Congratulations to Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney! He has just achieved more murders in the City of Brotherly Love so far this year than any full year in which his predecessor, Michael Nutter, held the office. George Soros-sponsored District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw certainly deserve credit as well!

Last night was a Monday night, not a weekend, but at a time in which you’d expect Philadelphia’s gang-bangers to slow down a bit, they haven’t. I’d point out that August 8^th was a Sunday, end of the weekend, in 2021, the 32^nd weekend of the year, and the same number of weekends have elapsed in 2022, so there’s no additional weekend bump in 2022.

Yes, math geeks like me notice things like that.

August 8^th was the 220^th day of the year. 337 ÷ 220 = 1.5318 homicides per day in Philly, which works out to a projected 559.107 killings in the city for the entire year. But wait: done another way, taking the percentage increase in homicides over last year, 4.0123, and multiplying that by last year’s 562 murders, we could also project 584.549 murders in Philly!

The difference? In 2021, the city actually saw a decrease in the rate of killings between July 9^th and September 6^th, the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend. That hasn’t happened so far this year, as July saw sixty homicides, while July of 2021 saw ‘only’ 48 murders.

The homicide rate picked up after the Labor Day weekend last year, from an average of 1.4578 per day — which projected out to 532 for the year — and the final 116 days of the year saw 199 homicides, an average of 1.7155 per day, which lifted the yearly average to 1.5397 per day for the year, and 562 murders. While last year’s mid- to late-summer lull hasn’t been seen so far this year, it has to be asked: will last year’s post Labor Day surge be repeated?

At least The Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t ignore the most recent killings, or the surge:

Philly shootings leave 3 dead, including man slain in Popeye’s lot

No arrests have been made, and a motive remains under investigation.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Tuesday, August 9, 2022

One person was killed and two others were injured in a shooting late Monday night in the parking lot of a Popeye’s in Kensington.

Well, of course it was in Kensington!

Just after 11:15 p.m. Monday, officers responded to a call for a person with a gun on the 300 block of West Lehigh Avenue. When officers arrived, they found multiple people with gunshot wounds inside a red sedan. The victims had been shot in the parking lot of the nearby Popeye’s, 6ABC reported.

Police said that three suspects, all armed, came up to the sedan and fired 47 bullets into the car, 6ABC reported. After the shooting, the suspects took off on foot.

One victim, a man, had multiple gunshot wounds to his head and was pronounced dead shortly after at Temple University Hospital. Another victim, a woman, had several gunshot wounds to her body, and the third victim, a man, had multiple gunshot wounds to his back. They were taken to Temple University Hospital in stable condition.

North Orianna Street, via Google Maps, May 2022. Click to enlarge.

The Popeye’s Chicken restaurant is at the corner of West Lehigh Avenue and North Orianna Street. North Orianna Street in the blocks around West Lehigh Avenue is a neighborhood of older row homes, some with porches barred in to keep out the bad guys, vacant lots with concertina wire topping fences, and a generally poverty-stricken look.

One of the wounded, but not killed, victims, was an employee of the Popeye’s restaurant.

The Inquirer report stated that 47 shots had been fired, but that the police had no motive as of yet, but one thing is obvious: this was a targeted assassination. The newspaper also censored the fact, gleaned from the city’s shootings database, that all of the dead were black males.

Further down:

As of Sunday night, the city was ahead of last year’s pace for what ended in a record high number of 562 homicides for the year. By Sunday night, police reported that 333 people have been killed in Philadelphia so far this year.

There were 324 homicides by the same date last year.

Perhaps it’s a bit unfair for a math geek like me to point this out, but the Inky really needs to start looking at the numbers. I’d like to think that a former Pennsylvanian, now 635 miles away in eastern Kentucky, isn’t the only person actually running, and publicizing, the statistics.