Category Archives: Crime

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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.
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The Editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer just can’t wrap their heads around the notion that criminals simply don’t obey the law.

In a surprise to absolutely no one who reads The Philadelphia Inquirer, the editors decided to use the acquittal of Kyle Rittenhouse to call for more gun control. Frist, Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFirePA Education Fund, a gun violence prevention advocacy organization, was given OpEd space:

Amid a spike in shootings, Pa. legislators are giving us the kinds of gun laws that we don’t need

Gov. Wolf is expected to veto a bill that would allow state residents to carry concealed handguns without a permit. That the measure made it this far should alarm us all, writes Adam Garber.

by Adam Garber | Monday, November 22, 2021

Each year, roughly 1,500 Pennsylvanians lose their lives to a rapidly rising epidemic of gun violence. In our city, these deaths are hollowing out a generation of Philadelphians with 60% more shooting victims under 18 so far this year than in all of 2019. There isn’t a part of the commonwealth from York to Erie to Pittsburgh that isn’t seeing the same deadly violence. But instead of debating numerous evidence-based solutions, the Pennsylvania General Assembly voted this month to make our commonwealth an even less safe place to live.

Senate Bill 565, known as permitless carry, would allow anyone over age 18 to carry a loaded, concealed handgun in public without a permit.

Let that sink in a minute.

The person next to you on the subway, at the deli counter, or at the grocery store could have a hidden firearm. Such a law would dismantle the existing concealed carry permit process, which includes enhanced safeguards to help law enforcement ensure concealed firearm carriers do not endanger public safety. It would also allow for open carry of a firearm without a permit in the City of Philadelphia.

There’s more at the original, but Mr Garber’s statement that “The person next to you on the subway, at the deli counter, or at the grocery store could have a hidden firearm” ignores the obvious: in the City of Brotherly Love, the person next to you on the subway, at the deli counter, or at the grocery store might already have a concealed firearm, and not give a hoot that he doesn’t have a permit; he has his weapon because he wants his weapon.

Then there is this, from the Editorial Board:

In Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal, a lesson about laws that allow more guns to be carried in public

Advocating for more people to be armed in more situations does nothing to make Pennsylvania safer.

by The Editorial Board | Monday, November 22, 2021

The story of the night of Aug. 25, 2020, in Kenosha, Wis., is the story of an American dystopia — one that is induced by guns and one that Pennsylvania’s Republican lawmakers seemingly want to move the commonwealth closer toward by allowing permitless concealed carry of firearms.

It’s the story of a nation armed to the teeth.

It’s the story of, in the words of the Black sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois, a “double system of justice, which erred on the white side by undue leniency and the practical immunity of red-handed criminals.”

In the midst of a summer marked by Black Lives Matter protests following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Kenosha police shot and severely injured Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man. The shooting sparked protests nationwide. Two days after the shooting, Kyle Rittenhouse, a 17-year-old white resident of Illinois, arrived in Kenosha armed with an AR-15-style automatic rifle. By night’s end, Rittenhouse had shot three people who’d participated in a protest, killing two.

Another bit of lying by not telling the whole truth. Yes, Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, and Gaige Grosskreutz “participated in a protest”, but Mr Rittenhouse did not shoot them for “participat(ing) in a protest”; he shot them in self-defense because they chased him down and attacked him! Mr Rittenhouse was legally armed; Mr Grosskreutz, who has a concealed pistol, was not; his concealed carry permit had expired. Mr Rittenhouse was there, with his AR-15, because the Mostly Peaceful Protesters had not been quite so peaceful the previous two nights.

Then again, who knows: perhaps the Editorial Board believe, as David S Cohen seems to imply, that arson is a legitimate part of a “racial justice protest.” The Inquirer did, after all fire get Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski to resign over the “Buildings Matter, Too” headline.

In Pennsylvania, there are more than 1,000 people serving life without the possibility of parole despite never having killed anyone — about 70% of them are Black.

Well, that’s true. It is also true that, in 2020, black victims accounted for about 86% of the city’s 499 homicide victims, and 84% of the 2,236 shootings. That 70% of roughly 1,000 people currently serving life without the possibility of parole are black doesn’t seem terribly out of line with the homicide rate among black Philadelphians is so high. The city is just three killings behind 2020’s 499, with five weeks left in the year!

Inquirer reporter Anna Orso reported on a double homicide we mentioned Sunday:

Police are questioning a suspect in the killing of a pregnant woman in Northeast Philadelphia

Authorities said Jessica Covington, 32, was shot multiple times in the head and stomach. Detectives believe she had just left her own baby shower.

by Anna Orso | Monday, November 22, 2021 | Updated: 7:14 PM EST

Philadelphia police were questioning a suspect Monday in the weekend killing of a pregnant woman and her unborn child, but investigators say they were still collecting evidence and charges were not yet filed.

Also see: Killadelphia Update, by Robert Stacy McCain.

Authorities said Jessica Covington, 32, was shot multiple times in the head and stomach just after 8:30 p.m. Saturday on the 6100 block of Palmetto Street in Crescentville, where she lived. Detectives believe she had just left her own baby shower and was unloading gifts from her vehicle when shots rang out.

Joanne Pescatore, assistant supervisor of the homicide and nonfatal shootings unit in the District Attorney’s Office, said Monday that police had identified a suspect, but she would not identify the person or comment on a potential motive. She said investigators had recovered video footage from the block where the shooting occurred, but said several streetlights were out, and the video is “extremely” dark.

Police Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said homicide detectives were conducting “a lot of interviews,” but could not confirm a suspect was among them. He said they were executing search warrants and analyzing other evidence and described the investigation as “very active.”

According to District Attorney Larry Krasner, who said during a news conference that the slaying made him “sick,” it is “very likely” that whoever is charged in connection with the killing will face two counts of murder, one each for the mother and her unborn child. He said homicide detectives “have been working nonstop and doing an amazing job with this case.”

There’s more at the original, including a notation by the reporter that six people had been murdered in Philly over the weekend. According to the Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, there had been only five homicides, but perhaps the police were not counting Miss Covington’s unborn child, where Miss Orso, perhaps influenced by Mr Krasner’s statement, did.

But there’s an obvious question for the Editorial Board: do they think that the only reason Miss Covington could be murdered like that was because her killer had a concealed carry permit? If he didn’t have a permit, would that have meant that he wouldn’t have had a gun?

This is the point that seemingly baffles the left. It’s as though they just can’t wrap their heads around the idea that criminals don’t obey the law, and that if someone was willing to go out and deliberately murder Miss Covington and her unborn daughter — remember: she was shot in both the head and the abdomen, so the unborn child was targeted as well — that someone wouldn’t care one bit that he was carrying his firearm illegally.

—————————–

Update: Tuesday, November 23, 2021 at 8:20 AM EST

The Philadelphia Police Department’s morning tally has city homicides up to 497.

In looking at the Inquirer’s website this morning, I found no stories about anyone being murdered in the city yesterday, so it’s possible that the increase to 497 includes Miss Covington’s unborn daughter, but I don’t know that. What I did find was this ending paragraph from an overnight story by Robert Moran:

Gregory Keleman was charged with murder, attempted murder, and unlawful possession of a weapon.

It seems that Mr Keleman, assuming he is guilty of the charges, didn’t care much about not having a permit to carry a weapon. You’d think that the editors of the Inquirer would notice such things, and they would inform their opinions, but if you did think that, you’d apparently be wrong.

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At what point do purposeful omissions become deliberate lies? The Lexington Herald-Leader, the McClatchy Mugshot Policy, and the attempt to deceive the public

On The First Street Journal, I frequently refer to journolism. 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.

I have done several searches, over time, to find the McClatchy Mugshot Policy written down as an official communique from the company, without success. I have found it specified in this tweet from Nicole Manna, who described herself as an “Investigative reporter for the @StarTelegram focusing on criminal justice. Dog mom. Florida native. Olive enthusiast. Tip me, please: nmanna@star-telegram.com”. I have reproduced the photo of the e-mail, and you can click on the image to enlarge it for easier reading.

The Kansas City Star, a McClatchy newspaper, noted in this article that “The Star’s parent company, McClatchy, announced this summer that it would stop publishing mugshots unless approved by an editor”, but while I was able to copy that much from a Google search, the article is “subscriber-only content”, so I cannot access it. My digital subscription to the Lexington Herald-Leader, another McClatchy newspaper, does not give me access to other company sites.

The Columbia Journalism Review published an article by Cory Hutchins on October 24, 2018, “Mugshot galleries might be a web-traffic magnet. Does that justify publishing them?“, asking if the publication of mugshots of accused but not convicted criminal suspects is ethical; this was before the McClatchy Mugshot Policy went into effect.

On October 20, 2021, the American Press Institute welcomed Kamaria Roberts to the fold, saying in part:

During her time at McClatchy, Roberts served as a co-chair to the news division’s first Advisory Team, which focused on diversity and inclusion efforts in newsrooms and in the content that they produce. In that role, she and nine other colleagues delivered significant recommendations of many consequential initiatives, including McClatchy’s mugshot policy and the company’s style change to capitalize Black in references to people and culture.

Without an official link to the policy from McClatchy itself, that’s the best documentation up with which I can come, but I believe it sufficient to prove the point.

I documented in “The Lexington Herald-Leader does race-based reporting” how the newspaper’s digital version of “2 died in a robbery, gunfight spree in Lexington. Shooter pleads in 1 case” declined to print the mugshot of Jemel Barber, who pleaded guilty to “one of two fatal shootings during a string of robberies and gunfights in Lexington,” while, in “Hour-long standoff at Stanton gas station leads to arrest of sexual assault suspect“, published only four minutes after the update on Mr Barber’s conviction, the paper did publish the mugshot, a very disrespectful looking photo, of Craig Worm, 50, an arrested but not convicted sexual assault suspect.

It was on that story that I left a comment noting that the Herald-Leader has been publishing the photos of white suspects, but not black convicted murderers. Peter Baniak, the editor, certainly has noted the point, as have reporters Chris Leach and Jeremy Chisenhall, but, as of Monday, November 22, 2021, the photo is still on the story.

The paper did not stop when notified: on Thursday, November 18th, the web edition had Christopher Leach’s story, “Kentucky woman ran to neighbor for help. Boyfriend charged over what happened next.“, with this photo of suspect Mark Anthony Hoover, while on Friday, November 19th, Mr Leach’s story “Corbin man charged after allegedly beating father with pipe” included this photo.[1]For documentary purposes, I have included both the original link to the picture as well as my download of it, stored on this site. I do this in case the paper deletes the photo.

This is hardly something that has happened in just the past week or so. I noted, half a year ago, that the Lexington Herald-Leader does not like posting photographs of accused criminals, even when the suspect is an accused murderer and is still at large, and publishing the photo might help the police capture him. something which ought to have triggered the “Is there an urgent threat to the community?” exception in the mugshot policy.

The McClatchy policy states that any exceptions to the general policy of not publishing mugshots “must be approved by an editor.” The newspaper lists four (non-sports) editors who might be responsible for taking such decisions:[2]This list may be out of date; looking at it, I noted that reporter Daniel Desrochers, who has moved on, is still listed, while Christopher Leach, a recent hire, is not.

  • Peter Baniak, Executive Editor and General Manager;
  • Deedra Lawhead, Deputy Editor, Digital;
  • Brian Simms, Deputy Editor, Presentation:, or
  • John Stamper, Deputy Editor, Accountability

So, who is approving printing all of the mugshots of white suspects, or white convicted criminals, yet not wanting those of black suspects or convicted criminals published?

But more important than the “who” is the “why”. The answer to that may be found in The Sacramento Bee, the lead McClatchy newspaper, which led the way on the no mugshot policy. While much of the current policy, as stated, can be found in this article, this paragraph includes something not in the stated policy:

Publishing these photographs and videos disproportionately harms people of color and those with mental illness, while also perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.

It’s that last, “perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community,” that is the key. The Herald-Leader, or so it seems to me, does not want to perpetuate those stereotypes, and, whether intentionally or otherwise, seems to be trying to reverse those stereotypes. From the Bee again:

(T)he San Francisco Police Department earlier this month announced it will no longer release mugshots, unless the public is in imminent danger.

“This policy emerges from compelling research suggesting that the widespread publication of police booking photos in the news and on social media creates an illusory correlation for viewers that fosters racial bias and vastly overstates the propensity of Black and brown men to engage in criminal behavior,” Police Chief William Scott said in a statement.

I will admit it: I fail to see how publishing the facts “overstates” anything.

The Lexington Police Department’s Shooting investigations page reports, as of November 19, 2021, 120 non-fatal shootings in Fayette County. That page lists the race of the victims, something the Homicides page does not.

Of 120 shooting victims, 19 are listed as white, 11 as Hispanic, leaving 90 victims being listed as black. That’s an even 75.00%, in a city that the 2020 Census lists as being only 14.7% black. While the number of shootings which have resulted in arrests is really too low from which to draw numbers, we do know that most murders and attempted murders are intraracial, not interracial, in nature. In the vast majority of cases, white people kill other white people, and black people kill other black people. Unless there has been a substantial deviation from that norm, something which neither the Herald-Leader nor any other Kentucky media have reported, 75% of all shootings in the city having black victims means that a similarly high percentage of the shooters are black as well.

So what are the editors of that newspaper doing? Whether intentionally or otherwise, the paper’s coverage of crime and their choices in which photos to use appear to be aimed at persuading readers that the perpetrators of crimes in the region are primarily white. While in the eastern Kentucky areas of the Herald-Leader’s circulation area, that’s probably true, given that the percentage of the population in that area is very low, when you get to the city of Lexington, the numbers say that no, that’s not the case.

This is journolism, not journalism, this is the skewing of information to produce a false impression. If the editors are aware of what is being done in the newspaper and website they control, they are deliberately lying to their readers; if the editors are somehow not aware of what they have been doing, then they are not competent in doing their jobs, and need to be replaced.

 

References

References
↑1 For documentary purposes, I have included both the original link to the picture as well as my download of it, stored on this site. I do this in case the paper deletes the photo.
↑2 This list may be out of date; looking at it, I noted that reporter Daniel Desrochers, who has moved on, is still listed, while Christopher Leach, a recent hire, is not.
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Killadelphia A Philadelphia woman and her unborn child are deliberately murdered

I am stunned that this story is still listed on the main page of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, but, then again, ‘innocents’ appear to be the victims in this case, and I’ve often said that the inquirer editors only care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love if an innocent, a “somebody“, or a cute little white girl is the victim:

    Pregnant woman fatally shot; her unborn child also dies

    The 32-year-old woman, who was seven months pregnant, was shot in the head and stomach around 8:30 p.m. on the 6100 block of Palmetto Street in what police say appears to have been a targeted hit.

    by Diane Mastrull | Sunday, November 21, 2021

    A pregnant woman and her unborn child were killed Saturday night in a shooting in Philadelphia’s Crescentville section that police say appears to have been a targeted hit.

    The 32-year-old woman, who was seven months pregnant, was unloading baby shower gifts from a Kia Soul when she was shot in the head and stomach around 8:30 p.m. on the 6100 block of Palmetto Street, police said.

WPVI-TV had a longer report. The victims were shot multiple times, something the Inquirer story does not make clear. One witness said he heard seven shots, while the Philadelphia Police collected eleven shell casings. And while the police said that they did not have a motive, shooting a seven-month pregnant woman in the head and stomach, apparently several times each, means that it was definitely intended to kill the unborn child as well.

Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, under whose regime the city has gone from the 280 homicides in Michael Nutter’s last year, 2015, to 277, then 315, 353, 356, and 499 last year, is having the city offer a reward, but notice his wording: he refers to “the victim’s loved ones,” not “the victims’ loved ones”. In this, he betrays the fact that he sees this as only one homicide, and not two. But, then again, he’s a Democrat, so an unborn child doesn’t really count.

I wonder whether the Philadelphia Police Department will count this as one or two killings.
___________________________

Updated: 5:10 PM EST

The Inquirer story was updated at 4:25 PM:

    While police did not update Philadelphia’s official homicide tally over the weekend, the fatal shooting on Saturday night would bring the total slain so far this year to about 494 — a toll already 13% higher than as of the same date last year.

    With murders running at an average rate of more than 50 a month this year, there is little doubt that the total number killed in Philadelphia in 2021 will exceed 500. This would be a grim milestone, topping the previous highest tally of 500 in 1990 when crack was new and turf wars among dealers were unusual.

Actually, there’s little doubt that they’ll top 500 by the end of November! But at least the Inquirer has noticed.

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A Drexel law professor claims that Rittenhouse verdict enables shooting “racial justice protesters”

David S Cohen is a professor Thomas R. Kline school of law at Philadelphia’s Drexel University, and perhaps that explains things; he’s getting too much of his information from the wildly slanted Philadelphia Inquirer. In addressing the verdicts in the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse, he wrote, in Rolling Stone:

    The Rittenhouse Verdict and a Supreme Court Case Could Spell an ‘Open Season’ on Protesters

    After the ruling, it’s clear that anyone who protests against racial injustice risks being killed without consequence

    by David S. Cohen[1]At least to judge by Mr Cohen’s Twitter entries, he’s a very hard-left liberal. | Friday, November 20, 2021 | 5:45 PM EST

    Today, Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on all charges after killing two people and wounding another while he was conducting his own armed vigilante patrol of Kenosha, Wisconsin, in response to Black Lives Matter protests. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case about whether people have a constitutional right to concealed-carry permits.

    Why am I talking about these two things together? Because in combination, these two cases could mean that it is soon going to be open season on racial-justice protesters around the country.

    The Rittenhouse verdict is obviously very concerning for racial-justice protesters. Rittenhouse said he went to Kenosha the night of Aug. 25, 2020, to protect property. He did so by openly brandishing a semi-automatic rifle through the streets of the city in the midst of unrest over the shooting of Jacob Blake. While patrolling the streets, there was gunfire that resulted in some of the Black Lives Matter protesters thinking Rittenhouse was attacking them. They charged Rittenhouse, and he opened fire, killing Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber and injuring Gaige Grosskreutz.

In this, Mr Cohen admitted that the shootings of Messrs Rosenbaum, Huber and Grosskreutz were not because they were “racial justice protesters,” but because they “charged” Mr Rittenhouse. Mr Cohen omits, of course, the fact that they did more than “charge” toward Mr Rittenhouse, but they assaulted him as well. Mr Rosenbaum yells, “F*** you!” and dove for Mr Rittenhouse’s weapon. Mr Huber, after Mr Rosenbaum falls wounded and dying, charges at Mr Rittenhouse, and, after Mr Rittenhouse falls to the ground after being struck by an unidentified person in a white shirt, Mr Huber starts to beat Mr Rittenhouse with a skateboard. Mr Huber grabs the barrel of Mr Rittenhouse’s weapon, and Mr Rittenhouse then pulls the trigger, killing Mr Huber. Mr Grosskreutz then charges at Mr Rittenhouse, and, according to his own testimony, pointed his handgun at Mr Rittenhouse, who then shoots Mr Grosskreutz in the arm.

Mr Cohen equates all of that with simply being a “racial justice protester.”

Unless, that is, what the Left is really against is law enforcement, per se. — Robert Stacy McCain.

In the infamous screen grab from CNN, with the chyron “Fiery but mostly peaceful protests”, we can see that the “racial justice protests” are not just marchers carrying signs, but some are criminals committing arson. If all the “racial justice protesters” had been peaceful, had just been carrying signs and chanting, there wouldn’t have been any perceived need for people to defend their property. Remember: Mr Rittenhouse’s actions were on the third day of the protests, not the first.

Mr Rittenhouse was not tried for shooting someone throwing a Molotov cocktail, or someone marching and carrying a sign, or someone yelling or chanting slogans or screaming into the night; he was tried, and acquitted, for shooting three people in self-defense. Does Mr Cohen believe that people should lose their right to defend themselves just because there is a “racial justice protest” somewhere in the neighborhood? Does Mr Cohen believe that arson is a legitimate part of “racial justice protests”?

Well, being in the Philadelphia area, maybe he does, given that The Philadelphia Inquirer, the nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper, fired Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski for entitling an article “Buildings Matter Too”, in reference to the arson being committed in the City of Brotherly Love during the “racial justice protests” following the death of drug-addled convicted felon George Floyd during his arrest in Minneapolis. Many of the buildings damaged or destroyed in the Philadelphia “racial justice protests” were in the more heavily black areas of the city.

In one regard, Mr Cohen was using the Rittenhouse case verdict as his lead in for his real message: he is very concerned about the Supreme Court case of New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, in which the petitioners were denied permits to carry firearms in New York outside of one’s home. New York allows only restricted reasons as sufficient for such permits, and simply living in a high crime area is not considered a sufficient reason.

Mr Cohen makes the specious argument that, if the Court rules in favor of people’s Second Amendment rights rather than state restrictions, everyone will be armed and peaceful protesters at “racial justice protests” will be in grave danger:

    What this means in conjunction with the Rittenhouse verdict is very scary for all, but especially for racial-justice protesters everywhere. With a proliferation of concealed-carry permits and a sense among the far right after today’s verdict that they have the freedom to patrol racial-justice protests and act as vigilantes, the court system’s message couldn’t be clearer — anyone who protests against racial injustice risks taking their lives into their own hands.

Of course, the Rittenhouse case was not about that at all. Mr Rittenhouse was legally armed, under the laws of the state of Wisconsin, without the Court having decided on the New York case, and Mr Rittenhouse did not simply open fire on “racial justice protesters.” He defended himself against assailants, after having first retreated and been chased. Rather, it was Mr Grosskreutz who was armed illegally, carrying a concealed weapon after his permit for such had expired. It was the “racial justice protester” who was illegally armed, not Mr Rittenhouse.

Mr Cohen does not seem to like people being legally armed, and claims that they will kill people, and target “racial justice protesters.” However, as of the end of Thursday, November 18th, in Philadelphia, where Mr Cohen works, 491 souls had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards, the vast majority — if not all — of them by people who did not have concealed carry permits, the vast majority of them possessing firearms illegally. 491 ÷ 322, the number of days elapsed so far in 2021, = 1.5248 homicides per day, not in any “racial justice protests,” but in criminal acts, in intentional murders. 1.5248 x 365 days in the year = 556.552 projected homicides for the city for the year.

And it gets worse. Despite the long, hot summer having reached its traditional end after the Labor day holiday, there have been 128 homicides in Philadelphia since the end of Labor Day, September 6th, 128 homicides in 73 days, 1.7534 per day, meaning that the pace of killings has gotten even worse, and you can bet your bottom euro that very few, if any, of those homicides were committed by someone who possessed a firearm legally. We have already noted the very personal Inquirer OpEd piece by Temple University Hospital trauma nurse Ruqiyya Greer, pointing out that the vast majority of homicide victims in the City of Brotherly Love are black, while on Friday, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong noted the same thing, and how four black female juvenile students attacked Asian female students on a SEPTA train in a racially motivated incident.

Of course, the “racial justice protesters” in Kenosha were mostly white, simply because Kenosha County population is roughly 87.2% white, and 75.4% are non-Hispanic white. The assailants who attacked and were shot by Mr Rittenhouse were all white, though “Jump Kick Man,” if the identification of him as Maurice Freeland is correct, is black. The problem for Mr Cohen’s argument is simple: it has been the “racial justice protesters” who have been the violent ones, the criminal ones, in the vast majority of the cases. Unless Mr Cohen believes that arson and attacking bystanders or opponents, as the mostly white Antifa protesters did for much of the summer of 2020, are legitimate parts of “racial justice protests,” then his arguments completely fall apart. And if he does believe that such actions are legitimately part of such protests, then there’s just no help for him.

References

References
↑1 At least to judge by Mr Cohen’s Twitter entries, he’s a very hard-left liberal.