We have previously noted how Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City in the 1990s, with policies continued by his successor, Michael Bloomberg, and how my younger daughter, whom I have joked is the whitest white girl in town, and I were able to walk, in complete safety, from the lower borders of Harlem back toward downtown. Messrs Giuliani and Bloomberg focused on ‘quality of life’ crimes and ‘broken windows’ policing, trying to intercept the petty criminals before they became major thugs.

Philadelphia isn’t like that. Under Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner, the ‘lesser’ offenses have been ignored, which have done nothing but embolden the ‘entry-level’ criminals, who see themselves as getting away with doing whatever they want, until they become really bad guys, and start killing people. Now it seems as though a lot of people in the City of Brotherly Love would like to see the Giuliani program!

Outlaw, Krasner address South Street concerns at community meeting

by Ximena Conde | Thursday, June 9, 2022

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw and Queen Village residents had a meeting scheduled for Wednesday before Saturday’s mass shooting on South Street. “Gun violence, illegal wheels and aggressive panhandling are all topics that will be discussed,” read a blurb explaining the meeting that was to be centered on public safety.

But after the shooting, the meeting focused on quality of life issues — noise complaints, rowdy teens, “vulgar” behavior from revelers on South Street. Residents, many who said they only decided to come to the meeting after the shooting, demanded to know what violations could lead to arrest and prosecution.

Let’s be clear about what happened on South Street. The shootings aside, the night had degenerated into a huge block party, mostly by teens too young to patronize the bars which line the streets in that area. We noted that of the 11 people shot and wounded, there were 7 black males, ages 23, 18, 18, 20, 17, and 20, 3 black females, ages 17,19, and 17, and one 69 year old while male. Let’s tell the truth here: most of these ‘revelers’ were not Queen Village residents.

Wikipedia noted:

South Street’s commercial revival began with a few anchor businesses like Eye’s Gallery, JC Dobbs, and The Theater of the Living Arts,^[17] ramping up through a gritty punk phase into the restaurant/club/retail pastiche that exists today and extends fingers into Head House Square and 4th Street. In 1972, the National Register of Historic Places designated Lombard to Catharine, 5th to Front Street with a bump-out from Front to Delaware between Catherine and Washington (where Old Swede’s Church is located) as a historic district.^[18]

Urban pioneers in the 1970s and 1980s have since been joined by gentrifiers in extensive redevelopment, rehabilitation, and new construction throughout Queen Village, which was renamed after the Queen of Sweden to acknowledge the neighborhood’s earliest inhabitants. Today, the South Street-Head House District represents upward of 300 cafes, restaurants, entertainment venues, and shops^[19] and Queen Village is home to some 7000 families whose median income and home values are among the highest in the city.^[20] The district is served by the very well-organized Queen Village Neighborhood Association.^[21]

The Inquirer reported the complaints:

But like several of his fellow South Street business owners, Dangler thinks a climate of “lawlessness” in the city, where officials have stopped enforcing anti-nuisance laws, has created a sense of impunity that eventually climaxes in lethal force.

“The problem is, they’re not nipping it in the bud,” Dangler said. “Two Fridays ago, we had 100 people in the middle of this intersection, Third and South. They shut down traffic, the girls started twerking [dancing suggestively] in the middle of the street. Guys jumped on cars … . But there were no arrests, no detainees.”

Of course, “guys jump(ing) on cars can damage those vehicles, putting cave-in dents in roofs, hoods and trunk lids, not to mention scratches and possibly damaged windshields.

“The worst is, you get the motorbikes, dirt bikes, ATVs. It’s as if the police have a no-chase policy. It isn’t enough that all the police are present — that’s reassuring for the tourists and us business owners — but the element that comes around, they drive around the cops in what is supposed to be an area closed to traffic, and so they come to believe nobody’s going to stop them.

The shooting is not just “a gun-control problem,” agreed Chris McNichol, owner of Woolly Mammoth, a sports bar at 430 South, who posted on Instagram. It “must be viewed as one of far too many acts of lawlessness, criminal behavior and violence on the street and in the city.” In five hours, 237 people “liked” the post, many forwarded it, and no one complained, McNichol said.

“The complete lack of law and order on South Street and in too many neighborhoods” is the deeper cause, to McNichol. “Protect your citizens by creating AND ENFORCING laws,” he added, with emphasis. “Arrest individuals who commit crimes” and “keep dangerous individuals from committing repeat crimes. … Allow police to do their job” so Philadelphians can “enjoy their city without endless fear, and businesses can prosper, not to crumble under the weight of fear.”

In other words, the business owners and residents of Queen Village are complaining about the ‘little’ crimes, the things which make life worse for people, because they know that allowing the stupidity to go on means allowing, eventually more serious crimes to be committed without any disincentive to illegal behavior.

Two of the men involved in the initial shooting had concealed carry permits, something that they could not have obtained if they didn’t have clean records. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could have been among those denied permits if they had been among the types of ‘revelers’ the Queen Village residents would like to see subject to law enforcement.

Of course, one of the men, Gregory “Japan” Jackson, now the late Mr Jackson, who fired the first shot in the whole thing, only had a permit to carry due to a “clerical error” in Delaware County which delayed charges for carrying a firearm illegally. Just how is ‘gun control’ supposed to work when people don’t do their jobs?

Back to the originally cited article:

Laura Burt, a Queen Village resident of six years, said that public safety meetings with police often draw sparse crowds. But at least 300 residents filled the Nebinger Elementary auditorium.

District Attorney Larry Krasner was a last-minute addition, and drew some jeers when he entered the auditorium.

Krasner pushed back on suggestions that his office is not willing to prosecute wrongdoers.

“The only thing we do not pursue is possession of marijuana,” said Krasner as residents cut him off.

Yeah, that’s why places like Kensington have open air drug markets, with people openly shooting up drugs on the streets. Of course, Commissioner Outlaw’s Police Department have to actually arrest these people for the District Attorney to prosecute them.

“That’s a blatant lie, that’s why we’re all here,” yelled one resident.

Krasner went on to explain that sex workers were the other cases his office would not prosecute because they were considered victims.

Is not prostitution a ‘quality of life’ issue? Are not hookers walking the streets something which degrades a neighborhood?^[1]Full disclosure: I do not believe that prostitution should be illegal. I do not see how it can be illegal to do for money something entirely legal to do for free. But that does not mean that … Continue reading

He went on to explain that many of the complaints raised by residents fall under disorderly conduct, which are citations.

But that’s just it: “disorderly conduct” is precisely what most quality of life crimes are, the types of things which bring down neighborhoods, the types of things which make some people fearful to go out of their own homes on weekend evenings.

Outlaw and her officers stressed that they are not letting any crimes go ignored, though they are understaffed and the racial justice protests two years ago have left a “chilling effect” on the force.

Again, see the open air drug markets that are tolerated in the city; Commissioner Outlaw just flat lied to the people.

The rest of the article tells us how the Commissioner promise to do better, despite being short staffed and the anti-police sentiment that the 2020 anti-police riots helped to generate. If she mentioned Mr Krasner’s constant attempts to vilify the police, it was not reported.

Miss Outlaw holds what should be a powerful position, but she is, in the end, Mayor Jim Kenney’s stooge, and comes herself from the liberal left coast policing in Oakland and Portland. All of Philadelphia’s leadership, the mayor, the city council, the district attorney, and the police leadership, need to be replaced with tough, hard-nosed people who are willing to actually enforce the laws. That’s what Rudy Giuliani did in New York City, and it worked. One thing is certain: what Philly has, under 70 years of unbroken Democratic Party rule, has not worked.