhere.”

When three people last week were shot outside Willard Elementary — the Kensington school where her son is a fourth grader — Albury felt despair, she said, but certainly not shock. For many Philadelphia families, the city’s gun violence crisis means constant risk and trauma exposure in daily tasks as simple as getting children to and from school.

No part of the city is as plagued by gun violence as Kensington, largely fueled by an open-air drug market and higher rates of poverty. Law enforcement officials have said that dealers sell heroin, crack, and other drugs on more than 80 blocks in the neighborhood.

Willard is just one-quarter of a mile from the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny, the longtime hub of the area’s drug trade. A previous Inquirer analysis found that within a five-minute walk of this intersection, more than 300 people have been shot since 2015, a rate that, per square mile, is 11 times higher than the city as a whole. At this intersection and into the surrounding blocks, there are sprawling homeless encampments. People in addiction openly use drugs, and fall over into the street. There is trash and suffering as far as the eye can see.

The Philadelphia Police Department know where all of this stuff is, and know what’s going on, but won’t actually do anything about it.

Mr Finberg replied:

Good question, they’re rentals and I’m a long term owner. The rent doesn’t have to be very high to cover the mortgage and I’m keeping costs as low as possible. It’s not the most profitable thing I’ve done in my life that’s for sure.

I suppose “the rent doesn’t have to be very high” is a relative thing: the rowhouse at 835 East Hilton Street is listed for rent at $1,100 a month, and, as you can see from the map, it’s just a couple of short blocks from the Allegheny Street SEPTA station.

Full disclosure: I do not know if the listed house is one of Mr Finburg’s rental units.

The inside looks decent: neat and clean, with everything freshly painted, a new, builders’ grade kitchen, and new, though (shudder!) laminate, floors. 🙂

The link for the exterior picture is from Google Maps, and Google Maps indicates that the photos of East Hilton Street were taken in August of 2021, more than a year ago. The interior photos do not show the window air conditioner hanging out of the living room window that we see in Google Maps.

I know nothing about Mr Finberg. He may be a really great guy, or he may be the way so many people view landlords, as Snidely Whiplash tying Sweet Nell to the railroad tracks. Most probably, he’s very much in the middle of those extremes, a man trying to make some money, but one who has also been willing to put his own money at risk to bring better housing to a sadly depressed area.

But until the city of Philadelphia does more, does a lot more, to clean up the entire area, there will be no real improvements for the people. Drug use is not just some victimless crime; drug use affects other people, and the decent people of Kensington are examples of just how much it does affect other people; the entire neighborhood has been destroyed, become part of the Philadelphia Badlands. That nickname did not arise out of nowhere; it came to be because Kensington and Fairhill and Strawberry Mansion and Hunting Park have been ravaged by criminal activity, criminal activity largely driven by drug dealers and junkies.

There’s the natural urge to say, well, heck, just legalize drugs and this won’t be a problem. But, as the Inquirer article cited noted:

People in addiction openly use drugs, and fall over into the street. There is trash and suffering as far as the eye can see.

One thing is obvious: Commissioner Danielle Outlaw’s Philadelphia Police, and Federal Marshals, need to make a huge sweep through Kensington, and arrest every last one of the bad guys, and the United States Attorney needs to prosecute all of those cases to the maximum extent of the law. Allowing those cases to become part of state law would mean that District Attorney Larry Krasner, who hates locking up people, or even putting them on a serious probation, would just let the arrested back on the streets.

Perhaps the Commissioner has done so little regarding the well-known open air drug markets because she understands that Mr Krasner wouldn’t prosecute seriously anyone her officers rounded up. Perhaps she figures that anyone arrested and actually taken off the streets would simply be replaced by the next ‘generation’ of bad guys, but so what? Arrest them, too! And the next ‘generation’, and the next.

If you allow dirty dishes to pile up in the kitchen around the sink, what happens? You get ants and roaches and mice and fruit flies crawling and flying around your kitchen, you get unpleasant odors wafting through the air, and eventually everything gets soiled around those dishes, around your kitchen. Well, the City of Brotherly Love, in its 70th consecutive year of one-party Democratic rule, has left the dirty dishes in the sink of Kensington, left them to rot and fester, and everybody is shocked, shocked! that the whole kitchen, and much of the house, have become dirty, smelly and dilapidated. It would have taken a lot less effort to just wash the dishes the day they were soiled, but no, now the problem is huge and nasty.

But if the city does not clean up now, then when?

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Killadelphia

It really wasn’t an unsafe prediction. I wrote, at 10:53 AM on Saturday morning, “There were nine total paragraphs about (Tiffany) Fletcher in (Robert) Moran’s story, and I would not be surprised if there’s another about her later today in the newspaper.” And here it is:

Two Philadelphians in two days were shot and killed just going about their routine

One of the dead was a mother of three, shot while sweeping outside the Mill Creek Recreation Center, where she worked. The other was believed to be a husband and father carrying home groceries.

by Kasturi Pananjady, Robert Moran, and Stephanie Farr | Saturday, September 10, 2022

Tiffany Fletcher (center, yellow tank top) was photographed with lifeguard Robin Borlandoe (left) and assistant recreation leader Charles McKnight (top) at the Mill Creek Recreation Center pool in West Philadelphia on Aug. 14.
Elizabeth Robertson | Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photographer. Click to enlarge.

On the job at a recreation center. Out getting groceries. Everyday activities turned fatal for two Philadelphians who lost their lives in senseless shootings on back-to-back days this past week.

Tiffany Fletcher was killed by a stray bullet Friday afternoon while working for the city at the Mill Creek Recreation Center, in the 4700 block of Brown Street in West Philadelphia, police said. The 41-year-old mother of three was sweeping outside the center when a gun battle erupted and she was struck in the stomach, police said.

She was rushed by police to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead Friday evening.

When I opened the story, at around 10:10 PM EDT, all it said was that the story was “published an hour ago,” because The Philadelphia Inquirer somehow sees that as new wave, or cool, or edgy. Why not just tell us the time?

The Inky included a photo of Miss Fletcher, and some tributes to her, but there wasn’t actually a lot more information about her.

Rather, the story started to tell us about another Philadelphian gunned down for seemingly no reason:

On Thursday night in Overbrook, police said that a man identified on social media as Quenzell Bradley, or Quenzell Bradley Brown, described as being in his mid-30s, was shot in the head multiple times just before 9 p.m. on the 6200 block of Lebanon Avenue, where he was believed to have lived. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Those who knew him said in an Instagram post that he was carrying groceries home to his wife and kids at the time. Police provided no motive for the killing.

While police had not released the man’s name as of late Saturday, saying they had not yet notified his next of kin, relatives appear to be posting about his shooting on a Facebook page belonging to “Quenzell Bradleybrown.” A flier was posted on the page Saturday afternoon, identifying him as Quenzell Bradley Brown, aka “QQQQ.”

A Friday post on the Facebook page read: “… let it be known my brother was a innocent man was not n the streets was a family man married man with four kids just started his new job ln and was bringing in groceries unfortunately he was gunned down before he could even make it to the steps of his home died over senseless gun violence that had nothing to do with him mistaken identity I love you quenzell n we won’t rest until u get JUSTICE NO JUSTICE NO PEACE.”

A vigil will be held at 6 p.m. Sunday for the victim at 1101 N. 63rd St., according to a flier on the Facebook page. Attendees are encouraged to bring blue balloons in his honor.

Once again, we get to hear about the “innocents” who get killed in the City of Brotherly Love, but there are never any stories about the vast majority of people murdered in Philly. The police and the media tally up the numbers — at least 380 through mid-afternoon on Saturday — but, in the end, that’s all they are: numbers.

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Is justice a matter of color in Lexington? Part 2

We have previously noted the apparent discrepancies in the sentences that Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn has sought for felons, discrepancies obvious when you look at the race of the offenders. Nathaniel Harper, who is white, was sentenced to 36 years in prison for killing a man he hit as he wrecked the car in which he was fleeing police, even though his attorneys had been trying to plead down to a manslaughter or another lesser offense. Miss Red Corn and her office allowed George Boulder IV, who was part of a deliberate, broad-daylight shooting which killed members of another gang, or Xavier Hardin, who deliberately shot an enemy in Fayette Mall, or Jemel Barber, who was allowed to plead down for one of two fatal shootings, or Malachi Jackson, who killed a 15-year-old rival, or James Ragland, who killed a woman outside a Lexington strip club, every single one of them, along with others, to plead down to manslaughter, for deliberately killing other people.

Now comes this one:

Lexington man gets 35 years after pleading guilty to murder in 19-year-old’s death

by Taylor Six | Thursday, September 8, 2022 | 2:19 PM EDT

Morgan Johnson, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

A Lexington man has been sentenced to 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder for a teenager’s death in 2018.Morgan Johnson, 25, was sentenced on Thursday afternoon by Judge Lucy VanMeter for amended charges he pleaded guilty to as part of a deal in July. Johnson pleaded guilty to murder, second-degree burglary and first-degree unlawful imprisonment.

Johnson’s conviction comes after he was accused of killing 19-year-old Christopher Spencer at an apartment off Richmond Road Feb. 7, 2018. Spencer was found on the porch of the residence with multiple gunshot wounds.

Johnson, who was 21 at the time, is also accused of kidnapping a woman he knew and taking her to the Squires Woods Way home, where he sexually assaulted her, according to court records. Johnson, Spencer and the woman knew one another, former Lexington Police Sgt. Jervis Middleton said, according to court documents.

He was sentenced to 25 years for murder, five years for burglary and five years for unlawful imprisonment. Each sentence will run consecutively. He was also ordered to have a 10 year protection order against one of the victims in the case, and a restitution of $6,080.

There’s more here.

Mr Johnson’s attorney noted that there had been questions as to whether he was mentally fit to stand trial, and he had been examined at Eastern State Hospital, though Taylor Six’s article notes that the mental hospital does not release any information on individual patients. None of that, of course, excuses Mr Johnson’s crimes. But my question is: why was Mr Johnson, who did plead guilty, not given treatment as lenient as Miss Red Corn has been “mediating” out to black murderers?

Oh, wait, I’m sorry, black manslaughterers, the charges to which they were allowed to plead down.

I have no problem at all with Mr Johnson’s sentence, other than it is too short; he should get out of jail on the same day that Mr Spencer comes back to life. My point is that the thankfully outgoing Commonwealth’s Attorney has been allowing very lenient plea bargain arrangements to killers who aren’t white. If you deliberately kill someone, there should be no plea bargains: you should go to jail for the rest of your life.

But that’s not what happens in Lexington, not if you’re black:

  • On January 10, 2022, James Edward Ragland II, 31, was sentenced to ten years in the state penitentiary for shooting and killing Iesha Edwards, 27, outside what the Lexington Herald-Leader euphemistically called a “gentleman’s club.” Originally charged with murder, Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn allowed Mr Edwards to plead down to manslaughter.
  • On January 19, 2022, Malachi Jackson, now 20 but 16 at the time of his crime, charged with the murder of 15-year-old Kevin Olmeda, was allowed by Miss Red Corn to plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter, second-degree assault, and first-degree criminal attempt to commit robbery. With a recommended sentence of 15 years by the prosecution, time already served taken into account, and the state minimum of 85% of sentence required, Mr Jackson could be out of jail by the age of 31.
  • On February 11, 2022, Jemel Barber, 23, was sentenced to twenty years for the killing of 40-year-old Tyrece Clark. Mr Barber was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter and second-degree robbery, down from murder, by Miss Red Corn, and if he serves his full sentence, including time already served, he could be out by age 39.
  • On March 11, 2022, Xavier Hardin, 21, was allowed by Miss Red Corn to plead guilty to manslaughter, assault and wanton endangerment charges in the killing of Kenneth Bottoms Jr., 17, and charges of murder were dropped. The shooting was caught on security tape in Fayette Mall, so it isn’t as though the prosecution would have a difficult time proving their case. Mr Hardin was eventually sentenced to 22 years in prison, but even if he serves the maximum sentence, he’ll be out when he’s just 41-years-old.

This is not justice, and this is not law enforcement. Thankfully, Miss Red Corn is leaving office in a few weeks, but we need to do what we can to push her successor to enforce the law, to the maximum extent of the law. Not doing so is why Lexington has already seen 34 homicides this year, one every 7.38 days, and is on pace for 49 or 50 murders for the year; the exact number works out to 49.44. The city’s record is ‘only’ 37 murders, set last year.