Category Archives: Crime

Posted on by

Would-be armed robber in Philly gets a death sentence No, not by Let 'em Loose Larry Krasner, but by his intended victim

When a city like Philadelphia set a new record for homicides with 562 last year, and is on pace for 510 this year, which would be second-place all time, no one should be surprised when the law-abiding citizens of the City of Brotherly Love decide that they need to protect themselves, and not depend on the police.

Man fatally shoots cyclist wielding gun in South Philly

When officers arrived, they found the bicyclist on the street with a gunshot wound to his head.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Thursday, May 12, 2022

2200 block of South 6th Street, approaching West Moyamensing Avenue, September 2019, via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

A man shot and killed a would-be robber who was riding a bicycle and wielding a gun in the Lower Moyamensing section of South Philadelphia late Wednesday night, police said.Just before 11:30 p.m., on the 2200 block of South Sixth Street near West Moyamensing Avenue, a 30-year-old man on a bicycle approached a 24-year-old man who was standing outside his home smoking a cigarette, police said. The man on the bike said he was going to rob him, at which point the 24-year-old pulled out a gun and shot at the man as he was dismounting from the bicycle. Continue reading →

Posted on by

“What difference, at this point, does it make?”

The title is taken from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s infamous statement as she was trying to defend herself from charges of ineptitude as four Americans were killed by rioters in Benghazi. But that statement can apply to so many things.

Clarence Dixon

Clarence Dixon’s Final Words Before Execution in Arizona

by Khaleda Rahman | Thursday, May 12, 2022

Clarence Dixon chided medical staff in his final moments before he was put to death in Arizona’s first use of the death penalty since 2014.

Dixon, 66, who was blind and in declining health, died by lethal injection at the state prison in Florence for the 1978 killing of 21-year-old Arizona State University student Deana Bowdoin.

He was executed at 10 a.m. local time, according to Frank Strada, a deputy director with Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

“The Arizona Supreme Court should follow the laws,” Strada said Dixon declared shortly before he was put to death, according to The Associated Press.

“They denied my appeals and petitions to change the outcome of this trial. I do and will always proclaim innocence. Now, let’s do this sh**.”

There’s more at the original. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Hold them accountable! Teachers who know another teacher is sexually abusing a student must report it, or face jail

With the leaking of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft majority opinion overturning Roe v Wade, some people have forgotten that there actually is other news, and this one really gets to me. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

A former Philly teacher sexually assaulted a student, and the district knew he was a predator, lawsuit says

A longtime teacher at Parkway Center City High School assaulted a student over four years at the school, despite warnings that the teacher had abused another student, a recently filed civil suit says.

by Kristen A Graham | Monday, May 2, 2022

A former Parkway Center City High School teacher sexually assaulted one of his students for four years — and the Philadelphia School District allowed it to happen, ignoring repeated evidence of abuse, according to a recently filed lawsuit.

Larry Perry, a veteran, popular English and history teacher at the Philadelphia magnet school on North 13th Street, was already convicted of sexual assault and corruption of a minor in this case and sentenced in March up to eight years in prison. He is pursuing an appeal.

So, Mr Perry has already been convicted; this means that the lawsuit is over an established sexual abuse case.

The internally linked story noted that Mr Perry first began ‘grooming’ the girl when she was 13, and began to have sexual intercourse with her when she was 15. Doing the math from data in that story, Mr Perry was around 40 years old at the time. He was 51 at the time of his arrest.

Several paragraphs down:

Teachers who were friends with Perry knew about his relationship with the victim, the suit says, but did nothing despite being mandated reporters. A noontime aide once saw Perry driving the victim on I-95. A school police officer began noticing Perry spending significant amounts of time with the victim and brought his concerns to the school principal, who responded by bringing the police officer to a meeting with her and Perry.

If the allegation in the lawsuit is correct, teachers, plural, knew about the affair, but did nothing! It was a police officer assigned to the school who apparently did not know of the relationship — if the reporting is accurate — but was suspicious, and brought his “concerns” to the principal.

The principal told the school police officer that Perry “had been investigated previously regarding similar allegations, and that nothing happened to him.” The principal took no further action, the suit says.

The school had been warned about Perry before — in 1998, Perry’s then-girlfriend discovered him naked with another underage student at their home. She kicked him out of the apartment and reported the inappropriate contact to Parkway Center City officials, handing over letters and cards Perry wrote to the girl. Nothing was done with those allegations, the suit says.

The Inquirer article does not go into sufficient depth here. It could be that there was more than one previous investigation, which turned up nothing. That Mr Perry was caught in flagrante delicto with an underaged student, and that his then-girlfriend turned over physical evidence to the school, and he retained his job, is damning. This is an allegation which, if substantiated, should lead to serious investigations, terminations, and criminal charges against anyone who covered up Mr Perry’s abuse.

Mr Perry would have been 30 or 31 at the time, which leads to an obvious question: did he have tenure in 1998? If he did not, why was he retained? Even if the information brought against him at the time was insufficient to fire him, if he did not have tenure the school could simply have not continued his contract. If he raised a stink with his union, the cahool could simply inform the union of the allegations, and one would think that the union would not go to bat for him in such a situation.

Perry’s abuse of the plaintiff was so well known by other students that he “addressed the comments with students in his class and said that if the talk and rumors about him and Jane Doe do not stop, he will fail the students and they will not graduate,” according to the suit.

This is the most damning part of all: if this was true, then the ‘relationship’ was common knowledge. The John Jay Report documenting sexual abuse among the priesthood was released in 2004, and The Philadelphia Inquirer had been all over abuse stories. The titillating stories about Washington state teacher Mary Kay Letourneau and her affair with a 12-year-old boy were all over the news, both in 1998, when it first became public, and again in 2004 following her release from prison and marriage to Vili Fualaau, by then 21, the student with whom she had a ‘relationship.’ No teacher with an IQ above room temperature could not have known about the illegality of such ‘relationships,’ and the penalties for it. Teachers were all instructed about their reporting responsibilities for suspected abuse.

So, if the allegations in the lawsuit are accurate, who in Parkway Center City High School, and in the Philadelphia School District administration, knew about this and took no action?

If the allegations are substantiated, those who knew and did nothing or said nothing need to be fired! Any who have teaching certificates or professional licenses or certifications need to have them revoked. Under Chapter 63, §6319, the failure of a mandated reporter to keep something like this secret is guilty of either a felony in the third degree (sentence 3½ to 7 years in prison), if the mandated reporter has direct knowledge of the abuse, or a misdemeanor in the second degree (1 to 2 years in prison) if his knowledge is less certain.

The cited article stated that Mr Perry was “a veteran, popular” teacher, and it needs to be pointed out to everyone: we don’t care how much you like a person, if you know that he is sexually abusing minors, it is your duty to report it, and if you do not, you can go to jail as well.

Posted on by

Isn’t this interesting?

Screen capture from The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 30, 2022. Click to enlarge.

The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t print mugshots of people accused or rape and murder, but they made an exception for a cute white girl.

Kathleen Kane was Pennsylvania’s Attorney General from 2013 to 2016, when she was forced to resign. She won election after a campaign in which she accused Governor Tom Corbett (R-PA), a former state Attorney General, of dragging his feet in building up the child sexual abuse case against former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky, stating that more boys could have been raped due to Mr Corbett’s slow process; Mrs Kane was never able to find such a victim.

The case Mr Corbett and his successors built was almost air-tight, and Mr Sandusky was convicted, and sentenced to 30 to 60 years behind bars, which is tantamount to a life sentence for someone of his age.

Former State Attorney General Kathleen Kane was jailed again to await a hearing on a DUI arrest

Kane previously served eight months behind bars for her attacks on a rival.

by Craig R McCoy | Friday, April 29, 2022 | 4:36 PM EDT

Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane was jailed Friday for violating her probation on a perjury conviction with her arrest last month on a DUI charge.

Kane, 55, turned herself in Friday morning after Montgomery County Judge Wendy Demchick-Alloy issued a warrant for her arrest for violating her probation. The judge had previously sentenced Kane to prison after presiding over the 2016 perjury case that cut short Kane’s meteoric political career.

Kane will stay behind bars until a hearing on the probation violation, unless her lawyer can win an earlier release. No date has been set for the hearing, at which the judge could which revoke Kane’s probation and keep her in jail, order her to get alcohol treatment, or impose no further penalty.

The state’s former top prosecutor was released on five years’ probation in the summer of 2019 after serving eight months for the perjury conviction at the Montgomery County jail in Eagleville, where she is now being held again.

There’s more at the original.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Back where she belongs

The story isn’t really that interesting, and I would probably not have mentioned it, other than the Inquirer’s hypocrisy. The newspaper declined to print the publicly available mugshot of previously convicted felon Quintez Adams, accused of raping a woman on a SEPTA train, something most people would thing a far more serious crime than a DUI, but was perfectly willing to splash Mrs Kane’s mugshot across the internet, not only in the digital version of the story, but on Twitter as well.

Yes, Mrs Kane used to be a public figure, but she’s now just a convicted felon, with no public role, and hasn’t had a public role since she resigned as Attorney General six years ago. She does not live in Philly, but well up the Northeast Extension in Scranton. Following her conviction, the state Supreme Court disbarred Mrs Kane, so she’s no longer an attorney.

So, why publish Mrs Kane’s mugshot, but not the mugshots of the criminals apprehended and charged in the City of Brotherly Love? It couldn’t possibly be because most of the criminals in Philly are black, while Mrs Kane is a pretty white woman, could it?

Posted on by

Hold them accountable!

What happens when the District Attorney does not take crime seriously?

It was a series of small decisions, taken the wrong way, and the result was that a woman was sexually assaulted.

Suspect in SEPTA sex assault masturbated in a probation office two weeks before, officials say — but wasn’t charged

Some in the court system are questioning whether Quintez Adams could have been prevented from allegedly sexually assaulting a woman on the subway on April 24.

by Chris Palmer | Thursday, April 28, 2022

Quintez Adams, photo by Philadelphia Police Department and is a public record. Photo via the Bucks Daily Voice. Click to enlarge.

The man accused of sexual assault on SEPTA’s Broad Street Line last week had masturbated in front of probation officers inside their Center City offices two weeks earlier, authorities said Thursday.

And though police took 28-year-old Quintez Adams into custody — landing him in jail for potentially violating his probation in a prior burglary case — they didn’t ask prosecutors to charge him with a crime for several weeks.

In the meantime, court records show, a city judge ordered that Adams be released and ended his probation. And just 12 days after that, police say, Adams sexually assaulted a woman on the subway.

  • Mr Adams had been convicted of burglary in 2014, and sentenced to three years in prison. After his release, he was put on probation. Due to several probation violations, his probation has been extended.
  • Mr Adams showed up for a probation meeting on April 4, 2022, and was visibly intoxicated. He had actually appeared on the wrong day. While seated, a probation officer found him masturbating in public. The police were called, and Mr Adams was taken into custody, and the probation officer taken to the police department’s Special Victims Unit to be interviewed.
  • Following the interview, the Special Victims Unit failed to issue an arrest warrant, even though he was arrested after committing an obscene act viewed by several probation officers.
  • Mr Adams could have been charged as a violation of his probation, but was not.
  • Nevertheless, the Adult Probation and Parole Department notified Common Pleas Court Judge Frank Palumbo of the incident. A week later, on April 12th, Judge Palumbo ordered Mr Adams released and his probationary period ended.
  • On Sunday, April 24th a woman was raped on SEPTA’s Broad Street Line. The alleged attack happened between the Erie and Girard Avenue stations around 12:30 PM, a crime caught on surveillance tape.
  • Mr Adams was arrested for that rape, for which he has been charged, along with indecent exposure at the probation office, and an indecent exposure incident at a hospital.

Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said the Department would investigate why the Special Victims Unit did not issue an arrest warrant for Adams over the obscene act on April 4th, to see if there is some action which needs to be taken.

Now, why was Mr Adams allowed to skate, when the Philadelphia Police Department had him in custody? He violated his probation, yet Judge Palumbo turned him loose and ended his period of supervision. The Special Victims Unit knew what he had done, and knew he was a previously convicted felon on probation. They had everything they needed to keep him behind bars.

Because he was not behind bars on April 24th, an innocent woman was raped.

So far, I haven’t found George Soros-funded District Attorney Larry Krasner’s grimy fingerprints on this directly, but he has created an atmosphere in which crime is not taken seriously, because everyone knows he doesn’t really like to send anyone to jail, at least anyone not a police officer who stepped over the line. Did the Special Victims Unit just wave it off as something harmless, because they figured that let’em loose Larry would never prosecute? We don’t know, but can hope that Chief Inspector Vanore gets to the bottom of it.

Did Judge Palumbo somehow figure that the public masturbation, and intoxication, was somehow a meaningless crime, so no harm, no foul? Did he think that Mr Adams was simply no longer worth spending the city’s money?

At some point, people holding a public trust need to be held accountable! Judge Palumbo, most certainly, and the officers on duty with the Special Victims Unit at the time, definitely. Right now, a woman is dealing with the trauma of having been raped due to their refusal to do their duty!

Posted on by

#Killadelphia

2537 North Colorado Street, from zillow.com sales listing. Click to enlarge.

When I read about yet another homicide in the City of Brotherly Love, I go to Google Maps to check the street, and to zillow to check the real estate prices.

Steve Keeley of Fox 29 reported via tweet:

Another Late Morning Homicide in North Philadelphia. @PhillyPolice do not yet know the identity or age of male shot in his head less than an hour ago at 10:27am @FOX29philly

The Police Department’s press release indicated that the murder occurred on the 2500 block of North Colorado Street. Zillow lists one home for sale on that block, 2537, for a listed price of $55,000 . . . which is overpriced by $54,999.96.

In a photo taken by Google Maps in July of 2019, the row house to the left of 2537, 2539, was still standing. In demolishing 2539, it appears that some structural damage was done, at least to the façade of 2537. However, someone has done some work on 2537, installing windows and a new front door on the unit. Still, without any interior photos of this place, I can’t imagine how anyone could put enough money into it to be even livable, and sell it for a profit in that neighborhood.

Following Google Maps down North Colorado Street shows a virtually bombed out area.

Someone put some money into 1710 West Huntington Street, and is trying to sell the rowhouse for $150,000. This unit is on the corner of West Huntington and the 2500 block of North Colorado Street.[1]There was another rowhouse actually on the corner, the lot facing West Huntington, but it has been demolished.

So, I have to ask: what was so important in this poverty stricken neighborhood that someone had to be killed over it? What was so important that someone thought it worth the risk of getting caught and spending the rest of his miserable life in SCI Phoenix?

The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer said that racial segregation in housing determines how safe people feel in the city. I have to ask: just how are the people who can only afford North Colorado Street going to be able to afford to live in Manayunk?

References

References
↑1 There was another rowhouse actually on the corner, the lot facing West Huntington, but it has been demolished.
Posted on by

The ‘journolism’ of The Philadelphia Inquirer The newspaper, which hates guns, tries to undermine the Philadelphia Police units trying to catch people illegally possessing weapons

No, that isn’t a typo in the headline: the spelling ‘journolism’ or sometimes ‘journolist’, comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.

Thomas J Siderio, Jr, in a photograph dated 2018, from The Philadelphia Inquirer Click to enlarge.

We have previously noted the killing of 12-year-old Thomas J Siderio, Jr, after he took a shot at the police, and The Philadelphia Inquirer’s attempts to drum up sympathy for a wannabe gang-banger with parents who are criminals. We have pointed out that while the Philadelphia Police Department wanted to keep the name of the officer who shot young Mr Siderio confidential, for the officer’s safety, the Inquirer dug in, found out the officer’s name, and published it, in what I can only believe is an attempt to get the officer killed. The Inquirer’s Editorial Board had already opined that the killing of a young, gun-toting punk who opened fire on police young Mr Siderio should “should make every Philadelphian outraged.” I guess that outrage means that the Inquirer ought to put a target on the officer, to try to get him killed, because that’s exactly what they have done. What apparently didn’t outrage the Editorial Board was the fact that a wannabe gang banger was carrying a weapon and took a shot at the police. Continue reading →

Posted on by

Killadelphia Though slightly below last year's pace, Philly is easil;y on track for over 500 murders this year.

In doing some research for a completely different project, I came across an article of mine from August 23, 2021:

Haven’t the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer noticed the numbers?

Homicides and shootings in the city have dropped significantly

Posted on August 23, 2021 | 9:05 PM EDT

We have previously noted the recent decrease in the number of homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. We noted, on July 9th, that there had been 291 killings as of 11:59 PM on July 8th. 291 ÷ 189 days in the year, = 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year. If I recall correctly, that 562 number was my highest projection for the year.

But then, as of the 221st day of the year, 325 homicides had been recorded. 325 ÷ 221 days in the year, = 1.4706 homicides per day, for a projected 537 for the year. That number stayed fairly consistent, as a week later, with ‘just’ 339 homicides in 228 days, Philadelphia was seeing ‘only’ 1.4868 homicides per day, which works out to ‘just’ 543 over the course of 2021.

As of 11:59 PM on Sunday, August 22nd, the Philadelphia Police Department reported that there had been 345 homicides in the city. 345 ÷ 234 days = 1.4744 per day, or 538 projected for the year. The big news is that, over the past 31 days, a full month, if not a calendar month, there have been ‘just’ 31 homicides, ‘just’ 1.00 per day. With 131 days remaining in 2021, if that rate could be maintained, there would be ‘only’ 476 killings in Philly for the year. If The Philadelphia Inquirer has noticed that decrease, I haven’t seen it mentioned. It certainly doesn’t seem as though their Editorial Board has noticed.

There’s more at the original. But the line that caught my eye was, “We noted, on July 9th, that there had been 291 killings as of 11:59 PM on July 8th. 291 ÷ 189 days in the year, = 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year.”

And 562 it turned out to be!

Between July 9th and September 6th, which Labor Day, the homicide rate dropped to 1.4578 per day, which would have worked out to ‘only’ 532 homicides. Sadly, the killing rate increased, and by the end of the year it was back up to 1.5397 per day, and that 562 projection was realized.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Killadelphia Update

As of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, April 24th, there had been 151 murders in the City of Brotherly Love this year. That’s 4.43% below last year’s pace, when there had been 158 homicides by the end of April 24th.

As of April 24, 2021, 28.11% of city’s total of 562 murders had been committed. If the same percentage applies this year, Philly would see 537 homicides. The city still has the long, hot summer ahead.

But there’s an obvious question: what if Philadelphia doesn’t have that early July through early September lull this year? During the ‘lull,’ there were still 72 murders in the city, but had the ‘lull’ of 1.2203 homicides per day not occurred, there would have been 91 people killed.

Yes, I’m something of a numbers geek, but projecting things like this will always be somewhat problematic. It is well known that homicides increase as the weather gets warmer, and decrease as it cools down again. Yet, in Philly, the pace of killings picked up in the fall; that’s how the city ‘achieved’ its record of 562 souls sent early to their eternal rewards. A couple of weeks of rain could affect the projections, as could an early, heavy snow. A heat wave might keep the gang bangers inside in the air conditioning, and not out on the streets shooting at people.

Well, the 151 number didn’t even last the morning:

The 500 block of West Spencer Street (not Avenue) is not a terrible neighborhood. The area is filled with mostly well-kept attached single-family homes, and North 5th Street is lined with decent-looking two-story businesses with (probable) apartments on the second floor.

Of course, when The Philadelphia Inquirer gets around to reporting it, they’ll remove the race of the victim!

Thus far, under Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia has seen the first and third most homicides in its history, with only Mayor Wilson Goode’s — Mayor Goode of MOVE bombing fame! — record of 500 in the crack cocaine wars of 1990 in the middle of that. But I’m guessing that 2022 will see at least a solid second-place finish for Messrs Kenney and Krasner, and Miss Outlaw.

Posted on by

A very Democratic city!

We have frequently noted the ridiculous lack of law enforcement in Philadelphia when it comes to illegal drug use.

Now we get Steve Keeley, a reporter for Fox 29 News:

This means that junkies are shooting up heroin and fentanyl and who knows what else in public, on the train platform. This isn’t even the Allegheny Avenue station we’ve written about before, but 30th Street, thirteen stops away from Allegheny Avenue, near the Amtrak station and Drexel University. This isn’t Kensington, this isn’t the slums. This is near Powelton Village.

Of course, some of the junkies could have gotten on the train in Kensington, shot up while riding, and then gotten off at 30th Street, but why would they? It costs money to ride the train, and 30th Street isn’t really a neighborhood itself, but the middle of the train, trolley and Amtrak lines.

But hey, this is for what the good people of Philadelphia voted!

.