Category Archives: Crime

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Killadelphia Perhaps Commissioner Outlaw ought to worry about her primary job first?

We already knew it was a bloody few days in the City of Brotherly Love, but the city didn’t update its figures on Friday, due, I suppose, to the Good Friday holiday. Now they have, and it’s ugly.

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page states that there have been 140 homicides in the city as of 11:59 PM EDT on Easter Sunday, April 17th. That’s 11 more dead bodies since the previous Sunday, and 8 of them occurred since the end of Wednesday, April 13th, 8 murders in 4 days.

So, about what has Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw been worried?

Please join me in welcoming @Phillypolice‘s first Chief Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Officer, Ms. Leslie Marant! Ms. Marant’s position and office have been established to oversee diversity and inclusion efforts at every level of our organization. A lifelong Philadelphian, she …is uniquely qualified to succeed in this position. Having demonstrated tireless dedication and passion to the field of DEI work, she is the former Chief of Staff for the Universal Education Company, as well as the former Chief Council to the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission. She has earned a B.S. in Finance & HR Admin, and a Juris Doctor & Master of Laws, Trial Advocacy from @TempleUniv. We will benefit enormously from her experience as we continue to build and rebuild trust with the communities we serve. Welcome!

The Commissioner’s statement quoted is from three separate tweets. The image of the tweet on the right is a screenshot taken by me at 9:15 PM EDT on Monday; click on the image to take you to the original tweet.

“(D)iversity and inclusion”? It would seem that “diversity and inclusion” efforts have not been exactly successful in the city’s shootings and killings! Perhaps Commissioner Outlaw should worry about her primary job, bringing criminals to justice, first?

According to the city’s Shooting Victims database, there had been 49 people shot from Thursday through Sunday, 33 of them black, 12 listed as Hispanic white, and 4 as non-Hispanic white. That brings April’s total to 133 shooting victims, 104 of them non-Hispanic black, 12 Hispanic white, and 6 non-Hispanic white. No other racial/ethnic groups are listed as shooting victims.

Philadelphia’s population, according to the 2020 census, was only 38.3% non-Hispanic black, yet, thus far in April, they’ve been 78.20% of the shooting victims. Yet the main page of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website had exactly one story on the shootings and killings this morning, and it was dated on Saturday, April 16th. The publisher, Lisa Hughes, the Executive Editor, Gabriel Escobar, and their minions don’t want to report at all on shootings and killings in minority communities, because that would be raaaaacist!

By this afternoon, the Inquirer’s Editorial Board weighed in:

50 shootings during the weekend warns of a deadly summer in Philly | Editorial

As summer approaches, and with the city once again on pace to record more than 500 homicides this year, officials must act now to stem the possibility of bloodshed later.

by The Editorial Board | Monday, April 18, 2022

When it comes to gun violence in Philadelphia, it’s long been clear that warm weather can have serious consequences.

A 2018 New York Times analysis found that days when the temperature exceeds 50 degrees have nearly 70% more shooting victims in our city than days when the weather is 49 or below. A similar trend, the Times found, plays out in other cities that also experience seasonal weather changes.

It should hardly have come as a surprise, then, that an unexpected stretch of sunny April weather during the holiday weekend also saw the number of incidents of gun violence tick up dramatically in the city. During a 24-hour stretch from Thursday to Friday, the city averaged a shooting an hour, and of the two dozen people who were shot, five were killed. All told, from Thursday to Sunday, the city saw a total of 50 shootings. During that four-day stretch, the high temperature in the city did not dip below 52 degrees.

The weather has been cool in the northeast on Monday, so maybe there won’t be as many shootings and killings, but the forecast is for a warming trend, to finally get back to spring normal temperatures.

The Editorial Board, a self-described “group of journalists who work separately from the newsroom to debate matters of public interest,” but who seem to have a strong commonality of #woke leftist views, continue with typical liberal pablum ideas: opening more swimming pools this summer, the School District offering in-person educational programming for all students over the summer, and a roster of summer programs.

While restoring programs and reopening pools are important steps for cooling tensions, the stakes and the scale of this crisis demand the same kind of bold intervention that we’ve seen from Mayor Jim Kenney on COVID-19. That means finding more ways to fight gun violence, not telling residents and colleagues that you’ve done all you can.

Apparently Commissioner outlaw believes that hiring a Chief Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion Officer is the way to go! Yeah, that’ll sure calm down the gang-bangers!

Call me a cynic if you will, but somehow I’m not confident that the city’s wannabe gangsters are going to be all that interested in summer school.

If the city is once again unable to open all of its pools, then avoid hitting poorer neighborhoods with most of the closures. If library hours and programs cannot be fully staffed, find ways to support branches in our most vulnerable communities. If trash collection once again falls behind, prioritize neighborhoods where residents have smaller homes and fewer cars, leaving them without options to store and transport their waste. Hold the Police Department accountable, track and transparently evaluate anti-violence programs, and ensure the implementation of recommendations from the “100 Shooting Review.” Integrate violence prevention into everything the city does, as this board called for at the outset of the year.

Apparently to The Editorial Board, “poorer neighborhoods” is a synonym for black and Hispanic neighborhoods. As we have previously noted, the Board are very, very concerned about the racial disparity in the danger faced by Philadelphians, and blamed it on Philly being one of the most internally segregated cities in the country. Curiously enough, if you read their editorial carefully, you might come to the conclusion that the Board want white residents to feel as endangered as black residents do, sort of a socialist leveling down rather than raising up.

The fact is that there are a lot of poorer white Philadelphians as well, and they aren’t shooting each other at the same rate black city residents have done. However, neither the Editorial Board, nor the Mayor, nor the District Attorney, nor the Police Commissioner can admit that the homicide rate in Philadelphia is a racial problem more than an economic one. There is something in the culture of urban black communities that is leading the young men males of those communities to carry guns and blast away, but it is apparently wholly raaaaacist to point out that statistically obvious fact.

But you cannot address a problem if you are unwilling to acknowledge the problem, and the while liberals of Philadelphia are unwilling to face the problem because it is so very politically incorrect.

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I have no sympathy for this criminal

On Sunday, The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to Aaron M. Kinzer, because the editors just love them some criminals:

In prison, a phone was my lifeline. Until I got caught with it.

Congress should overturn the Cell Phone Contraband Act to give incarcerated a a lifeline to the outside world.

by Aaron M Kinzer | Sunday, April 17, 2022

Aaron M Kinzer, from Parents.

Since 2010, when I was incarcerated, I have been at the mercy of the prison phone service industry. I have paid 15 cents to $1 per minute for monitored 15-minute phone calls to hear my mother’s prayers, my spouse’s love, and my children’s laughter. Companies like PayTel and Securis compete for contracts to siphon off money sent from family to people like me.

High prices, monitoring, and restrictions fuel the demand for illegal smartphones. Most incarcerated people don’t use smartphones to sell drugs or order violent attacks. Instead, they connect with loved ones. A more humane justice system would take this into account by providing tablets to inmates or allowing for video visits.

Unfortunately, because of how diffuse our national system of corrections is, this is an issue we’ll have to tackle at the county and state levels. While access to smartphones is still forbidden in jails and prisons across the country, many jurisdictions recognize the value of keeping families connected. New York City and San Francisco no longer require incarcerated people to pay a fee for making phone calls from jail, and other cities and states are considering following suit. Texas has expanded tablet access for sending emails, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons allowed for free calls during the pandemic when visitations were banned.

In prison, a phone is a lifeline, a thin thread holding together fragile family bonds. When I was transferred to a federal minimum-security prison in Virginia, located in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, I thought I would be able to resist the lifeline thrown to me. But after six months of being restricted to the prison phone, I smuggled an illegal smartphone into prison. I knew that if I got caught, I would be placed in solitary confinement, transferred, have more time added to my sentence, or, even worse, be indicted for possessing contraband.

And caught with it he was. Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right "Nice guy" policies have led to disaster in our urban areas

I have previously noted a major article in The Philadelphia Inquirer about the city’s open-air drug market near Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, complete with a photo of a man who appears to be shooting up right outside the SEPTA station. The photo shows the street littered with trash, and people just plain not caring.

The theme of the article, dated August 17, 2020, was that the COVID-19 crisis might have caused shortages in everything else, but not in the availability of drugs.

I continued to scan the newspaper for stories about how the Philadelphia Police Department had gotten their dander up about the Inquirer article, and had a massive raid to round up the drug dealers and close the drug trade down there, but it just never seemed to happen. Now there’s this, from Fox 29 News:

Philadelphia officials consider resolution designating Kensington a FEMA site

By Shawnette Wilson | April 13, 2022 | 11:30 PM EDT | Updated April 14, 2022 | 7:28AM EDT

SEPTA station on Kensington Avenue, in the background, with homeless tents on the sidewalk. Photo from Fox29 News. Click to enlarge.

KENSINGTON – Reported as the worst possible section of the United States, in terms of homelessness and drug abuse, city officials are looking for a federal and state government intervention in Kensington.

“When I was a teenager, this neighborhood was fine,” David Adcox stated. He says it’s different for his two teenage children he’s raising in Kensington, where he has lived about 45 years.“You could hang on the corner and play football. You used to be able to block Somerset off and have block parties,” Adcox added.

He says since the late nineties, things have steadily changed for the worse.

“Drugs happened and it’s been downhill since,” Adcox commented.

Some Philadelphia city officials announced last week they are taking drastic steps to address the open drug use and addiction on the streets of Kensington.

At least as of 8:08 AM on Friday morning, there was no story on the Inquirer’s website main page about this. One would think that the city considering turning this problem over to the federal government would make the news.

“What we’ve been doing has not worked. This has been going on for 10, 20, even 30 years,” Philadelphia Councilmember At-Large Allan Domb said and went to say it’s a humanitarian crisis.

“It’s the worst neighborhood in the United States, as far as homelessness and drug abuse,” Domb added.

Domb, Councilmember Maria Quinones-Sanchez and Councilmember Mark Squilla have announced a resolution requesting that Kensington be declared a FEMA and PEMA site, like areas hit with tornadoes, floods and hurricanes.

It would mean federal and state involvement with resources and financial assistance.

“40 percent might be Philadelphians, but at least 60 percent or more are not. They may have obtained ID’s for Philadelphia, but it’s not right that the city has to take care of this humanitarian crisis when the majority of the people are not from Philadelphia,” Domb explained. “We need to bring people back to the homes where they came from, take care of the population that’s Philadelphia and get them into the right services and help them.”

But, but, but, I thought that Philadelphia was a sanctuary city, welcoming everybody, regardless of immigration status. And Councilman Domb is a Democrat.

Mr Domb has been on the city council since January 4, 2016. Councilwoman Maria Quiñones-Sánchez has been in office since January 7, 2008, while Councilman Mark Squilla has been there since January 2, 2012. All are Democrats.

Have they not noticed the problem until now?

The Inquirer was all #woke[1]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 and social justicey on August 17, 2020, when Aubrey Whelan’s article appeared — the firing resignation of Executive Editor Stan Wischnowski two months earlier, and “anti-racist” publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes was in place the previous February — yet even the newspaper covered the story at the time. Kensington is a heavily Hispanic neighborhood, with the non-Hispanic black population being relatively low, so perhaps that allowed the Inky to cover it?

The solution is not that complicated: send in the police and clear out the druggies, users as well as dealers. When the next group of dealers move in, as they will, send in the police again.

Philadelphia has been run by the Democrats for the last seven decades; the last Republican Mayor left office when Harry Truman was still President. And while the Democrats have not always been the squishes on law enforcement that they have been for a while, Democratic policies have enabled Kensington to become “the worst neighborhood in the United States, as far as homelessness and drug abuse” are concerned.

If you want to clean the place up, you need conservative policies, and conservative policies are not nice ones. To be a conservative, you have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] at times, because yielding to sympathy has meant allowing the existing problems to fester and get worse. It is better for the city, it is better for the United States, for [insert plural slang term for the rectum here] to be running the government, at all levels, people who will not allow sympathy and lenient policies to turn everything to [insert slang term for feces here], as has happened in all of our major cities.

References

References
↑1 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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The reason Philly murders are down is that the bad guys are lousy shots * Updated! * They meant to kill more people

The blood was flowing on Philly’s streets early on Thursday!

Shootings across Philly leave 1 dead and 12 injured

An unidentified young man was found shot dead on the 400 Block of Manton Street in South Philadelphia around 2:10 p.m.

by Robert Moran | Thursday, April 15, 2022 | 7:28 PM EDT | Updated: 8:39 PM EDT

Thirteen people were shot — including one fatally — in gun violence across Philadelphia on Thursday, police said.

Around 2:10 p.m. in South Philadelphia, an unidentified young man was found with a gunshot wound to the head outside on the 400 block of Manton Street. He was pronounced dead at the scene by medics. Police reported no arrests.

The 400 block of Manton Street is not a bad neighborhood. Well-kept row houses, some new construction, houses in the $400-$500,000 range, and a South Philadelphia neighborhood that appears to be gentrifying. Continue reading →

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Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye And then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Alas! I have been severely, severely! taken to task by Robert Stacy McCain for one of my failures!

Mr McCain’s story:

Aspiring Rapper Update: ‘Slowkey Fred’ Busted for Philly Gun Trafficking Ring

by Robert Stacy McCain | Wednesday, April 13, 2022

More federal felony charges than he’s got hit records:

An Atlanta rapper is one of 11 people facing federal charges in connection with an alleged straw-purchasing scheme that trafficked hundreds of guns from Georgia to Philadelphia.

Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives traced nearly 300 firearms purchased in Georgia from dozens of gun retailers to Fredrick Norman — aka “Slowkey Fred” — and three other suspects, after some were found at crime scenes and in the possession of convicted felons in Philadelphia, according to records and interviews with federal law enforcement.

In an interview with ATF agents in 2020, one of the suspects, Brianna Walker, admitted to buying 50 to 60 guns in order to sell them without a dealer’s license, according to a search warrant affidavit — a violation of federal law. Norman allegedly admitted to buying more than 100, according to federal records.
The federal investigation expanded to include 11 suspects in Georgia and Pennsylvania, all of whom face a conspiracy charge. Kenneth Burgos, 23, and Edwin Burgos, 29 — brothers accused of brokering sales in Pennsylvania — are also charged with dealing firearms without a license, officials said.

In addition to “Slowkey Fred” and the Burgos brothers, the suspects in this interstate gun-trafficking operations also included:

  • Brianna Walker a/k/a “Mars, 23, of Atlanta, GA;
  • Charles O’Bannon a/k/a “Chizzy,” 24, of Villa Rica, GA;
  • Stephen Norman, 23, of Villa Rica, GA;
  • Devin Church a/k/a “Lant,” 24, of Villa Rica, GA;
  • Roger Millington, 25, of Philadelphia, PA;
  • Ernest Payton, 30, of Philadelphia, PA;
  • Roselmy Rodriguez, 22, of Philadelphia, PA; and
  • Brianna Reed, 21, of Shippensburg, PA.

You can read the rest at Mr McCain’s original.

In my defense, not only did I have two family functions yesterday, but The Philadelphia Inquirer, the nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, while it still has a three-day-old story about Daniel Whiteman, 36, having been arrested for using a 3D printer to manufacture parts for ‘ghost guns’, had nothing on this story.

I have thus far been unable to find a mugshot of Mr Whiteman, though I suspect he has been appropriately surnamed, but it is not much of a surprise to me that the Inquirer would not be all that motivated to publish a story about defendants named Muhammad Ware, Haneef and Jabreel Vaughn, Roselmy Rodriguez, two separate chicks named Brianna, or a “rapper” faux named “Slowbrain Slowkey Fred”. To do that would be raaaaacist!

The Inquirer even had, on its website main page, a blurb, shown at the right, leading to this story:

Subway attack adds to fears that New York City has grown dangerous

The attack will intensify the disquiet among New Yorkers about violence in the nation’s largest city, including an increasing number of shootings and rising crime in the subways.

by Emmanuel Felton and Joanna Slater, Washington Post | Wednesday, April 13, 2022

NEW YORK — When Nick Laforte heard about Tuesday morning’s shooting at the 36th Street subway station, he first thought of his wife and daughter. Each day, they board the train at that very stop, one bound for Manhattan and the other heading further into Brooklyn.

After a spike of fear, Laforte was relieved to learn both women were safe. But the incident left him deeply uneasy. “It feels like things are getting out of control,” said Laforte, a retiree and Brooklyn native: “I love New York, there’s no place like this.” Still, for the first time, he found himself thinking about leaving.

Tuesday’s shooting in Brooklyn was a commuter’s worst nightmare, with panicked riders fleeing a subway car full of smoke and gunfire. According to local hospitals, nearly 30 people were treated for injuries, 10 of them with gunshot wounds.

The attack will intensify the disquiet among New Yorkers about violence in the nation’s largest city, including an increasing number of shootings and rising crime in the subways, the city’s lifeblood.

There’s more at the original, and here’s the link to The Washington Post’s original, in case the Inquirer’s paywall stops you. But it’s sadly humorous that the Inquirer would be telling us how much more dangerous the Big Apple has become: New York City had seen, through April 10th, 101 murders, compared to 116 on the same date in 2021.

Through the same date, Palm Sunday, the City of Brotherly Love had seen 129 homicides, compared to 138 on the same date in 2021. But while New York City has an estimated population of 8,177,025, Philadelphia has an estimated 1,585,480 residents. With 5.16 times Philly’s population, NYC has seen 28 fewer murders.

In 2021, New York saw 488 total homicides, compared to Philly’s 562. In 2021, NYC’s homicide rate was 5.97 per 100,000 population, while Philly’s was 35.46 per 100,000. Philadelphians were facing a homicide rate 5.94 times that of New Yorkers! Of course, as we already know, and as the Inquirer has admitted, in very internally segregated Philadelphia, you aren’t in that much danger if you are a non-Hispanic white or Asian. Through the first ten days of April, there have been 68 shootings in Philly; 57 of the victims were black, 9 were listed as Latino white, and two were non-Hispanic white. New York City’s subway passengers are a far more diverse and integrated population.

Leave it to the Inquirer to highlight the violence in other cities!

Matthew 7:3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

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An accused killer arrested in Lexington, had gotten off lightly for a previous murder

We have previously noted that Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn had a history of giving accused murderers the opportunity to plead guilty to manslaughter instead, and get reduced sentences.

Miss Red Corn was a member of the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office in 2012, but was not the office holder at the time.

    Man previously convicted in a deadly shooting faces murder charge in Lexington

    by Christopher Leach | Friday, April 8, 2022 | 2:40 PM EDT | Updated: 3:12 PM EDT

    Kenneth Waskins, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

    The Lexington Police Department has arrested a man accused of killing 38-year-old Wesley Brown on Breckenridge Street more than a year ago.

    Kenneth Wadkins, 41, was taken into custody Friday morning, police said. He’s been charged with murder and is being held at the Fayette County Detention Center on a $500,000 bond, according to jail records.

    On Jan. 21, 2021, police found Brown with a gunshot wound in the 500 block of Breckenridge Street after responding to a call of shots fired, according to police. Brown was taken to the hospital but died of his injuries two weeks later.

    The incident was one of five fatal shootings in Lexington in January 2021. Wadkins previously faced a murder charge when he was arrested and accused of the 2010 killing of Rocardo Cole. His charge was later amended down to facilitation to manslaughter after accepting a plea deal. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Joseph Richardson, another defendant accused of killing Cole, pleaded guilty to reckless homicide. He was also sentenced to five years.

    The victim’s family said at the time they didn’t feel justice was served, but prosecutors said they had trouble finding witnesses who saw the entire altercation that led to Cole’s death. The prosecution ultimately negotiated plea deals with both men after talking to witnesses and the defense.

Also see: Applause in courtroom when Woodford County judge rejects a negotiated 10-year sentence after killer allowed to plead down.

This is what happens when a killer is treated leniently. While Mr Wadkins must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, if the charge against him is accurate, the only reason that Wesley Brown is dead is because Mr Wadkins was not in prison when he should have been, when he could have been had the Commonwealth’s Attorney been able to find sufficient witnesses to put him away for murder.

The Lexington Herald-Leader, of course, declined to publish Mr Wadkins’ mugshot. Given that Herald-Leader reporter Christopher Leach referred to viewing “jail records”, and it was from the Fayette County Detention Center’s public records that I obtained the photo, it’s obvious that Mr Leach saw the mugshot, and could have used it, were it not for the stupid McClatchy Mugshot Policy.

That policy is meant, supposedly, to protect those accused but not convicted, but Mr Wadkins was an already convicted felon. This is the kind of man who, if you see him coming toward you on the sidewalk, you should be on your guard, and cross the street if you can, but the Herald-Leader doesn’t want the people of Lexington to have that information.

Will Miss Red Corn be able to put Mr Wadkins away for murder this time? Will she even try? After all, she allowed Xavier Hardin to plead guilty to manslaughter, when his killing of Kenneth Bottoms, Jr, was caught on a security camera.

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The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer tell us just how racist they are I don't think that they ever realized what they did

As we noted on Thursday, a poll by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 70% of Philadelphians believe that public safety is the most important issue facing the city. As of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, April 7th, 127 people had been murdered in the City of Brotherly Love[1]The referenced site is updated weekdays during normal business hours, so if you check it on a day after this has been posted, the number you see may be higher..

And on Friday, the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have told us that segregation is the problem:

In a segregated city, race determines safety. That’s unacceptable. | Editorial

Segregation is at the core of so many of Philadelphia’s problems. How do we move from moral indignation to meaningful action?

by The Editorial Board | Friday, April 8, 2022 | 9:30 AM EDT

In his budget address last month, Mayor Jim Kenney listed the issues facing the city — “a global pandemic, political turmoil at the national level, and intensified violence” — and proclaimed: “We are facing those challenges together.”

That might be true in spirit, but in practice, Philadelphia is not facing all of its challenges together. That is the reality of a segregated city.

A new poll by the Pew Charitable Trusts, again, demonstrates this disparity with a statistic that is unacceptable: The percentage of Black and Hispanic Philadelphians who feel unsafe in their neighborhood is double the percentage of white Philadelphians.

With this, the Editorial Board have admitted what the Inquirer does not like to say out loud: the problems of crime, especially violent crime, are problems primarily among black and Hispanic Philadelphians. The city’s Shooting Victims statistics indicate that, for April, through April 7th, there were 39 victims in Philadelphia, 31 of whom were black, and 8 of whom were white. Of the 8 white victims, 6 are listed as Latino. White Philadelphians are relatively safe.

Following a couple of paragraphs in which the Board tell us what we already knew, that while city residents felt much safer, and that the bullets flying around the city hadn’t flown in their neighborhoods, we get to the money line:

This disparity is only possible because Philadelphians of different races don’t share the same neighborhoods — despite more than half a century of lip-service to integration as the policy of the United States.

It’s certainly true that Philadelphia is one of our most internally segregated big cities, something the Inquirer has previously reported, complete with colorful — pun most definitely intended — graphics.

But if zip code 19118 — Chestnut Hill — is 2/3 white, doesn’t that mean that it really is integrated?

Of course, Chestnut Hill is an expensive place to live. Home to Chestnut Hill College and several tony private schools — Springside Chestnut Hill Academy’s tuition rates are currently $33,250 for grades 1-4, $39,700 for grades 5-8, and $44,150 for grades 9-12 — and with a median family income of $50,554 in zip code 19138 — primarily West Oak Lane and East Germantown — there can’t be too many families there who could afford Chestnut Hill Academy.[2]Full disclosure: while working in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, I did some concrete work at Chestnut Hill Academy. It’s a beautiful place.

The Board continue on to tell us about the Kerner Commission warning us that continued segregation risked prolonging social unrest, and that President Lyndon Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act. My mother, who was a mortgage company employee, end eventual vice president, told me about the non-discrimination restrictions under which she had to operate. Even though we lived in the Bluegrass State, my mother grew up in Maine, and segregation was something foreign to her.[3]The house she bought, in Mt Sterling, Kentucky, had a restrictive covenant on it, disallowing sale of the property to anyone who was black, but by that time restrictive covenants were legally … Continue reading

The Kerner Commission’s report was sadly prophetic. The only thing it failed to anticipate was gentrification and how white city dwellers would go on to create segregated pockets within the heart of big cities. More than half a century after the Kerner Commission and the Fair Housing Act, Philadelphia remains one of the nation’s most diverse and most segregated cities.

It seems that the Board are opposed to gentrification, but gentrification means, among other things, white people moving into and improving homes in what have frequently been heavily minority areas. These are white people who have no objections to having black neighbors. I previously noted a Lexington city task force recommendation which stated:

The Task Force was created out of concern about neighborhood change when that change includes:

  • Properties turning over at an accelerated rate;
  • Most new owners being more affluent and differing from the traditional residents in terms of race or ethnicity.

Really? The city is going to work to stop integration of neighborhoods?

The Board cannot be supporting increased integration, to fight violent crime, and be opposed to white people moving into primarily non-white areas.

What does it mean to be a segregated city in a gun violence crisis? According to the Controller’s Office’s gun violence mapping toll, the zip codes of Rittenhouse Square and Chestnut Hill, where about 70% of the population is white, haven’t experienced a fatal shooting since before 2015. Contrast that with nearly 200 fatal shootings in North Philadelphia-Strawberry Mansion, where more than 90% of the population is Black, or nearly 240 in the Kensington-Port Richmond area, with a Hispanic population of 50%.

Rittenhouse Square is a beautiful park — and a safe one. The Black and Hispanic neighbors of McPherson Square and Hunting Park deserve to feel equally safe in public spaces near their homes.

The Board illustrated their editorial with a photograph of people, all white people as far as could be discerned, enjoying a “balmy March afternoon” in Rittenhouse Square.

Segregation is at the core of so many of Philadelphia’s problems — including gun violence, which to this day almost perfectly aligns with the borders of the redlining maps created by the federal government to keep, particularly, Black home buyers out of certain areas.

How do we move from moral indignation to meaningful action? How do we deliver on the promise of fair housing such that we implement what the Kerner Commission called “the integration choice?”

The first step is to retain affordable housing options that already exist (some are being lost now in University City) and creating alternatives to predatory financial institutions for those seeking home loans (such as creating a public bank). But fundamentally, segregation will persist as long as Philadelphia continues to fail to provide basic amenities to all neighborhoods. Good schools, clean streets, open libraries and recreational centers — those shouldn’t be a privilege for the few who can afford it, but a feature of life for all Philadelphians, regardless of zip code.

Until the recent Bidenflation, conventional mortgage loans could be found, fairly easily, for under 3%. Of course, a conventional loan required 20% of the purchase price as a down payment, and that means people have to be disciplined enough to save their money for that purpose, and if someone can’t be that disciplined, can he really be trusted to make his mortgage payments? It wasn’t that long ago that we saw a major economic recession caused by the subprime mortgage crisis.

Gun violence is both a disease and a symptom. It’s crucial that our city’s goal be twofold: ensuring that all Philadelphians feel safe, and that the ranks of those who do not isn’t determined by skin color. Only when that is the case can Philadelphia truly say it is facing its challenges together.

For what are the Board asking here? They have already let us know that they don’t like gentrification, wealthier white people moving into predominantly black and Hispanic neighborhoods, and fixing up distressed homes; that, they claimed, led to segregated white pockets in the city. Somehow, no one seems to see the increased values in gentrifying areas lifting the net worth of the homes of black and Hispanic people living in those areas, or the value of white residents who are completely accepting of living in an integrated neighborhood. The Board seem to want more black residents in Chestnut Hill and Rittenhouse Square, but unless those residents can afford to move there, either the city, or someone, will have to provide the same subprime mortgages that caused the crash, or build ‘affordable housing’ in places which would then see other people’s property values decline due to it.

There is, of course, a not-so-subtle undertone to the Board’s editorial, the theme that white people make places safer, while blacks and Hispanics make areas more dangerous. The members would deny that, of course, but it is right there, obvious to anyone who reads what they wrote.

References

References
↑1 The referenced site is updated weekdays during normal business hours, so if you check it on a day after this has been posted, the number you see may be higher.
↑2 Full disclosure: while working in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, I did some concrete work at Chestnut Hill Academy. It’s a beautiful place.
↑3 The house she bought, in Mt Sterling, Kentucky, had a restrictive covenant on it, disallowing sale of the property to anyone who was black, but by that time restrictive covenants were legally unenforceable. It would, however, have cost legal fees to get the covenant language removed.
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The people in Philly can feel in their bones what The Philadelphia Inquirer won’t report

Another soul was sent untimely to his eternal reward in the City of Brotherly Love yesterday, but Philadelphia, which had been one ahead of its daily total for last year, fell behind by two, as four people were murdered on April 6, 2021. The numbers remain so close that no conclusions can reasonably be drawn as to whether 2022 will see more homicides than last year, but unless there is a very drastic change, 2022 will certainly exceed 2020’s 499 murders.

    70% of Philadelphians believe public safety is the most important issue facing the city, poll finds

    The number of residents who said crime, drugs, and public safety was the No. 1 issue — about 70% — has increased by 30 percentage points compared to August 2020.

    by Anna Orso | Wednesday, April 6, 2022

    More than half of Philadelphia residents do not feel safe in their neighborhoods at night, two-thirds have heard gunshots in the last year, and an overwhelming majority see public safety as the biggest issue facing the city.

    That’s according to a new report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which surveyed 1,541 Philadelphians in January on issues related to crime, policing, and the twin impacts gun violence and COVID-19 have had on residents’ outlook. It was conducted after 2021 saw record numbers of people killed or injured by gunfire.

    Among Pew’s starkest findings was that the number of residents who said crime, drugs, and public safety was the No. 1 issue — about 70% — has increased by 30 percentage points compared with August 2020, the last time Pew conducted such a survey. It’s the highest percentage any topic has received since Pew started polling more than a decade ago, said Katie Martin, senior manager of the Pew Charitable Trusts’ Philadelphia research and policy initiative. . . . .

    And while more than half of Black and Hispanic residents said gun violence has had a major effect on quality of life in their neighborhoods, less than 20% of white residents said the same.

There’s a lot more in the original, and while Philadelphia Inquirer articles are hidden behind a paywall, you can see a few free articles a month.

The last quoted paragraph I included reflects the city very well. Though the Inquirer has referred to Philadelphia as a “black city”, the  2020 census found that just 38.3% of the city’s population were non-Hispanic black, and Hispanics, who can be either black or white, made up 14.9%. Between non-Hispanic whites, 34.3%, Asians, 8.3%, and “other groups,” 4.3%, the city is 46.9% non-black, and it doesn’t take a terribly large percentage of the Hispanic population being white to get the city to majority non-black. The non-Hispanic white population of the city have certainly declined, but they are hardly gone. If white residents do not see crime as the most serious problem, the way black and Hispanic Philadelphians do, much of that can be attributed to the fact that, while the city’s overall population are quite “diverse” — a word I’ve come to despise — internally the city is highly segregated.

In being highly segregated, white residents can afford to see crime as a less serious problem, because crime hits white residents far less frequently. The Inquirer is very, very good at covering stories in which the victim was clearly an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or, most importantly, a cute little white girl. When Samuel Sean Collington, a Temple University student approaching graduation was murdered. Mr Collington was a white victim, allegedly by a black juvenile in a botched robbery. On December 2, 2021, the Inquirer published 14 photographs from a vigil for Mr Collington, along with another story about him. Five separate stories about the case of a murdered white guy. The newspaper even broke precedent when it came to Mr Collington’s murder by including the name of the juvenile suspect in the case, and delving into his previous record.

Oh, it’s not as though the Inquirer doesn’t publish stories about black victims, at least when it comes to black victims who are ‘innocents’. The murder of Samir Jefferson merited two stories, and four stories about the killing of 13-year-old Marcus Stokes.[1]I did note my suspicion that young Mr Stokes might not have been quite the innocent the Inquirer, and writer Anna Orso, made him out to be. A story is merited if the victim was a local high school basketball star, and cute little white girls killed get tremendous coverage: a search of the newspaper’s website for Rian Thal returned 4855 results! But for the vast majority of black victims, Inquirer coverage is a couple paragraphs, mostly in the late evening, and which have disappeared from the main page of the newspaper’s website by morning, if even that much.

Why? It’s simple: reporting about black bad guys getting killed by other black bad guys, in the words of the Sacramento Bee, “perpetuat(es) stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.” In her “apology to black Philadelphians and journalists,” publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes did not use those specific words, but the effect has been the same: no reporting of stories which might tell readers what they already know: that the vast majority of the murder victims, and their killers, in the City of Brotherly Love are black males who have been involved in the gang or criminal lifestyle.

However, despite the Inquirer’s attempt at minimizing crime in black neighborhoods, while reporting on it more diligently when the victims and perpetrators are white, because under Miss Hughes the newspaper is determinedly “anti-racist,” nobody is fooled. Part of the issue is that the newspaper’s paid circulation is pathetically low: the Philadelphia metropolitan area has roughly 6,108,000 people, meaning that the Inquirer’s circulation is paid for by a whopping 1.67% of what ought to be its service area. The circulation numbers are total, but even if all of its circulation was in the city itself, it would be paid for by just 6.35% of the population.

Pretty poor for the nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper!

An Inquirer graphic shows how concerned Philly residents are. The people who are more heavily impacted by violence are more concerned, and most white residents simply are not; the gang bangers are shooting up Kensington and Strawberry Mansion, not Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill. The newspaper might not report much on killings in minority neighborhoods, but the people who live there know what happens. And while the Inquirer deliberately eschews publishing the photos of black victims and perpetrators, the television stations there are not so reticent.

Television is, after all, a heavily visual medium, and the television news broadcasts reach far more people than the Inquirer: the Inquirer itself reported that WPVI drew 287,000 viewers for it’s 6:00 PM local newscast, in February of 2018, and 163,000 for the 11:00 PM news show, while the newspaper had a circulation of 101,818 daily copies in May of 2019. WPVI, which has higher ratings than the other Philadelphia stations, is still only one of four.

Of course, local television news is free — although most people are paying for cable subscriptions — while newspapers cost money, but it would seem that a lot more people watch the local news on television than read the newspaper. There is something to be said for providing your customers what they want.

The Inquirer, under Miss Hughes and Executive Editor Gabriel Escobar, deliberately censor their coverage, to meet their “anti-racist” goals, but the truth leaks through. When the newspaper reported on the shooting of a 13-year-old boy at the intersection of 49th and Hoopes Streets, simply printing the location told Philadelphians that it was in a heavily black neighborhood, and while the newspaper didn’t report it, the victim was, in fact, black. When the paper reported on the targeted shooting death of a 15-year-old boy near Tanner Duckrey School, just printing the victim’s name, Juan Carlos Robles-Corana, told readers that the victim was Hispanic.

And so we have the report on how people feel about the issues in the city, and with the Inquirer publishing it, we can see that the propaganda the paper is trying to push has not resulted in people being misinformed. They know what is happening around them!

Also see: Republican registrations surge in Pennsylvania in warning sign for Democrats

Perhaps even more pathetically, white Philadelphians are contributing to the crime wave. Yes, the city is plurality non-Hispanic black, and yes, black voters traditionally give around 90% of their votes to Democrats, but softer-than-soft on crime District Attorney Larry Krasner was re-elected with 71.81% of the vote in November of 2021. That number has to include a whole lot of votes from the liberal white areas, from the voters who saw the impact of violence on the quality of their lives as having a minor (49%) or no (33%) impact. It’s easy to be sympathetic to liberal causes when it’s not in your back yard.

I have complained, more than once, that the Inquirer tries to hide the full truth, because the full truth does not match their editorial philosophy, but, in one very obvious sense, they really haven’t hidden the truth from the black and Hispanic populations of the city; those residents can see and hear and feel what has been happening around them. It’s actually the white residents of Chestnut Hill and Manayunk who have been deceived.

References

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Lexington prosecutor Lou Anna Red Corn lets more killers off leniently She is failing the people of Kentucky!

We noted, just last week, on April 2nd, that Fayette County Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn had a history of giving accused murderers the opportunity to plead guilty to manslaughter instead, and get reduced sentences. Well, here she goes again!

    Suspects accused of killing 2 men in a Lexington gang retaliation take plea deals

    by Jeremy Chisenhall | Wednesday, April 6, 2022 | 6:00 AM EDT

    John George Boulder IV, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

    Four men have pleaded guilty to reduced charges for their involvement in a deadly daylight shooting that Lexington prosecutors say was a gang retaliation.

    A Lexington gang planned to retaliate against two 18-year-olds because members of the group believed those two made “disparaging remarks” about a dead gang member, according to court records. Dwayne Slaughter and Darrian Webb, both 18 years old, died in the shooting on Oct. 19, 2019. All four suspects entered guilty pleas in Fayette Circuit Court Friday.

    Three of the men who pleaded guilty in the deadly shooting are among the 14 people who have been indicted in a related organized crime case, according to court records. The fourth suspect hasn’t been criminally connected to the gang but was accused by a witness of being part of the same group.

    The shooting happened on Oct. 19, 2019, at the intersection of Winchester Road and Seventh Street. De’Shaun Quantrell Armor, Sevion Mitchell and Kenneth Jakobe Jackson were in a vehicle driven by John George Boulder IV when they pulled up behind a vehicle with the two victims inside, according to court records.

    Armor, Mitchell and Jackson were all armed, according to court records. The suspects opened fire and dozens of shots rang out in the middle of the intersection, leaving Slaughter and Webb dead, according to court records. A third person in the victims’ vehicle was injured but didn’t die.

There’s much more at the linked original; the mugshots were not included in the Lexington Herald-Leader original, but looked up and added by The First Street Journal. Mr Armor’s mugshot was not available.

These are some bad dudes! The Fayette County Detention Center had not one but six mugshots of Mr Boulder, from six separate arrests, the first dated September 9, 2017, not quite four months after his 18th birthday.

Sevion Mitchell, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

Messrs Armor, Mitchell and Jackson were each charged with two counts of murder when they were first indicted, while Mr Boulder, who was not armed at the time of the killings, was charged with facilitating murder. Following ‘mediation’ to work out a plea deal, Mr Armor pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter as well as to charges of evidence tampering and evading police; other charges were dismissed. Prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to seven years in prison for each manslaughter count and one year for each of his tampering and evading convictions. No recommendation was made as to whether the sentences should run consecutively or concurrently.

Mr Armor pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, as well as one count each of tampering with evidence and evading capture. Prosecutors recommended seven years in prison for each manslaughter count and one year for each of his tampering and evading convictions.

Messrs Mitchell and Jackson, who were juveniles, 17, when the killings occurred, each pleaded guilty to two counts of manslaughter, with other charges against them dismissed, and the prosecution recommended that both be sentenced to seven years for each of their manslaughter convictions; again, no recommendation was made concerning whether the sentences run consecutively or concurrently. Depending upon how Fayette Circuit Judge Thomas L. Travis sets their sentences on June 15th — he does not have to accept the prosecutors’ recommended sentences –these thugs could be out of jail while still in their twenties, still in their prime crime-committing years.

According to reporter Jeremy Chisenhall’s story, the shooting in the middle of an intersection, at busy Winchester Road and Seventh Street, by a Speedway gasoline station and mini-mart, left 37 shell casings recovered by investigators; these guys were firing and endangering more than just the two 18-year-old rival gang members, but bullets could have struck innocent bystanders as well.

Kenneth Jackson, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

Was the evidence against these gentlemen on the shaky side? Did Miss Red Corn fear that the state might lose if it went to trial? Why ‘mediate’ lenient sentences?

Under KRS §507.020, murder is a capital offense in Kentucky. Under KRS §532.030, the punishment for a capital offense shall be:

  • death; or
  • imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole; or
  • imprisonment for life without benefit of probation or parole until he has served a minimum of twenty-five (25) years of his sentence; or
  • imprisonment for not less than twenty (20) years nor more than fifty (50) years.

Miss Red Corn could have gotten these very bad guys off the streets for a long, long time. She could have gotten them locked up until they were at least middle-aged, possibly until they were elderly, or even gotten them locked up until they die. She could have done her duty to the citizens of the Commonwealth of Kentucky!

Instead, she followed her recent pattern, of taking the easy way out, by allowing negotiations which could have these criminals out early.