Category Archives: Culture

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When supposedly responsible people make irresponsible promises

Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff, image from her campaign website. Click to enlarge.

That The Philadelphia Inquirer would not like a law-and-order Democrat like Rebecca Rhynhart McDuff[1]Even though married to a man named David McDuff, Mrs McDuff has not shown him the respect of taking his name. As stated in our Stylebook, at The First Street Journal we do not show similar disrespect … Continue reading is not much of a surprise. In an article published on February 15th on the four women running for the Democratic nomination for Mayor, she was listed last — which does happen when listed in alphabetical order — though the Inky did give her more words, 244, than Helen Gym Flaherty, 233, the #woke progressive who will probably be favored by the newspaper’s Editorial Board.

What Mrs McDuff posts as her campaign promises actually sounds reasonable, right up until it hits up against political reality:

Most shootings in Philadelphia are perpetrated with illegal firearms. Though the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania prevents Philadelphia from passing its own gun laws, it is within our legal authority to prosecute individuals possessing guns illegally. The Rhynhart Administration will aggressively pursue those trafficking illegal guns into our city, working in conjunction with law enforcement partners.

Recently, Philadelphia Police have been arresting more people for carrying illegal guns, but prosecutions have not kept pace. As Mayor, Rhynhart will convene a task force with the District Attorney’s Office, the Philadelphia Police, and the courts to review illegal firearm cases and ensure all three arms of the criminal justice system work cooperatively to eliminate illegal firearms from our streets.

The District Attorney is not a subordinate official to the Mayor, but is independently elected on his own, and the current DA, Larry Krasner, does not want to prosecute people for carrying “illegal guns,” and has said so openly:

“With so many guns available,” Krasner says, “a law enforcement strategy prioritizing seizing guns locally does little to reduce the supply of guns, and, if it entails increasing numbers of car and pedestrian stops, has the potential to be counterproductive by alienating the very communities that it is designed to help.” He notes that “people of color are disproportionately stopped in Philadelphia and arrested for illegal gun possession in Philadelphia and statewide.” African Americans, who represent 44 percent of Philadelphia’s population, account for about 80 percent of people arrested for illegal gun possession in the city.

The city’s George Soros-sponsored defense attorney now serving as chief prosecutor apparently cannot conceive of the notion that a higher percentage of blacks than whites are arrested for illegal firearms possession because perhaps, just perhaps, a higher percentage of black Philadelphians than whites are carrying guns illegally. Given that the vast majority of shooting and homicide victims in the city are black, you’d think he could figure that out on his own.

“Focusing so many resources on removing guns from the street while a constant supply of new guns is available is unlikely to stop gun violence, but it does erode trust and the perceived legitimacy of the system,” Krasner writes. “This in turn decreases the likelihood that people will cooperate and participate in the criminal legal system and associated processes, reducing clearance, conviction, and witness appearance rates.”

Krasner highlights an oddity of Pennsylvania law that compounds the racially disproportionate impact of arrests for illegal gun possession. For Pennsylvanians generally, carrying a concealed weapon without a license is a first-degree misdemeanor, punishable by up to five years in jail and/or a maximum fine of $10,000. For Philadelphia residents, the same offense justifies an additional misdemeanor charge. As a local law firm explains, the combination of those two charges is “almost always graded as a felony,” which means “it may carry significant jail time even for defendants who do not have a prior criminal record.”

That Mr Krasner and his office could, if they so chose, not pursue the additional misdemeanor charge went unspoken, but given that city officials have long sought to be able to pass stricter gun control measures for Philadelphia, the whole thing becomes laughable: the District Attorney wouldn’t prosecute them anyway.

Yet Mrs McDuff just airily brushes that concern aside.

Sadly, it gets worse, which was my inspiration for this article. In this tweet, Mrs McDuff says, directly, “As your Mayor, I will reduce this homicide rate, I will cut it in half within my first term, from over 500 to under 250, where it was seven years ago.”[2]Direct quote from her spoken words, rather than the reduced version in the heading of the tweet.

At this point, I would note that even under Mayor Michael Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams, and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, the number of homicides was not cut from the 391 in the year before he took office to “under 250,” 246 to be precise, in his first term, but his sixth year in office, and that Administration had far less of a reduction to get under 250.

Mrs McDuff has promised to do something unprecedented. If she wins, will she decline to run for a second term if she fails to meet that first term promise?

References

References
↑1 Even though married to a man named David McDuff, Mrs McDuff has not shown him the respect of taking his name. As stated in our Stylebook, at The First Street Journal we do not show similar disrespect to husbands, and always refer to married women by their married names.
↑2 Direct quote from her spoken words, rather than the reduced version in the heading of the tweet.
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Secular liberalism has infected religion, and liberal religion has infected secular politics

And here I thought that Catholic bishops and priests were supposed to be guided by the Bible in which they have professed belief!

On same-gender blessings specifically, (Bishop Helmut) Dieser (of Aachen, Germany) challenged the Vatican’s ban on them, saying priests and other pastoral ministers should be guided by their consciences when deciding on whether to bless couples.

Diocese Promotes Valentine’s Day Blessings with Photo of Queer Couple Kissing

Continue reading →

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You can never solve a problem unless you admit what the problem is, and Philly’s Democrats won’t do that

As we noted on Friday, with “(N)early thirty” spent shell casings — and an Inquirer photo shows a #29 evidence marker at the shell casings — and three shooters, and everyone is going to know that this was a targeted hit intended for one or more of the victims, and this is Philly same old, same old. Of course we were right!

The Strawberry Mansion shooting that wounded 7 was a targeted attack that hit bystanders — including a 2-year-old and her mother

Surveillance footage shows the three black-clad masked shooters firing at the teenagers, as bystanders flee stray bullets.

by Rodrigo Torrejón, Oona Goodin-Smith, and Chris Palmer | Friday, February 24, 2023 | 11:02 PM EST

The shooting that wounded seven people Thursday evening in Philadelphia’s Strawberry Mansion neighborhood appeared to be a targeted attack between three shooters and a group of teenagers — with stray bullets injuring a 2-year-old girl and her mother — police said Friday. The gunmen remain at large.

It occurred shortly before 6 p.m. as the group of four teens rounded the corner of 31st and Norris Streets, in front of a beer distributor and half a block from James G. Blaine School.

Surveillance footage shows that as the group turned the corner, three black-clad masked shooters hopped out of a silver Hyundai parked in front of the beer shop and began to shoot at the teenagers using at least one gun with an extended clip — peppering the street with gunfire. . . . .

Police said Friday they are still searching for three shooters and a gray, four-door Hyundai Elantra, possibly a model from 2011 to 2016, with an unknown Pennsylvania license plate. Police said it wasn’t immediately clear why the group of teens was targeted.

“It wasn’t immediately clear why the group of teens was targeted”? Bovine feces! It is crystal clear: one group had a beef with another, and in Philadelphia’s normal culture under Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, beefs among the gang-bangers “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families” are settled with bullets. It wouldn’t be quite so bad if the bad guys underprivileged young men from neighborhoods depressed by years of housing ‘redlining’ and economic disinvestment were better shots and only struck their intended victims. Continue reading →

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Killadelphia: Once again, The Philadelphia Inquirer tries to obscure the truth. Philly's "cliques of young men" are some really lousy shots!

According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, there have been 68 people murdered in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, February 23rd, four more than the previous day’s report.

The Twitter site Philly Crime Update reported on two of them, which was more than our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, The Philadelphia Inquirer, did. The Inky did, however, have a big story on a multiple shooting in which no one was killed, because it was near a school:

7 people, including a 2-year-old girl and 5 teenagers, were shot in Strawberry Mansion

The gunfire erupted just after 5:50 p.m. at 31st and Norris Streets, police said. Three shooters remained at large, police said.

by Robert Moran, Ellie Rushing, and Kristen A. Graham | Thursday, February 23, 2023 | 10:48 PM EST

Seven people, including a 2-year-old girl and five teenagers, were wounded in a shooting Thursday evening near a school in the city’s Strawberry Mansion section, police said.

The gunfire erupted just after 5:50 p.m. on the northeast corner of 31st and Norris Streets in front of a beer distributor, said police, who provided the following information on the victims:

  • 2-year-old black female who was shot in her left thigh, transported by private vehicle with a police escort to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, listed in stable condition.
  • 15-year-old male, race not specified, shot twice in the chest and once in the right side of his body was transported to Temple University Hospital, listed in critical condition.
  • 13-year-old black male shot in his left hand, transported to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, listed in stable condition.
  • 16-year-old black male shot in his left arm, transported to Temple University Hospital, listed in stable condition.
  • 16-year-old black male shot in his right arm and left leg was taken by medics to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, reported in stable condition.
  • 17-year-old black male with a graze wound to his thigh was transported by Uber to Thomas Jefferson, reported in stable condition.
  • 31-year-old black female, was shot twice in the left leg, transported to Temple, listed in stable condition.

Except that, nope, what I listed above was the information actually provided by the police. What the Inquirer published was:

A 2-year-old girl who was shot in her left thigh was transported by private vehicle with a police escort to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where she was listed in stable condition.

A 15-year-old boy shot twice in the chest and once in the right side of his body was transported to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

A 13-year-old boy shot in his left hand also was transported to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where he was listed in stable condition.

A 16-year-old boy shot in his left arm also was taken to Temple and was reported in stable condition.

Another 16-year-old boy shot in his right arm and left leg was taken by medics to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He was reported in stable condition.

A 17-year-old boy with a graze wound to his thigh was transported by Uber to Thomas Jefferson and was reported in stable condition.

The seventh victim, a 31-year-old woman, was shot twice in the left leg. She was listed in stable condition at Temple.

Note that the newspaper deliberately scrubbed all references to race from their story. It’s nice to have the direct confirmation of what I have been saying, that the Inky has been deliberately censoring the information they have received, in order to fulfill publisher Elizabeth Hughes’ dictate that the newspaper will be an “anti-racist news organization,” but at some point, I’ve got to ask: who do they think they’re fooling? It’s Strawberry Mansion, and anybody who knows anything about Philly will simply assume that the victims are black.

Of course, it wasn’t just the victims about whom the Inky censored information:

Late Thursday night, police said they were looking for three shooters and a gray 4-door Hyundai Elantra, possibly a model year from 2011 to 2016, with an unknown Pennsylvania license plate.

The Inquirer printed the same images that Philly Crime Update had received from the police, but the newspaper censored the fact that all three suspects are black males, another thing that almost all readers would suspect. “(N)early thirty” spent shell casings — and an Inquirer photo shows a #29 evidence marker at the shell casings — and three shooters, and everyone is going to know that this was a targeted hit intended for one or more of the victims, and this is Philly same old, same old. The police will interrogate the victims, to attempt to find out which one had been the real target, though it’s always possible that the intended victim will clam up, expecting street justice from other members of his crew.

One final point: at least 29 rounds fired, and the gang-bangers “clique of young men”[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading didn’t actually kill anyone? Philly’s “cliques of young men” are some really rotten shots!

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“
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Another soft-on-crime “progressive” prosecutor gets in trouble

With some major cities saddled by George Soros-sponsored “progressive” chief prosecutors, law enforcement officials whose goals are not to protect the public, but to keep criminals out of jail, sensible people have been trying to take action. Endorsed by such liberal luminaries as as Senatore Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Cooks County State Attorney Kim Foxx, and Philadelphia’s District Attorney Larry Krasner, Chesa Boudin won the race for District Attorney in San Francisco:

Boudin campaigned for the office on a decarceration platform of eliminating cash bail, establishing a unit to re-evaluate wrongful convictions, and refusing to assist Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with raids and arrests. The San Francisco Police Officers Association (SFPOA) and other law enforcement groups spent $650,000 in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Boudin. Attorney General William Barr criticized Boudin and like-minded DAs, accusing them of undermining the police, letting criminals off the hook, and endangering public safety. In an interview during the COVID-19 pandemic, Boudin questioned whether the nation “can safely continue the national system of mass incarceration. Why do we need to take people to jail for non-violent offenses if what they really need is drug treatment or mental health services?”

Even liberal San Franciscans had had enough, and Mr Boudin lost his position in a recall election on June 7, 2022.

Let ’em Loose Larry Krasner, about whom we’ve written numerous times, doesn’t have to worry about a recall election; there is no provision in Pennsylvania law for such a thing. The Pennsylvania state House of Representatives impeached Mr Krasner, but the state Senate has not yet held the trial, and it’s being held up by legal issues.

Now we have this, from the St Louis Post-Dispatch:

Missouri attorney general’s ultimatum to Kim Gardner: Resign or face removal from office

Jack Suntrup | Ash Wednesday, February 22, 2023

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey said late Wednesday that St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner would face removal from office if she didn’t resign by noon Thursday.

Bailey, a Republican, said he would initiate “quo warranto” proceedings to remove Gardner if she didn’t quit.

Under the Missouri state Constitution, quo warranto may be used to remove officials not subject to impeachment from office. The state The Supreme Court has jurisdiction to hear quo warranto proceedings to remove county officer. State ex rel. Danforth v. Orton (Mo.), 465 S.W.2d 618.

The announcement adds to mounting pressure facing Gardner, a Democrat, after a 17-year-old volleyball player from Tennessee lost her legs in an accident involving a man out of jail with pending robbery charges.

Gardner’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday evening.

Former Attorney General Chris Koster, a Democrat, used the manuever to seek the removal of the Dent County prosecutor in 2009. The action centers around whether a person has forfeited the legal right to hold public office.

“As Attorney General, I want to protect the people of St. Louis, and that includes protecting victims of crime and finding justice for them,” Bailey said in a statement Wednesday night.

St Louis city only recently lost it’s status as the murder capital of America, to New Orleans, but it’s still right at the top. With an even 200 homicides in 2022, and a guesstimated population of 293,310, the Gateway City has a homicide rate of 68.19 per 100,000 residents.

“Instead of protecting victims, Circuit Attorney Gardner is creating them. My office will do everything in its power to restore order, and eliminate the chaos in St. Louis caused by Kim Gardner’s neglect of her office.”

Bailey said Gardner “has a long history of failure to prosecute violent crime, with a backlog of at least 3,000 cases.

“It is time for the Circuit Attorney to go and for the rule of law and justice to prevail,” he said.

The Associated Press reported:

Daniel Riley, photo via Fox 17 WZTV Nashville. Click to enlarge.

The Missouri attorney general called Wednesday for the resignation of St. Louis’ elected prosecutor, after a motorist who repeatedly violated his bond conditions on earlier charges crashed and injured a teenage volleyball player from Tennessee, resulting in amputation of both of her legs.

The case has renewed criticism of Democratic St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner amid questions about why the driver wasn’t behind bars after court records showed more than 50 violations of bond conditions. . . . .

Police said Daniel Riley, 21, an unlicensed driver, was speeding and failed to yield at an intersection when his vehicle hit another car that then struck (Janae Edmondson, a 16-year-old player in town for a volleyball tournament). Riley was out on bond after a 2020 robbery charge that was dismissed and re-filed last year.

His bond violations included letting his GPS monitor die and breaking terms for his house arrest, according to court records, which show he violated bond at least seven times since Feb. 1, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

Court officials said they didn’t know Riley had violated his bond because prosecutors had never filed a motion to revoke it.

Emphases mine.

Let me be clear about this: Janae Edmonson has lost her legs directly due to the negligence and outright disregard for her duty by Circuit Attorney Gardner. If Miss Gardner and her minions had done their duty, Miss Edmonson would be able to walk today.

This is the kind of thing which ‘progressive’ prosecutors’ policies yield. Leaving criminals out on the streets, ignoring even the smaller crimes, such as Mr Riley’s (allegedly) violating his bond conditions, results in tragedies for innocent people.
_________________________________
Also posted on American Free News Network. Check out American Free News Network for more well written and well reasoned conservative commentary.

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Are dog lives more important to “animal rights activists” than defending your own dog, and yourself, from an attacking dog?

We noted on Tuesday how The Philadelphia Inquirer paid more attention to the shooting of a dog than the newspaper usually does when people are killed. Well, here they go again!

Who is Jacqueline Maguire, the FBI’s top agent in Philly facing scrutiny for fatally shooting a dog in Center City?

The head of Philadelphia’s FBI field office is facing an investigation after she shot and killed a pit bull outside a Center City apartment building Monday evening.

by Jeremy Roebuck | Ash Wednesday, February 22,2023 | 5:55 PM EST

The shooting of a pit bull by an off-duty FBI agent on a busy Center City street this week has sparked an uproar on social media and protests by animal rights activists outside the FBI’s offices on Arch Street.

The Inquirer gave us 687 words in the story, exclusive of the headline, subtitle, story byline, and not one but two photos of Jacqueline Maguire.

Here’s what we know about the incident, the agent involved, and what happens next:

Philadelphia police and the FBI have confirmed that an off-duty FBI agent shot “an aggressive dog” outside the Touraine apartment tower on the 1500 block of Spruce Street on Monday. But so far, they haven’t named the agent involved, citing FBI protocol that governs the bureau’s response whenever an agent is involved in a shooting.

Two sources familiar with the investigation identified the shooter as Jacqueline Maguire, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Philadelphia Field Office. The dog’s owner, Maria Esser, said her 7-year-old pit bull, Mia, died within moments of being shot.

So, neither the Philadelphia Police nor the FBI released Miss Maguire’s name, citing policy, but the Inky had to dig deep and find out from inside sources.

Naturally, the Police and FBI have procedures through which they have to go during their investigations.

Security cameras outside the apartment building captured footage of the shooting. And while police have not publicly released the video, one source who reviewed the tape described it to The Inquirer on Tuesday.

According to the source, who was not authorized to publicly discuss details of the ongoing probe, the video shows Maguire sitting on a bench with her small dog in her lap as a woman walking two other dogs passed by. One of the dogs — Mia — suddenly dragged her owner toward Maguire, snatched the small dog off the agent’s lap, and began aggressively shaking it, the source said.

Maguire threw herself into the fight and tried to separate the animals, eventually drawing her weapon and placing it directly against the pit bull’s hindquarters before firing, the source said.

The pit bull’s owner claimed that Agent Maguire’s use of force was a “reckless” disregard for safety, for the dog, and bystanders. I don’t know about you, but if I was trying to save my dog from a larger, attacking animal, I would call that, if accurately described, a reasonable use of force. Actually, from the description, which matched a statement by Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore, I would say that Maria Esser, the pit bull’s owner, could face charges for losing control of a dangerous animal.

(Miss Esser) and animal rights activists who gathered to protest Tuesday outside of the FBI’s offices on Arch Street are calling for Maguire to be held accountable.

Really? For defending her dog, and herself, from Miss Esser’s (allegedly) out of control dog?

In the meantime, Philly’s homicide total went from 62 Monday night to 63 Tuesday night, but there were no stories at all on that killing, in either the Inquirer’ website main page or specific crime page.

Yup, we know what’s more important to the Inky!

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Are dog lives more important than humans in Philadelphia?

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page has reported that 62 Philadelphians have been sent untimely to their eternal rewards as of 11:59 PM EST on Monday, February 20th. While that number is lower than the same date in 2021 and 2022, it’s higher than in 2020, which saw 499 ‘official’ homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. And, as we have reported frequently, very few of those killings — other than the fatal shooting of Temple Police Officer Christopher Fitzgerald, allegedly by a privileged punk kid from Bucks County — have received much press coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer, our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, and the newspaper of record for the entire area.

Well, this morning, the newspaper I have frequently called The Philadelphia Enquirer[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. showed us just what shootings in the city are really important!

Off-duty FBI agent shoots dog in Center City

The incident occurred Monday evening on the 1500 block of Spruce Street. It was not immediately known if the dog survived.

by Robert Moran | Tuesday, February 21, 2023 | 7:38 AM EST

An off-duty FBI agent shot a dog outside a Center City apartment building Monday, the FBI and Philadelphia police said.

Video posted on social media showed the aftermath of the incident on the sidewalk in front of the Touraine residential high-rise on the 1500 block of Spruce Street.

The special agent was walking a small dog when she encountered at least one other person walking two dogs, according to witnesses. A fight broke out involving the three dogs.

It was not immediately known if the dog that was shot survived. The FBI did not identify the agent.

At the end of the story:

Animal rights organization Revolution Philly is planning to protest the animal shooting in front of FBI headquarters at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

“This woman is a trained professional and a dog owner. Her first reaction shouldn’t be to shoot first,” said Revolution Philly organizer Tiffany Stair in a statement. “This is unacceptable and we are demanding that she be held accountable.”

The entire article, exclusive of the headline, subheading, photos, and byline, was 237 words over nine paragraphs, a lot longer than the usual reports of killings.

Polar Bear, the Great Pyrenees who is trying to move in with us.

We have two dogs ourselves, and a third, a 150 lb Great Pyrenees we have named Polar Bear, who is trying to move in with us. If we didn’t know his actual human, who lives ¾ mile away from us, we’d let him, but his real human loves him. Bear loves our dogs, and us, more than his human. So, yes, to us, the shooting of a dog is a bad, bad thing.

But, radically enough, the idea that a dog was shot, and perhaps killed — that part is as yet unknown — is generating a protest by Revolution Philly, while the 230 reported shooting victims[2]Through February 20, 2023, including 46 fatally shot, plus 16 other murders, have mostly drawn nothing but the sound of crickets in the city, strikes me as a terrible thing.

Murder has simply been normalized in Philadelphia. Yes, Officer Fitzgerald’s senseless murder, by a punk who seemingly thought he was playing Grand Theft Auto in real life, has generated a lot of emotion in Philly, but for the most part, murder victims are mourned by their family and friends, and otherwise dismissed as just the same old, same old.

And why not? The city is governed by Democrats, has been since Harry Truman was President, and it seems as though preserving prenatal infanticide is the most important issue to them. It’s not as though teenagers don’t get that message, that people who are inconvenient can simply be disposed of, and it really isn’t a surprise that teenaged gangbangers and wannabes find life cheap enough that they will shoot people over the least provocation. The Democrats want to ‘explain’ the city’s killing spree as the result of poverty, racism, segregation, and community ‘disinvestment,’ but the 18-year-old white kid who (allegedly) killed Officer Fitzgerald was a privileged kid, living in his mother’s $1.2 million, 15-acre estate in Bucks County, who’d had one previous ‘contact’, a telephoned and internet reported bomb threat that got him one month’s probation in Bucks County, with law enforcement as a juvenile. For whatever reasons there were, his parents — who are now divorced, with a rumored, but unconfirmed by reliable sources, custody dispute — didn’t teach their son respect for life, and now he’s looking at spending the rest of his miserable life behind bars.

The death penalty, to which I am opposed anyway, is off the table: Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) has stated that he will not allow any executions to proceed as long as he is in office,[3]In Pennsylvania, the Governor does not have independent authority to commute capital sentences, but can only do so with the recommendation of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles. and District Attorney Larry Krasner (D-Philadelphia) has campaigned on, and vowed, never to seek the death penalty in any capital crimes committed while he is prosecutor. A photo of the alleged killer shows him in custody, leaning back, apparently awaiting questioning, with a posture that says, “What the f(ornicate) did I do? The rest of my life is trashed,” perhaps the best picture from this entire, sad episode. His father and mother — and the mother may be charged with a crime as well, for allegedly picking up her son after he called her for help — are going to have to live with that image, burned into their minds, wondering what they could have done differently.

There’s also a photo of him, as a juvenile, wearing a Biden-Harris t-shirt. Yeah, that’s a way not to rear your children right!

Philadelphia, and many other urban areas as well, are places in which human life has become cheap, and with life being cheap, life is being taken cheaply. When we have politicians telling us that human life before birth can be sucked out and destroyed, because some babies are just plain inconvenient, when we have parents supporting and voting for the politicians who support prenatal infanticide, we’re going to get more punks like the one who murdered Officer Fitzgerald. And we’re also going to get more punks roaming the streets of our major cities who apparently think nothing of blowing away rival gang members or girls that cheated on them or people who resist armed carjacking attempts or just look at them the wrong way.

References

References
↑1 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt.
↑2 Through February 20, 2023
↑3 In Pennsylvania, the Governor does not have independent authority to commute capital sentences, but can only do so with the recommendation of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.
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It’s just so easy for the white liberals in safe neighborhoods to support ‘progressive’ politicians After all, most of the crime happens in other places

My good friend Harrison Finberg — OK, OK, I’ve never actually met him, but we can be good friends on Twitter these days — noted this tweet from Philly First Ward, the Democratic Executive Committee in Philadelphia’s First Ward. We have previously noted the mayoral candidacy of Helen Gym Flaherty,[1]Even though Mrs Flaherty does not respect her husband, attorney Bret Flaherty, enough to have taken his name, The First Street Journal will not show him a similar disrespect. one of the furthest left of the ever-growing list of hopefuls, whom The Philadelphia Inquirer described as a “longtime activist who is typically aligned with the Democratic Party’s left wing”. Mrs Flaherty’s campaign website is full of the usual ‘progressive’ bromides, but, at least as of this writing, there’s no actual issues page, telling the city’s voters — of which I am not one — what she would actually do, other than those bromides, in office if elected.

While she says that she will fight “gun violence,” what she doesn’t want to do is fight the criminals who use guns. I guess that’s not much of a surprise, since ‘progressives’ seem to think that guns simply levitate and shoot people all by themselves.

Helen Gym makes it official and launches a run for Philadelphia mayor on a pledge to address gun violence

The now-former Council member and leader of the city’s progressive movement launched her run at the William Way LGBT Community Center in Center City.

by Anna Orso | Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Former City Councilmember Helen Gym announced Wednesday that she will run for Philadelphia mayor on a pledge to address the city’s alarmingly high rate of gun violence, saying, “Everything is at stake right now.”

In remarks to a room of about 350 supporters gathered at the William Way LGBT Community Center, Gym centered her message on public safety, vowing to declare a state of emergency on her first day in office and prioritize improving homicide clearance rates.

I am amused that Mrs Flaherty chose a homosexual ‘Community Center’ as the place in which she announced her long-anticipated candidacy, but that’s probably something of which The Democratic Executive Committee in Philadelphia’s First Ward approves.

But while the longtime activist who is typically aligned with the Democratic Party’s left wing said violence is “destroying our city and our people,” she was far from taking a tough-on-crime tone.

“I will not use this crisis to roll back the clock on civil rights,” she said. “While many people in this race will talk about public safety, let me be clear: Decades of systemic racism and disinvestment brought us to this place.”

Further down:

Gym has opposed tax cuts for businesses and corporations, and has been critical of the Police Department, championing legislation to ban the use of tear gas on protesters and rejecting calls to bring back stop-and-frisk. In 2020, she voted against a planned increase to the Police Department’s budget — along with a majority of Council.

And here’s what Mrs Flaherty tweeted in 2019.

I support reducing the prison population by 50% from 2019 levels, We must center transformative and restorative justice practices in Philadelphia.

Can any policy have failed as badly as District Attorney Larry Krasner’s ‘decarceration’ program has failed the city since then? Murders get the most attention, and yes, they’re down a bit, but shootings, and every non-self-defense shooting is an attempted murder, are up.

So, who are The Democratic Executive Committee in Philadelphia’s First Ward? The First Ward is a gentrifying area, between Wharton and Mifflin Streets north and south, bounded on the west by South Broad Street and running east to the Delaware River. To the left is their group photo from their website, and with only four exceptions, they’re all as white as ceiling paint.

The area? Even a dump fixer-upper like this one is listed for sale for $475,000, though the fixed up row house at 1007 Mifflin Street is listed for $465,000.

It’s pretty typical in today’s urban areas, where the well-to-do whites who aren’t worried about street crime, who aren’t seeing the dead bodies or hearing the gunfire in their neighborhoods can blithely support ‘restorative justice‘ and ‘decarceration‘, because the bad guys who aren’t locked up aren’t in their neighborhoods.

Then again . . . .

Armed Delf-Defense in Dallas

by Robert Stacy McCain | Saturday, February 18, 2023

This happened in December, but the police took a while to complete their investigation and make arrests, so we’re just now getting a detailed account of what happened:

There are a lot of new details about how a recent attempted carjacking of a luxury car went down in an upscale area of Dallas.

Police arrested the three suspects they were looking for, and court documents detail a good lead police had.

One suspect showed up at a hospital with a gunshot wound minutes after the attempted carjacking and shootout last December.

Police say he was shot by a friend of the Maserati owner they were trying to carjack.

Skipping the details of the crime, down to Mr McCain’s conclusion:

This attempted carjacking happened, as they say, “in an upscale area” on the north side of Dallas, which shows that there is no such thing as a “safe” neighborhood in 21st-century America. Who knows what might have happened had it not been for the fact that the Maserati owner’s friend was armed? Permit me to recommend two books by my friend Robert Waters, The Best Defense: True Stories of Intended Victims Who Defended Themselves with a Firearm and Guns Save Lives: True Stories of Americans Defending Their Lives With Firearms.

It is unfortunate that civilization has collapsed to the point that no one is safe unless they’re carrying a pistol, but we must live in the world as it is, rather than that fantasy world where “safe” neighborhoods still exist.

The good, noble, progressive Democrats of Philadelphia’s First Ward might, just might, find the effects of the politicians and policies for which they have voted visiting their own gentrifying streets.

The feelgood story about the three ‘unsuccessful’ carjackers came from Dallas, and there’s always a better chance that Texans will be armed. The good progressive Democrats of the First Ward? The city’s Democratic politicians — and Democrats outregister Republicans in Philly about 7 to 1 — don’t want the public to carry firearms, so it might be less likely that an attempted carjacking on Wharton Street would be met with a prospective victim who was armed. Might as well give up their wheels, and hope the ‘jackers don’t go ahead and shoot you anyway.

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↑1 Even though Mrs Flaherty does not respect her husband, attorney Bret Flaherty, enough to have taken his name, The First Street Journal will not show him a similar disrespect.
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Killadelphia: Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has a Department in complete disarray

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page shows 54 homicides through 11:59 PM EST on Monday, February 13th, three more than the previous day, which is actually more than Broad + Liberty’s homicide tracker.

As we previously reported, there was a decline in the rate of homicides in Philadelphia that began last November, and that had continued into early this year, but the number of killings had begun to exceed the 2020 total, and 2020 finished with an ‘official’ 499 murders. Now the total, while lower than in 2021 and 2022, is 20.0% higher than 2020. It’s a bit too early to derive any strong statistical trends, because even though this winter has been mild, homicides normally increase significantly in the summer.

Naturally, The Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t have any stories on these on their website main page, but on their specific crime page I was able to find Hit-and-run drivers killed two people after the Super Bowl and 4 dead, 5 injured in shootings during a violent (Saturday) overnight in Philly.

From the 2023 Mummer’s Parade in Philadelphia. Click to enlarge.

But the Inky did note the disarray in Commissioner Danielle Outlaw’s Police Department. Yes, a very large grain of salt has to be taken with this, given that the newspaper and its Editorial Board absotively, posilutely hate the police, there’s nothing I’ve seen which tells me that their reporting is false.

Lacking accountability, some Philly cops follow checkered path to high-ranking positions | Editorial

Apparently, one way to get ahead in the Philadelphia Police Department is to first get fired. No wonder some officers act as if they are above the law.

by The Editorial Board | St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2023 | 6:00 AM EST

As Philadelphia endures record numbers of shootings and murders, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw implemented a second department shake-up in less than a year, which included promoting several dozen officers and transferring others.

Whether her actions result in safer streets remains to be seen. Given some of the officers who were commended, let’s hold the applause for now.

One of the promoted officers was fired in 2020 after allegedly supervising a meeting where officers were instructed to falsify reports in drug cases. He was also accused of attacking a female officer, hurling racist insults, and hiding information from the District Attorney’s Office. Last year, an arbitrator found the officer’s dismissal violated policy and reinstated him with back pay.

A second officer who was promoted had been dismissed in 2013 after he was charged with aggravated assault and stalking his girlfriend. The charges were dropped after a witness failed to appear in court, and the officer was reinstated.

A third officer who was promoted had been suspended for three days in 2011 after he lost his gun. Three years later, he was suspended for six days after improperly releasing three shooting suspects without questioning them, confiscating their weapons, or entering their information into police records.

Further down:

The message to many who are already wary of the police — as well as to many young officers learning the ropes — is that apparently, one way to get ahead in the Philadelphia Police Department is to first get fired. For that, you can thank the Fraternal Order of Police, which protects all cops, even the rotten apples.

Indeed, when it comes to being a Philly cop, fired rarely means fired. About 70% of officers disciplined in incidents from 2011 to 2019 had their cases overturned or reduced, The Inquirer found.

Of course, the Inky loves unions, at least unions other than the FOP and their own News Guild of Greater Philadelphia. The police officers’ union is doing what a union is supposed to do, protect its members. If the Philadelphia Police Department has been disciplining or firing officers without proper procedure, that’s on the Department and the city.

But promoting such officers? That doesn’t look so good. This is the Commissioner’s second top brass reorganization in half a year.

Then there’s this:

Eight more Philly cops were benched amid widening probe into a city antiviolence program

The officers’ guns were taken after an Inquirer investigation found they were improperly paid $76,000 in city funds to coach boxing. Children of police also got thousands of dollars to participate.

by Max Marin, Samantha Melamed, and Jeremy Roebuck | St Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2023 | 6:00 AM EST

Eight Philadelphia police officers have been placed on restricted duty and stripped of their service weapons — and the FBI is investigating — after an Inquirer report revealed that the officers had improperly received tens of thousands of dollars in city antiviolence grant money.

A police spokesperson confirmed the reassignments of the officers as well as a civilian police staffer. Together with a police captain who resigned last week, they pocketed more than $75,000 from a $392,000 city grant issued to Epiphany Fellowship Church for a program called Guns Down Gloves Up, city records show. City employees are not allowed to be paid from such grants.

The captain who resigned? He was scheduled to be another of the officers promoted, but resigned over other issues, including chronic absenteeism. Why would Commissioner Outlaw plan on promoting a district captain who was frequently absent? Did she not know that he was offnot on duty a lot?

In addition, children and relatives of police officers collected at least one third of funds paid to participants in the youth boxing program — more than $5,000 in prepaid debit cards, records obtained by The Inquirer show.

The program, according to its grant application, was supposed to use those debit cards to attract young people in North Philadelphia’s 19121 zip code who are at risk of becoming involved in gun violence, thereby improving police-community relations in the neighborhood. Yet, public records indicate that several of those teens and young adults reside in Delaware County or in the city’s Mount Airy neighborhood.

The program made its first payments in December of 2021, which was almost two years into Commissioner Outlaw’s watch. And she is responsible for whatever happens on her watch.

The Commissioner serves at the pleasure of the Mayor, and Mayor Jim Kenney, who brought Miss Outlaw in from the left coast in February of 2020, will be out of office at the end of the year, and Commissioner Outlaw will be out with him; none of the serious mayoral candidates will want to retain a police commissioner with her record.

The Philadelphia Police Department is in obvious disarray, with shake-ups, suspensions, firings, and a failure of the Commissioner to have her officers’ backs. She is hardly the only failed Philadelphia official, but she’s certainly very prominent among the failures.

There was, of course, very little reason to think that she’d actually be a success. When she was hired to be Police Chief in Portland, Oregon, this fawning tribute was written about her by Oregon Public Broadcasting, including this tell-tale line:

“She is the personification … [of] a current 21st-century mindset in police and policing in the community,” said Derald Walker, president of Cascadia Behavioral Health. . . . .

“When she left the room, there was an audible collective sigh that represented an incredible impression,” Walker said. “I think it’s going to be very hard to see her negatively, and for those people who have an ax to grind with police, to vilify her.”

Translation: Mr Walker thought that the incoming Police Chief wouldn’t offend the people who already didn’t like the police, then he thought her someone who would soft-peddle enforcement of the law.

Well, soft-peddling law enforcement just plain doesn’t work! And Miss Outlaw’s tenure as Commissioner has been an utter, utter failure, with officers leaving in droves, the Department hundreds of officers undermanned, and enough of a lax atmosphere that some officers think that it really doesn’t matter if they cheat the taxpayers.