Shockingly enough, this story was listed on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page, at least as of 8:15 PM on Sunday, May 16th. The screen grab from the Inquirer’s main page was from the first column on the left hand side. A bigger blurb was located further down. As much as I have criticized the paper for not having these stories where they are easily found, I believe in giving credit where credit is due.
15 shot, 8 stabbed: Philly’s toll from another violent weekend
At least 23 people were injured — one fatally — from guns and knives in the city from Friday night into Sunday night. The toll was expected to grow.
by Diane Mastrull | May 16, 2021
At least 23 people were injured — one fatally — from guns and knives during another violent weekend in Philadelphia.
According to police reports covering Friday night into Sunday night, 15 people had been shot and eight stabbed, including one man at a city jail. The toll was expected to grow.
Officials have been at a loss to explain the surge in gun violence that has the city on track to exceed the all-time high in homicides recorded in 1990 — 500. It finished last year one shy of that record. As of the end of last week, the total was just over 190, up nearly 40% over last year at this time.
The weekend contributed at least one more to that tally. At 9:48 p.m. Saturday, a 31-year-old man was shot in the head on the 7400 block of Fayette Street in East Mount Airy. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No arrests had been made.
The article was published sometime around 5:00 PM; the article simply said it was published “three hours ago” when I opened it up, which is how the Inquirer does things, but it isn’t exactly the most professional way to do things. So there was plenty more weekend time for the gang-bangers to fire off a few more shots.
But man, the gang-bangers are lousy shots. They shot 15 people, but only one has died? I can’t imagine that they were shooting just to wound. We noted previously that the previous weekend, Philadelphia Police recovered 121 shell casings, but ‘only’ hit 25 people, killing ‘only’ seven of them.
The above was written Sunday evening, because I wanted to see the Monday morning statistics. The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page reports that there have been 196 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, May 16th. The previous figure was 190, as of the end of Thursday, May 13th.
196 homicides in 136 days works out to 1.44 per day, on pace for 526 for the year. In 2020, the total was ‘just’ 140 killings, in 137 days — 2020 was a leap year — and 121 on the same date in 2019, fewer than one a day. Killings are up an even 40.0% over last year, and 61.98% over the same date in 2019, buy hey, Philly’s voters are poised to re-elect District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose softer-than-soft-on-crime regime has helped lead to this!
Homicides in Philadelphia are up 78.18% from the same time in Mr Krasner’s first year in office, 2018. If the good people of Philadelphia re-elect him, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.
As of 8:56 AM EDT, the Inquirer story referenced above is still shown on the Inquirer’s website main page, and has not been updated.
Updated: 5:15 PM EDT.
In Philadelphia, 30 people were shot or stabbed over the weekend, two fatally
As of Monday afternoon, police had not made an arrest in any of the shooting incidents that took place between Friday and early Monday morning.
by Anna Orso | May 17, 2021 | 4:58 PM EDT
The unrelenting surge of violence in Philadelphia continued over the weekend, leaving 30 victims shot or stabbed — two of them fatally — and some community advocates anxious about what the summer months may bring.
The violence, including a quadruple shooting and three double shootings, was concentrated in North and West Philadelphia and touched Kensington and Frankford. Victims were injured on the street, at bars, and inside homes and stores.
As of Monday afternoon, police had not made an arrest in any of the shooting incidents that took place between Friday and early Monday morning.
So, twenty-one shooting incidents, and nobody saw nothin’, huh?
Among the 21 shooting victims was Darryl Cromwell, 57, of the 2700 block of Germantown Avenue, who police said was shot inside a North Philadelphia home in the wee hours of the morning Saturday. He was transported to Temple University Hospital and died six hours later.
And on Saturday night just after 10 p.m., police said, Charles Campbell, 31, of the 3000 block of North 10th Street, died of a gunshot wound on the 7400 block of Fayette Street in East Mount Airy.
Well, at least the Inquirer named the victims; that doesn’t often happens. Of course, I have to ask: how did the city suffer only two fatalities over the weekend, yet the homicide total, as noted above, increased by six?
Still, at least this story was referenced on the website main page, something that hasn’t happened very often in the past. Perhaps someone at the Inquirer has paid a bit of attention?