We asked, on the last day of August, how a 12-year-old boy can just disappear in the City of Brotherly Love, and nobody noticed until his dead body showed up in the trash more than a week later.

Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News provided the map of the two murder sites. Click to enlarge.

A teen killed Saturday in West Philly was a person of interest in a 12-year-old’s murder, sources say

Hundreds of comments on social media had called for vigilante justice against Tysheer Hankinson, who was considered by police to be a person of interest in Hezekiah Bernard’s death in August.

by Vinny Vella and Ellie Rushing | Sunday, September 3, 2023 | 2:25 PM EDT

An Upper Darby teen who was a person of interest in the killing of a 12-year-old boy found dead in a dumpster in Philadelphia last month and who himself had survived a shooting in April was killed early Saturday morning, law enforcement sources said.

Tysheer Shahe Hankinson, 16, was found just after 1 a.m. shot multiple times in his neck, face, left leg, and body on Poplar Street near 55th in West Philadelphia, according to police. Medics took him to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

There was no information about a suspect Sunday, and no murder weapon was recovered.

Hankinson was considered a potential suspect and person of interest in the death of Hezekiah Bernard, whose body, wrapped in plastic and shot in the head, was found in a dumpster outside of a public housing complex in West Philadelphia on Aug. 23, according to law enforcement sources. Bernard had been dead for at least 24 hours, investigators said.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s subtitle provided the real information: if there were “Hundreds of comments on social media had called for vigilante justice against Tysheer Hankinson,” then the people of the neighborhood knew who they believed killed young Mr Bernard.

In the wake of Bernard’s killing, speculation spread on social media that Hankinson was somehow involved, with multiple people calling for revenge and vigilante justice.

At a vigil Thursday, friends of Bernard, known as “Hezzy,” described him as polite and respectful, and said they were stunned at the news of his apparent murder. . . . .

Hankinson was not as fortunate Saturday as he was on April 21 when, police said, he was shot in the face while waiting for a bus at the SEPTA station at 52nd and Market Streets, and recovered from his injuries.

If you look at the map, you’ll see that the SEPTA station at 52^nd and Market Streets is just a few blocks away.

The Inquirer’s reporters didn’t mention anything about gangs in any of the stories on this, and it’s understandable: they might not have sufficient evidence that meets standards of journalism to say anything about gangs, or, as the newspaper likes to call them, “street groups.” We were, after all, reliably informed by the 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,” and the Inky seems to have adopted that term.

The question is, of course, how the ‘neighborhood’ knew who killed young Mr Bernard, and how they identified 16-year-old Mr Hankinson as his (purported) killer. That Mr Hankinson had been the victim of a previous attempted murder tells us that yes, Mr Hankinson was a member of one of those “cliques of young men,” which apparently had a beef with yet another “clique of young men.” Whether 12-year-old Mr Bernard was part of, or was attempting to join one of those “cliques” is unknown, but the fact that he was missing for over a week and nobody reported it is disturbing.

This does save Larry Krasner the trouble of having to decide whether to charge Mr Hankinson as an adult or a juvenile in the murder of Mr Bernard; the George Soros-sponsored ‘progressive’ defense lawyer now serving as Philly’s District Attorney; he really does hate charging juveniles as adults unless he really, really hast to do so. And there is no chance that young Mr Hankinson would be released when he turned 18, or maybe 21, with his juvenile record then sealed. We do not actually know that Mr Hankinson was Mr Bernard’s killer; that was just the belief of some in the neighborhood. But we do know that Mr Hankinson will no longer be affiliated with whatever clique of young men with which he was previously associated. The only question left is: will the other members of that clique know who killed their buddy, and continue the cycle.