Category Archives: Crime

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Killadelphia It's not just that the raw number of homicides is increasing; the rate of killings has increased as well

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page is only updated Monday through Friday, during normal business hours, so when last I saw it, the police had indicated that there had been 513 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, December 2nd. This morning, that number had jumped to 521 killings as of 11:59 PM EST on Sunday, December 6th.

That’s eight homicides in three days!

Forget the “long, hot summer” when it comes to murder in Philly. As of the end of Labor Day, September 6th, the 249th day of the year, Philly had seen 363 homicides. 363 ÷ 249 = 1.4578 homicides per day × 365 days in the year = 532.1084 homicides projected for the year.

Well, that was then, and this is now. 521 homicides ÷ 339th day of the year = 1.5369 killings per day, × 365 = 560.9587 projected murders.

But it gets worse. Labor Day is the ‘traditional end of summer’, even if it’s not autumn astronomically. Since the end of Labor Day, there have been 158 killings, in just 90 days. That works out to 1.7556 murders per day. If that rate is maintained through the end of the year, that’s another 45.6444 souls sent untimely to their eternal rewards, for a projected 567 dead bodies littering the city’s mean streets.

Yeah, I’m something of a number’s geek on this subject, but I’m also a writer, and there have been so many murders in Philadelphia that I’ve been struggling to come up with different words to use, to avoid redundancy in my prose. Perhaps that explains why The Philadelphia Inquirer has nothing on their website main page, at least as of 10:15 AM EST, not a single thing, on the eight killings over the past three days.

In reality, the editors of the Inquirer don’t want to hear about homicide in the city, not in any nitty-gritty way. I submitted the article Being taught about white privilege, by The Philadelphia Inquirer, to the newspaper as a prospective OpEd piece on Friday, December 3rd, and though I did not really expect them to print it, I did hope that maybe, just maybe, upon reading it, the editors would realize just how biased they’ve been on the reporting of the carnage in the city’s streets.[1]At least as of 10:15 AM this morning, I have neither been contacted nor received a rejection email from the Inquirer.

The American Free News Network did print it.

Of course, the Inquirer is concerned about homicide, in macro terms:

In that last one, the Editorial Board noted just how concerned they are that #BlackLivesMatter, because pregnant black women are five times more likely than white women to terminate their pregnancies. Nothing quite says black lives matter than wanting to see them being snuffed out before birth!

But none of it makes sense. In their own stories, the Inquirer noted that Latif Williams, the (alleged) killer of Samuel Collington, was a juvenile, with a criminal record, and could not be legally carrying a gun . . . but he was. They reported that Donavan Crawford, charged with the murder of Sykea Patton, was “charged overnight with murder and multiple counts of illegally carrying a gun.” Somehow, some way, the highly educated and experience editors and reporters for our nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper never noticed that the people committing crimes with guns are almost never holders of firearms permits, almost never carrying firearms legally, and, shocking, I know, aren’t that interested in obeying the law in the first place.

This is the problem that the left simply cannot see, because they are unwilling to see it. It is not a matter of guns, but the people using the guns. Since the people using guns to kill others are disproportionately black, to admit that it’s the people who are the problem is to recognize that homicide in our major cities is primarily a black problem, and that the #woke[2]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 just cannot do.

But if you cannot admit what the problem is, you can never hope to solve the problem. And the left would rather ignore the truth than deal with the truth.

References

References
↑1 At least as of 10:15 AM this morning, I have neither been contacted nor received a rejection email from the Inquirer.
↑2 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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For The New York Times, some news is just not fit to print!

From the Encyclopedia Britannica:

    On August 18, 1896, (Adolph Simon) Ochs acquired control of the financially faltering New York Times, again with borrowed money ($75,000). To set his paper apart from its more sensational competitors, Ochs adopted the slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print” (first used October 25, 1896) and insisted on reportage that lived up to that promise. Despite an early shortage of capital, he refused advertisements that he considered dishonest or in poor taste. In 1898, when sales were low and expenses unusually high, he probably saved The New York Times by cutting its price from three cents to one cent. He thereby attracted many readers who previously had bought the more sensational penny papers, especially the New York World and the Journal. By 1900 Ochs was able to purchase a controlling interest in The New York Times.

In its long and august history, the Times, through many editors and publishers, was our newspaper of record, printing many things that the government opposed, and winning its right to publish the so-called Pentagon Papers, despite the attempt by the Nixon Administration to prohibit such.

But now? The Times reported on the stabbing murder of Columbia University graduate student Davide Giri, but left out a lot of detail.

    Columbia University Student Dies in Stabbing Near Campus

    The graduate student, Davide Giri, was fatally stabbed near the Manhattan campus on Thursday night. A man has been arrested and charged with murder, the police said.

    By Troy Closson and Lola Fadulu | Friday, December 3, 2021

    A graduate student at Columbia University died and another man was wounded after the two were stabbed in Upper Manhattan on Thursday night, the police and college officials said.

    The student, Davide Giri, was traveling home from soccer practice just before 11 p.m. when he was stabbed in the abdomen about two blocks from his apartment building, the police and friends said. He was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

    The police arrested Vincent Pinkney, 25, of Manhattan, in the attacks and charged him on Friday with murder, attempted murder, assault, attempted assault and three counts of criminal possession of a weapon. He had been found in Central Park, and the police said that he had been menacing a third man with a knife.

    In a campuswide letter sent on Friday morning, Lee C. Bollinger, the university’s president, identified Mr. Giri, 30, as a student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science and expressed sadness over his death.

There’s more at the original, telling us about the victim, and noting that a similar killing had occurred just a few blocks away, when Tessa Majors, a student at Bernard College, was killed during a robbery.

What you won’t find in the original are any details about the (alleged) assailant, Vincent Pinkney. For those, you have to go across the pond, to London’s Daily Mail:

    Gang member, 25, charged in fatal Manhattan stabbing spree that killed Columbia student and wounded Italian tourist has been arrested 11 times since 2012 and was on parole for gang attack

    • Alleged killer Vincent Pinkney, 25, has a lengthy rap sheet and 11 arrests on robbery, assault and other charges
    • He is accused of stabbing a Columbia grad student to death and wounding tourist in mad crime spree
    • Davide Giri, 30, a PhD candidate in computer science at Columbia University, was stabbed to death
    • Italian tourist, Robert Malastina, 27, was wounded in Central Park just 15 minutes after the murder
    • Pinkney was arrested after threatening another man, 29, who was walking in the park with his girlfriend
    • Police said Pinkney, who was out on parole, had 11 prior arrests dating back to 2012
    • The fatal stabbing took place just a block from where Bernard College student Tessa Majors was killed in 2019
    • NYC murders have shot up by 42 per cent since 2019, and overall crime this year is up by more than 3 per cent

    By Keith Griffith and Ronny Reyes | Published: 1:00 EST, 4 December 2021 | Updated: 01:29 EST, 4 December 2021

    The suspect accused of killing a Columbia University grad student and stabbing an Italian tourist in a demented Manhattan crime spree is a career criminal who was out on parole for a gang attack, it has been revealed.

    Vincent Pinkney, 25, was escorted into NPYD Central Booking on Friday night, as hundreds gathered on the South Lawn of Columbia in a vigil for Davide Giri, a PhD candidate in computer science.

    Giri, 30, died around 11pm on Thursday after police say he was stabbed in the stomach by Pinkney, who allegedly went on to wound an Italian tourist, Robert Malastina, 27, outside Central Park before ‘menacing’ another man, 29, with a large kitchen knife as the victim strolled the park with his girlfriend.

    Pinkney is a member of Bloods gang off-shoot, Everybody Killas, who has at least 11 prior arrests dating back to 2012 and was out on parole for a 2015 gang assault, police said.

    He was released from prison in June 2018 after serving a four-year sentence for a brutal attack in which he and three accomplices slashed, punched and kicked a victim in an assault that was caught on camera, according to the New York Post.

    On Friday night, Pinkney was transferred from the 26 Precinct to Central Booking, wearing a white Tyvek jumpsuit.

    The five-foot-five, 140-pound suspect was escorted in handcuffs by two burly NYPD detectives.

    Meanwhile, shocked Columbia students gathered on the school’s central quad for a candlelight vigil honoring Giri a sixth-year doctoral student in the School of Engineering and Applied Science.

That video of Mr Pinkney’s arrest tells you all that you need to know about why The New York Times found the details about the (alleged) killer not to be news which is fit to print. For the journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading in the Times’ newsroom, the ones who forced out liberal columnist Bari Weiss because she just wasn’t #woke enough, the fact that a young, black gang member (allegedly) stabbed to death a white PhD candidate in computer science at an Ivy League college just does not fit Teh Narrative. The leftists who decry ‘mass incarceration’ just can’t deal with the fact that Mr Pinkney should not have been able to stab Mr Giri, because he should have still been behind bars on Thursday night.

I’ve said it before: the problem isn’t mass incarceration, but that not enough people have been incarcerated, for not enough time.

As far as Mr Pinkney is concerned, a 5’5″, 140 lb pipsqueak punk, who (allegedly) proved what a big man he is, he’s looking at spending the rest of his miserable life in prison. If he had been treated more strictly by the state of New York for his past offenses, if he had been given longer sentences for past crimes and still been behind bars last Thursday night, he would still be looking forward to getting out of prison at some point in the future. Yeah, he was stupid Thursday night, almost surely is congenitally stupid, and it would not surprise me if we found out that he was drunk or stoned, but I come around to the fact that those who treated him so leniently in the past — remember: he has eleven previous arrests on his rap sheet — did him no favors.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ 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.
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Being taught about white privilege, by The Philadelphia Inquirer

As a white guy who grew up poor, I will admit to not having accepted the concept of #WhitePrivilege. As a now-resident in eastern Kentucky, a poor area with a population roughly 98% white, it’s sometimes difficult to see a whole lot of white privilege around me. When I lived in Pennsylvania, in Carbon County, 95.4% non-Hispanic white, with most people having to leave the county for a decent job, white privilege sure didn’t seem like a thing to me.

But the good, #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 people of The Philadelphia Inquirer changed my mind. Columnist Helen Ubiñas pointed out, in December of 2020, that the vast majority of homicides reported in the newspaper were just a few paragraphs long, rarely even noting the victims’ names. The Philadelphia Tribune, a publication for the city’s black community, noted that, in 2020, black victims accounted for about 86% of the city’s 499 homicide victims, and 84% of the 2,236 shootings; the city’s population is only 38.3% non-Hispanic black.

What do I see in the Inquirer, a newspaper which publisher Elizabeth Hughes vowed to make “an antiracist news organization”? I see that the paper paid more attention to the accidental killing of Jason Kutt, a white teenager shot at Nockamixon State Park, an hour outside of the city. That’s five separate stories, a whole lot more than the two or three paragraphs most victims get.

Two Philadelphia black women were recently murdered in the city, 32-year-old Jessica Covington and her unborn daughter, as well as that of 24-year-old Sykea Patton, shot in broad daylight in the 800 block of North Preston Street, while walking her sons home from school. The Inquirer, which does love to print more stories when seemingly innocent victims are murdered, had three stories which told readers about the killings of the two women, and the capture of a suspect in one case.

Samuel Sean Collington, photo shared by his mother with Channel 10, and from this tweet. Click to enlarge.

Now comes the murder of Samuel Sean Collington, a Temple University student approaching graduation. Mr Collington was a white victim, allegedly murdered by a black juvenile in a botched robbery. On Thursday, 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 Inquirer 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.

Compared to the coverage the Inquirer gives concerning black victims, that’s some real white privilege there!

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.[2]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.

Did the newspaper’s editors think that no one would notice this? Or is it that the editors have so internalized their own biases that they didn’t realize it themselves?

White privilege? I doubt that this was how the editors wanted to educate others, and me, about what it means, but they sure have done the job well. They have taught me that, to the editors of the Inquirer, white lives matter, and black lives really don’t. Their actions have spoken much more loudly, and more clearly, than their words.

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.

↑2 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.
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Hold them accountable!

Latif Williams, photo by, Philadelphia Police Department, via KYT-TV, Philadelphia.

As we noted just a few days ago, murder is not usually an entry-level crime. Killers usually have a string of leading in crimes, of increasing seriousness, before they finally blow someone’s brains out. And it seems that 17-year-old Latif Williams was having quite the run of criminal activity before he (allegedly) shot Temple University student Samuel Sean Collington to death during a botched carjacking attempt.

I will admit to having gotten it wrong when I stated, “Since juvenile records are normally sealed, we’ll probably never know if he was treated over-leniently by District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.” But it seems that the rules are different when a black juvenile (allegedly) kills a white student, especially one who was well-known and well-liked by several people in the city government:

    Suspect in killing of Temple student Samuel Collington — who had been arrested and released after a July carjacking — surrenders to police

    Latif Williams was in custody earlier this year in connection with a gunpoint carjacking. He was released on house arrest, and charges were later withdrawn when a witness failed to show in court.

    By Anna Orso | Wednesday, December 1, 2021 | 9:12 PM ST

    The teenage suspect in the killing of Temple University student Samuel Collington during a botched carjacking over the weekend surrendered to police Wednesday, officials said in a statement without elaborating.

    Earlier, officials had identified Latif Williams, 17, of Olney, as the person they said shot the 21-year-old Collington on Sunday on the 2200 block of North Park Avenue, near the school’s North Philadelphia campus. The student had just returned after spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his family in Prospect Park, Delaware County.

    Samuel Sean Collington, photo shared by his mother with Channel 10, and from this tweet. Click to enlarge.

    Officials on Wednesday identified Latif Williams, 17, of Olney, as the person they said fatally shot Collington, 21, of Prospect Park, Delaware County, on the 2200 block of North Park Avenue, near the school’s North Philadelphia campus, on Sunday. Investigators said they used video and forensic evidence found at the scene to link Williams to the killing, and law enforcement sources said he is under investigation in connection with several armed robberies in the area.

    Williams was in custody in August after he was charged in a gunpoint carjacking. According to court records, a man told police that late on July 31, he was giving Williams and a second male a ride to a restaurant when Williams pointed a gun at his head and told him to get out of the car. . . .

    Williams was arrested Aug. 14 and charged with aggravated assault, robbery, and related counts. His bail was initially set at $200,000 and he was detained. At a bail hearing less than a week later, Municipal Court Judge Joffie C. Pittman III allowed Williams’ release on unsecured bail, meaning he would need to pay bail only if he violated the terms of his release. Pittman ordered him released on house arrest.

So, Judge Pittman released an accused carjacker, who (allegedly) threatened his victim with a gun, with unsecured bail, which is to say: no bail at all. Mr Williams was released to house arrest, but there is no indication in the Inquirer story that young Mr Williams was placed under electronic monitoring.

    In September, prosecutors dropped the charges before a preliminary hearing at which they would have had to show that there was probable cause to believe Williams had committed a crime.

Note that the prosecution dropped this case well after Judge Pittman released Mr Williams with no bail. The prosecution was dropped because a “key witness” failed to appear. Does the District Attorney’s office make any effort to look up these witnesses before court dates, to get them to appear? We are not told in this story.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: ‘Killadelphia’ D.A. Turned Loose Teen Carjacker Who Murdered Marxist Student

It seems as though, when young Mr Williams was already in custody, law enforcement failed! First we had an idiot judge who basically turned loose a suspect charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault with no bail. Then, when a preliminary hearing was scheduled, the District Attorney’s office failed to ensure that their key witness would be present.

The result? If Mr Williams is indeed the killer, the actions, or inactions, of Judge Pittman and Larry Krasner, directly led to the murder of Mr Collington. If Mr Williams is proven to be the murderer, is there any reason why Judge Pittman and District Attorney Krasner shouldn’t become young Mr Williams’ cellmates? Is there any reason that the “key witness” who failed to appear, whose refusal to provide the evidence needed to keep Mr Williams locked up, shouldn’t be held legally responsible for the murder of Mr Collington?

We need to hold law enforcement officials and judges accountable for the consequences of their decisions! Because nobody stood up and did the right thing, Mr Collington is stone cold graveyard dead.

It’s simple: hold idiotic judges like Mr Pittman, and soft-hearted, soft-headed prosecutors like Mr Krasner, responsible for the consequences of their decisions, and other judges and prosecutors will quickly fall into line.

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Were they not paying attention? It seems that black lives really don't matter to Temple University students

936 West Somerset Avenue, from Google Maps streetview. Click to enlarge.

I will admit it: it has been a long time, over ten years, since I last drove down Broad Street in Philadelphia. At least during that last time, long stretches of Broad Street were the combat zone in the City of Brotherly Love. Now, the Google Maps steetview shows a North Broad Street that has, itself, been fixed up some, but when I look at some of the side streets, like West Somerset Avenue, or 9th Street, things don’t look so hot.

But, though I hate the idiotic term #WhitePrivilege, boy, do some of these Temple University students exhibit it! With 510 homicides in Philadelphia as of 11:59 PM EST on Tuesday, November 30th, the vast majority of which were black victims murdered by black killers, what really, really bothers the Temple students is that a white student was shot to death.

    Temple’s campus is on edge after a student was shot to death: ‘Students are afraid’

    Philadelphia’s growing gun violence and more than 500 homicides, which came painfully close to home for Temple students in the last couple weeks, have put the campus on edge.

    by Susan Snyder and Ellie Rushing | Wednesday, December 1, 2021

    It was an emergency meeting, held one day after the killing of a Temple student outside his apartment in an apparent robbery and carjacking attempt.

    Some student government members who would normally show up in person tuned in to Monday’s meeting by Zoom instead. They didn’t feel comfortable walking at night after Samuel Collington was shot in the middle of the day within a block of campus, said student government president Bradley Smutek.

    “Students are afraid. Parents are afraid. Parents are afraid for students’ safety,” Smutek said.

    Latif Williams, photo by, Philadelphia Police Department, via KYT-TV, Philadelphia.

    Police on Wednesday said they identified a suspect, 17-year-old Latif Williams, in connection with Collington’s killing. As Williams remained at large, Philadelphia’s growing gun violence crisis, with more than 500 homicides this year — including the Nov. 16 shooting death of an 18-year-old three blocks from the North Philadelphia campus — has hit painfully close for Temple students. It has put the campus on edge, and increased the university’s urgency to initiate safety measures to protect its young people.

    Temple president Jason Wingard in an email message to the campus Tuesday night promised over the next days and weeks to increase security, including working with the city Police Department to establish more patrols in nearby student residential areas and aiming to boost the 115-officer campus police force by 50%. The university also intends to upgrade lighting, cameras, and emergency phones and increase the availability of shuttle service and its walking escort program, he said.

There’s a lot more at the original, but look what’s been done here: the Philadelphia Police Department released a prior mugshot of the suspected gunman, a 17-year-old juvenile, when juvenile suspects are almost never named, and their mugshots almost never released. The article noted, further down, that the suspect “was involved in prior crimes,” which would be why the police already had a mugshot of him. Since juvenile records are normally sealed, we’ll probably never know if he was treated over-leniently by District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.[1]Since Mr Krasner has already been in office for four years, unless young Mr Williams was younger than 13 at the time he (allegedly) committed his first offense, it would be Mr Krasner’s office … Continue reading

2700 block of North 9th St, near Temple campus.

There’s a photo accompanying the Philadelphia Inquirer article referenced above, obviously taken during warmer weather, showing us a nice, clean scene, full of (mostly) white students, what appears to be a black attendant beside a service truck, and a (seemingly) black campus police officer on a bicycle, protecting that heavily white campus[2]Temple’s student demographic breakdown: 53.6% white; 12.0% Asian; 12.2% black; 7.1% Hispanic. The 2021 tuition & fees of Temple University are $16,970 for Pennsylvania residents and … Continue reading, students who are now worried because an apparently innocent white student was murdered during what appears to be a robbery.

All of those times that I’ve said that black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer? It seems that those black lives don’t matter to Temple students, either, because they haven’t gotten upset about those 510 mostly black murder victims in the city, but are scared fecesless now that a white student was sent untimely to his eternal reward.

And the University? In a city in which the community hate the police, and many on the left have wanted to defund the Philadelphia Police Department, Temple is planning to increase the 115-officer campus police department by 50%! If there is a clearer example of “a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged” than that, it hasn’t occurred to me!

The left, including many Temple University students, have been shouting #BlackLivesMatter! but, to me, actions speak far more truthfully than words, and to Temple University, black lives haven’t mattered very much.

References

References
↑1 Since Mr Krasner has already been in office for four years, unless young Mr Williams was younger than 13 at the time he (allegedly) committed his first offense, it would be Mr Krasner’s office which handled any prosecution of him.
↑2 Temple’s student demographic breakdown: 53.6% white; 12.0% Asian; 12.2% black; 7.1% Hispanic. The 2021 tuition & fees of Temple University are $16,970 for Pennsylvania residents and $29,882 for out-of-state students. The 2021 graduate school tuition & fees are $17,846 for Pennsylvania residents and $24,236 for others.
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Killadelphia Black lives don't seem to matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer

How many times have I said it? The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl.

A couple of ‘innocents’ have been murdered recently, the killing of Jessica Covington meriting two separate stories, while that of Sykea Patton was mentioned in two stories as well. And now another seemingly innocent person has been gunned down:

    Samuel Sean Collington, photo shared by his mother with Channel 10, and from this tweet. Click to enlarge.

    Temple University student killed in shooting Sunday

    The student was 21 years old.

    by Cassie Owens and Jonathan Lai | Sunday, November 28, 2021

    Samuel Sean Collington, a Temple University student and fellow with the City Commissioner’s Office, died Sunday afternoon shortly after being shot in North Philadelphia.

    The 21-year-old Collington was shot twice in the chest, authorities say. He was pronounced dead around 2 p.m. at Temple University Hospital. Police are still searching for a suspect.

    According to 6abc reporter Bob Brooks, sources told him that a robber attacked the student after he finished parking his car, then killed him. The incident occurred just blocks from the university’s main campus.

There’s considerably more at the original.

I will admit it: I had missed the story in the Inquirer on Sunday, and this tweet of mine was in error; the story is dated on Sunday.

But the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page reported that there have been 506 homicides in the city so far this year, after reporting an even 500 as of 11:59 PM EST on Thanksgiving day. That’s six people who have been sent early to their eternal rewards, and, unless I missed, the Inquirer didn’t mention four of them. Black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mr Collington qualifies, I suppose, as an ‘innocent,’ but also as someone already of note, as you can read in the referenced Inquirer story.

The two women slain on whom the Inquirer reported appear to be innocent victims, as is Mr Collington, but I have to ask: for the anti-racist news organization that publisher Elizabeth Hughes says the Inquirer is, and must be, why don’t we see such stories concerning the vast majority of the murder victims in the city? The vast majority of them are black males, and if #BlackLivesMatter, one would think that the Inquirer would cover them, would send out its reporters to find out and tell the stories. Instead, the paper paid more attention to the accidental killing of Jason Kutt, a white teenager shot at Nockamixon State Park, an hour outside of the city. That’s five separate stories, a whole lot more than the two or three paragraphs most victims get.

Was the life of young Mr Kutt really that much more important than that of the mostly unnamed men and women spilling out their life’s blood on the city’s mean streets? Most of them weren’t 6’5″ forwards for Simon Gratz High School, a leader on the city’s 2019 6A title, but were their lives really worth nothing? Even in death, a young black gang banger’s life can have some lesson for those growing up and somehow idealizing, or fearing, the thug lifestyle. If only Editor Gabriel Escobar would actually send out a reporter or three to investigate.

Then again, perhaps the Editor knows too much already, and doesn’t want to send a reporter out into what could be a life-threatening situation. But, that too, would be a story that ought to be told.

——————————

Update: 6:45 PM EST:

Yup, the Inquirer published a second story on Mr Collington’s murder!

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Guilty until proven innocent That's how the Feds are treating the Capitol kerfufflers

On March 11, 2021, Kenneth Harrelson, 41, allegedly a member of the Oath Keepers, was arrested for his part in the January 6th Capitol kerfuffle.

Federal agents arrested an Army veteran with ties to the far-right Oath Keepers paramilitary group on Thursday on conspiracy and other charges connected to the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Kenneth Harrelson, 41, made his initial appearance in federal court Thursday in Orlando, Fla. He was ordered to be held pending a detention hearing Monday.

Harrelson faces four counts, including obstructing an official proceeding, destruction of government property, entering a restricted building and conspiracy.

He is accused in an FBI affidavit of conspiring with nine individuals, all of whom are affiliated with the Oath Keepers and are facing federal charges for allegedly coordinating to storm the Capitol.

At a hearing in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, prosecutors said they anticipate up to six or more additional defendants could be added to that conspiracy case.

On Friday, November 26th, federal prosecutors once again filed a motion to deny Mr Harrelson’s petition for pretrial release. As of Friday, Mr Harrelson has been kept behind bars for 261 days, which works out to 37¼ weeks, or 8½ months, and he has been convicted of absolutely nothing.

Mr Harrelson is charged with five violations:

  • 18 USC §371: Conspiracy to commit offense or defraud the United States
    • If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
    • If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.
  • 18 USC §§ 1512 (c)(2),2: Obstruction of an Official Proceeding or aiding and abetting
    • (c)(2) Whoever corruptly (or) (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
  • 18 USC §§ 1361: Destruction of Government Property and Aiding and Abetting
    • Whoever willfully injures or commits any depredation against any property of the United States, or of any department or agency thereof, or any property which has been or is being manufactured or constructed for the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or attempts to commit any of the foregoing offenses, shall be punished as follows:
      • If the damage or attempted damage to such property exceeds the sum of $1,000, by a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both;
      • if the damage or attempted damage to such property does not exceed the sum of $1,000, by a fine under this title or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.
  • 18 USC § 175 (a)(1); Knowing Entering or Remaining in any Restricted Building or Ground Without Lawful Authority:
    • Whoever knowingly enters or remains in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority to do so.
    • A misdemeanor conviction punishable by a fine or up to one year imprisonment, or both.
  • 18 USC §§ 1512 (c)(1): Obstruction of an Official Proceeding or aiding and abetting
    • (c) Whoever corruptly
      • (1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or
      • (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.

That final count is for Mr Harrelson allegedly deleting from a cell phone potentially incriminating media, files and communications.

The government has been seriously overcharging the arrested individuals, but note: none of the crimes are crimes of violence, and the government does not allege that Mr Harrelson personally damaged any government property in the third count, only that he aided and abetted others in doing so.

So why are the Feds insisting on keeping Mr Harrelson locked up before he’s brought to trial? He could be fitted with an ankle monitor so law enforcement could keep track of him, and his passport — if he ever had one — taken away. If Mr Harrelson owns any firearms, they could be removed from his home. There is really no reason to keep deny Mr Harrelson reasonable bail, no reason to keep him locked up without being actually convicted of a crime, other than the federal government wanting to punish him before he is convicted of anything. How will Mr Harrelson be compensated for losing almost a year out of his life if he happens to be acquitted?

This ought to be illegal, ought to be unconstitutional, and Mr Harrelson should be released pending his trial.

So far, Mr Harrelson’s trial is set for, maybe, January 31, 2022, but the Feds are concerned that they might not be ready that soon. If Mr Harrelson’s trial starts on January 31, and he is not granted bail, he will have been locked up for 327 days, or 10½ months, without ever having been convicted of anything,

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The mindlessness of the leftist elites Their ideas enable more crime

Seth Rogen is a Canadian comedian, actor, screenwriter, film producer, and voice actor who, according to the site Celebrity Net Worth, has a net worth of $80 million. I suppose that when you can put together 80 million bucks, getting your car broken into and your stuff therein taken, it isn’t really that big a deal to you. Maybe that makes it easier for you to accept the unacceptable, to tolerate the intolerable.

Business Insider noted:

California remains the state with the highest poverty level in the US, according to a September 2021 report from the US Census Bureau.

In the report, three-year poverty level averages were calculated for each state and the District of Columbia using the supplemental poverty measure, which found that 15.4% of California residents lived in poverty from 2018 to 2020. Only the District of Columbia had a higher rate of poverty — 16.5%.

The supplemental poverty measure expands on the official poverty measure, which was developed by Social Security economist Mollie Orshansky in the 1960s, by accounting for cost of living, work and medical expenses, tax credits, and government programs designed to assist low-income families and individuals.

By comparison, California’s three-year poverty level average has considerably decreased from 17.2 % in 2019, and 18.1% in 2018.

It’s worse than just the numbers: the poverty rate in the Pyrite State would be much higher without welfare and the COVID-19 stimulus payments, the latter of which should eventually disappear.

Social Security transfers and stimulus payments prevented a combined 38.2 million individuals across the US from falling into poverty, while medical expenses caused the largest increase of the number of individuals in poverty, according to the Census Bureau report.

Californians benefited the most from government programs like the Earned Income Tax Credit, CalFresh, and Child Tax Credit, each of which lowered poverty rates in California by more than 1% in 2019, research from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) found.

So, if the esteemed Mr Rogen thinks that getting robbed is just “called living in a big city,” maybe he ought to think of those Los Angelenos who don’t have $80 million bucks.

His Wikipedia biography described his politics as very left wing, a description he has used for himself. Yeah, and that might describe his brains as well.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) guesstimated that the city had at least 63,706 homeless persons, blaming “in part, poverty, lack of affordable housing, employment discrimination, substance abuse or mental health challenges, LGBTQ kids who are rejected by family, domestic violence, lack of familial ties, and kids who age out of foster care.” That’s ‘only’ 0.612% of the population of Los Angeles County, but that’s still over 60,000 people having to pee and poop out in the streets, having no safe place to stay, and perhaps living in their cars . . . if they have cars.

Mr Rogen isn’t homeless. He lives on a 10-acre estate in the West Hollywood Hills, having sold, for $2.16 million, another West Hollywood home behind high hedges and a tall, metal fence. ‘Twould seem that, despite his seemingly cavalier attitude toward petty robbery, he does care about security for his property and himself.

And so it is with the City of Brotherly Love. District Attorney Larry Krasner. a George Soros-financed #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 prosecutor who is opposed to “mass incarceration” and who has helped preside over a record 500 homicides in Philadelphia, was recently re-elected by a wide margin, and his votes did not all come from the poor and downtrodden; the well-to-do white liberals in Chestnut Hill voted for him, too.

Why? Like Mr Rogen, despite Philadelphia’s crime rate, the better off Philadelphians are largely insulated from city crime. Those 500 homicides? The vast majority are black, and, as we have noted so many times before, black lives don’t matter to the well-off whites in the city, or at least they don’t if we are to judge by the coverage of The Philadelphia Inquirer. It’s easy for well-to-do white liberals to cling to the oh-so-sympathetic policies, policies which reduce penalties for crime, policies which enable crime, because they are not personally affected by them. They might not have ten acres in the West Hollywood Hills like Mr Rogan, but they have their gated subdivisions, their security systems, and their neighborhoods, let’s be honest here, have few black residents. Philadelphia is highly ‘diverse’ as far as overall population figures are concerned, but far more internally segregated on a by-neighborhood basis.

Seth Rogen is simply a visible symbol, because he posted an incredibly stupid tweet.[2]Because someone a little bit smarter than Mr Rogan might persuade him to delete the tweet, what you see above is a screen capture of it, but if you click on the image, it will take you to the … Continue reading But there are millions more American liberals like him, perhaps not as well-to-do, but mired in the sympathy which enables higher crime rates.

Then they are shocked, shocked! when that crime occurs.

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.

↑2 Because someone a little bit smarter than Mr Rogan might persuade him to delete the tweet, what you see above is a screen capture of it, but if you click on the image, it will take you to the original on Twitter.
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Philadelphia ties for the silver medal! 499 homicides so far in 2021 matches 2020's second place all time murder numbers . . . with 38 days left in the year.

Starting this story at 7:15 AM, it’s a little bit early for the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page to have finished its updates, but the PPD are already listing 499 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. That would tie it for last year’s 499 dead, just one behind the all-time record of 500, set during the crack cocaine gang wars of 1990.

Philadelphia Inquirer overnight breaking news reporter Robert Moran clued me in with a three-paragraph story telling readers that an unidentified man was shot once in the head in the 6200 block of Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philly. Two paragraphs, three sentences, and that’s it, that’s all to sum up a man’s life.

The third paragraph? It pointed out that this was the 499th murder in Philadelphia, and hyperlinked to an Inquirer story from earlier on Tuesday:

    Almost 500 people dead: Philadelphia is about to set a grim record for homicides

    With nearly six weeks remaining in the year, the number of lives lost will likely far exceed the 500 people who were killed in 1990.

    by Anna Orso, Chris Palmer, and Dylan Purcell | Tuesday, November 23, 2021

    Nearly 500 people have been killed in Philadelphia in 2021, putting the city on pace to surpass the record for annual homicides in the coming days.

    Driven largely by skyrocketing rates of gun violence, the number of killings this year will be the highest since at least 1960, which is as far back as the Police Department said it kept statistics on homicides.

    With nearly six weeks remaining in the year, the number of lives lost will likely far exceed the 500 people who were killed in 1990 at the height of the crack-cocaine epidemic — the previous record, and the only other time the city has seen 500 killings in a year.

    And the relentless pace of homicides through Tuesday is 13% more than at the same point in 2020, when shootings swelled amid the global pandemic and the city ended the year with 499 homicide victims. The violence has struck overwhelmingly in underserved communities of color.

Of course, the #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 writers for the inquirer have to come up with a cutesy phrase like “underserved communities of color,” but they’ll never point out that the vast majority of homicides are committed intraracially: black people killing other black people, and white people killing other white people.

It ought to be obvious: if a significant number of blacks in the city had been slain by white suspects, the Inquirer would be all over that story!

The writers referenced the murder of 32-year-old Jessica Covington and her unborn daughter, as well as that of 24-year-old Sykea Patton, shot in broad daylight in the 800 block of North Preston Street, while walking her sons home from school.

Donavan Crawford, mugshot published by WPVI-TV. Click to enlarge.

The Inquirer had a second story on the killing of Miss Covington and her unborn daughter, as well as one on the arrest of Donavan Crawford, 28, of West Philadelphia, for the murder of Miss Patton, his ex-girlfriend. That’s a lot more than we normally see on city homicides, but that’s because Miss Covington, her unborn child, and Miss Patton are innocent victims, and, as we have noted many times before, the Inquirer is concerned about homicides in the city only when the victims are innocents, someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl.

But, for most victims? As columnist Helen Ubiñas noted just 17 days short of a year ago, the vast majority of the murder victims get about as much attention as the unidentified victim at the top of this story.

Just like the McClatchy newspapers, about which we’ve written, decline to publish mugshots of criminal suspects who happen to be black, the Inquirer did not publish the photo of Miss Patton’s suspected killer, but the Philly television stations, including WPVI-TV, channel 6, and KYW-TV, channel 3, did. Why won’t the Inquirer publish straight facts?

    The wave of homicides over the last two years is historically unique. In Philadelphia, other violent crime — including rape and assaults committed without a gun, which were already at decades-long lows — have continued to decline since 2019, even as shootings and killings rose.

This is where the Inquirer truthfully reports the statistics, but never questions them. Murder is not normally an entry-level crime.

There are two different types of crime, crimes of evidence, and crimes of reporting. Murder is a crime of evidence, because it leaves a dead body, and dead bodies get found. It’s hard to dispose of 100 to 300 pounds of dead and decaying flesh and bone and muscle and fat unless someone has carefully planned how to do it.

But assaults, or robberies, or rapes? Assaults and rapes can be crimes of evidence, if the victim goes to the hospital for treatment. But if the victims is not seriously enough injured to seek medical care, or if the rape victim chooses not to report it, then those crimes become crimes of reporting, and if they are not reported to the police, then as far as the police are concerned, as far as the statistics measure, the crimes never happened. Yet, while the statistics vary, it seems that fewer than half of all “violent victimization” are reported to the police, and rape appears to be the least reported crime. According to the survey, only 32.5% or rapes or sexual assaults were reported in 2015, and that dropped to 23.2% the following year.[2]See Table 4. In a city, in communities, in which the vast majority of crimes which are known about go unsolved, why would people who are already distrustful of the police, people who have low expectations that the crimes will actually be solved, even bother reporting the crimes?

And in the City of Brotherly Love, both the George Soros stooge District Attorney, Larry Krasner, and the nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper, have been working as hard as they can to undermine the police!

So, when Anna Orso, Chris Palmer, and Dylan Purcell tell me that “other violent crime — including rape and assaults committed without a gun, which were already at decades-long lows — have continued to decline since 2019, even as shootings and killings rose,” I believe that they are accurately reporting the statistics, but I don’t believe the statistics in the first place, and believe that real journalists ought to investigate what is behind those statistics.

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.

↑2 See Table 4.