Visit Philadelphia tells us:

No Philly experience is complete without snapping a photo in front of one of The City of Brotherly Love’s best-known landmarks: LOVE itself.

The famous Robert Indiana sculpture is in John F. Kennedy Plaza — better known as LOVE Park — just northwest of City Hall. Installed in 1976, LOVE was briefly removed in 1978, but popular demand brought it back where it belongs.

In conjunction with the renovation of John F. Kennedy Plaza, the sculpture was restored, repainted and reinstalled in its original location in 2018.

You can ignore that big 364 in the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page: while the past years’ numbers automatically update due to the software being used, as the page itself states, “statistics reflect the accurate count during normal business hours, Monday through Friday.” Thus, that 364 number is what was reported for Thursday, September the Oneth, and hasn’t been updated to reflect Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Given that this is Labor Day, the Police Department doesn’t have the person who does the admin work in the office today, either.

So, what do we really have in Killadelphia?

1. A decomposed body was found Friday in Philly. This still has to be investigated, and may not be reported as a homicide.
2. Three people were murdered in two separate incidents in the early hours of Saturday morning, and another early Sunday morning.
3. Two dead & 3 wounded in a second Philadelphia mass shooting early Monday morning. Crime Scene Unit count 55 bullet shells. 7^th & Russell Streets in North Philadelphia before 1am.
4. Philadelphia homicide hour after mass shooting. Gun on grass found by ⁦@PhillyPolice next to man found shot in head after 2am at 56^th & Lancaster Avenue continuing violent Labor Day weekend 10 blocks from road rage drive-thru killing 46^th & Lancaster Sunday.

According to my first-grade arithmetic skills, I count eight murders in the City of Brotherly Love, and the Labor Day holiday weekend still isn’t over! Philly’s homicide record-setting year of 2021 saw five people murdered Friday through Monday of the Labor Day holiday weekend; in 2021, the holiday weekend began one day later than this year.

If Labor Day ends with just those already reported as having been killed, and not counting the first reported incident, which may not have been a homicide, that’s 372 murders in 248 days, an even 1.500 homicides per day, which works out to 547.50 murders for the year, if that rate is maintained through December 31^st.

However, murders spiked in Philly after the Labor Day weekend, with 199 more people killed in just 116 days, a rate of 1.7155 per day. As we reported on September 7, 2021, the city was seeing ‘just’ 1.4578 murders a day, which would yield 532 murders for the entire year, if that average was maintained.

It wasn’t maintained, and Philly wound up with a record-shattering 562 murders for 2021. That ‘surge’ resulted in thirty more Philadelphians being sent untimely to their eternal rewards. And if I figure in that surge for the rest of the year, instead of 547 or 548 murders, Philly is on track to see 579 murders! That’s more than I projected just last night!