Sometimes you just have to laugh at the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer. After years of rising homicide rates, they blame problems not on Mayor Jim Kenney, whom the Editors endorsed in his 2019 campaign, but on Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, the ‘social justice’ policewoman from the left coast, and a near-total puppet of the Mayor:
Danielle Outlaw’s failure should push Kenney to ask for her resignation — but she didn’t fail alone
by The Inquirer Editorial Board | opinion@inquirer.com | January 27, 2021 | 4:46 PM EST
A little over 100 days into her job as Police Commissioner, Danielle Outlaw faced a trial by fire when peaceful protests over the killing of George Floyd turned chaotic and destructive.
Of course, the #woke staffers of the Inquirer, the ones who forced the firing resignation of Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski, fully supported the #BlackLivesMatter protests of the Summer of Fire and Hate, and they would have complained about any police efforts to rein in the Mostly Peaceful Protests™.
It was a trial demanding leadership and preparation that she failed miserably. But this failure is not hers alone. It was compounded by a failure of leadership of Mayor Jim Kenney and other city officials, including Managing Director Brian Abernathy who has since resigned.
These failures are detailed in an investigation released Wednesday by City Controller Rebecca Rhynhart, conducted by Ballard Spahr, At Risk International, Inc., and input from a Community Advisory Council.
The report detailed the city’s failure to anticipate or prepare for the protests here despite their presence across the country, a failure to create a plan for handling protests despite the existence of a blueprint for just such events, and a series of disastrous and troubling decisions – from declining to activate an Emergency Operations Center to using tools and weapons on crowds and neighborhoods that created chaos instead of control.
At the height of protests about police brutality and violence, Philadelphia police responded with often militaristic force, using tear gas, rubber bullets and force, including in a neighborhood where children and innocent bystanders were present. The city’s failure to anticipate or plan meant there were not enough police or vehicles to stop or contain looting. The report also details the troubling inconsistencies between police response to Black Lives Matter protesters and their friendlier interactions with white vigilantes wielding baseball bats and racial slurs.
The only problem is that the Philadelphia Police Department didn’t use enough force!
There are no “troubling inconsistencies between police response to Black Lives Matter protesters and their friendlier interactions with white vigilantes wielding baseball bats and racial slurs” because the #BlackLivesMatter protesters were vandalistic and violent, and others were not.
Commissioner Outlaw was a ridiculous hire in the first place, coming from the Left Coast, and more concerned about ‘diversity’ than actually fighting crime. But the truth is simple: she was a ‘social justice’ hire of a ‘social justice’ mayor, and both his puppet and his tool.
What the City of Brotherly Love needs is something the Editorial Board of the Inquirer would never, ever accept: the complete replacement of every liberal Democrat officeholder with hardline, conservative Republicans. The Editors would be aghast, but really, could they do any worse?