We previously noted the killing of three Philadelphia teenagers in a quadruple shooting in the 5900 block of Palmetto Street, and how The Philadelphia Inquirer gave us several paragraphs telling us what good kids the victims were. I expressed some doubt about that, given an odd line noting the belief of the Philadelphia Police Department that the alleged shooters then took the surviving victim to the hospital.

We then pointed out, the following day, the seeming editorial slant of the Inquirer to tell us that some juvenile victims of homicide are as pure as the wind-driven snow, even if the early evidence seems to cast doubt on that.

Well, here we go!

‘Transaction’ gone wrong led to the shooting of four teens in Northeast Philly on Friday, police say

The victims’ families, meanwhile, are grieving and preparing to bury their children.

by Ellie Rushing | Monday, May 1, 2023

Police say they have identified two people who are wanted in connection with a quadruple shooting in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday that left three juveniles dead and another seriously injured, and investigators believe the violence was the result of a “transaction” gone wrong.

Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Homicide Unit, said that around 2:15 p.m., two groups of young men arrived in separate cars on the 5900 block of Palmetto Street, and went inside a rowhouse “for some sort of transaction.”

But at some point during the meeting, shortly after 3:15 p.m., something went wrong and gunfire erupted, Ransom said.

“Some sort of transaction,” huh? Just what sort of “transaction” in a private residence can result in gunfire?

Ransom declined to say what the transaction involved, citing the ongoing investigation.

Drugs? Perhaps selling guns? The police haven’t told us, but my imagination isn’t quite good enough to guess what sorts of legal “transaction” could have been involved, despite the characterization in the previous Inky story telling us what great kids the victims were.

Ransom said two cousins are wanted in connection with the shooting: Tyree Lennon, 22, and Taj Lennon, 15.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t provide us with Tyree Lennon’s mugshot; that came from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News. Mr Keeley continued, in the series of tweets, to tell us something about the older Mr Lennon:

22yr old WANTED by @PhillyPolice in TRIPLE MURDER of 14, 17 & 18 yr olds on Palmetto St. had just been released by a judge & put on house arrest just 15 days before the three teens shot & killed at the home. He had already (violated) the house arrest in the days before murders.

2/3 Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office requested $1 Million bail. Judge then reduced that to 10% of $400k & put him on house arrest. He had three bench warrants. One for violent attack on 11 month old baby in the SAME Palmetto Street house where murders happened Friday.

3/3 Law Enforcement sources say on October 24, 2020, Tyree Lennon bit 11 month old baby on face, leg & arm drawing blood. Sources say he then beat & strangled baby’s mother. @phillypolice had “violent struggle with Lennon” when they arrested him that day & he had ghost gun on him.”

4/ on April 13th, just 15 days before the triple murder, @philadao (Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office — DRP) asked for over $1 Million bail on all of (Lennon’s) prior gun & aggravated assault charges. Bench warrant court Judge reduced it & permitted house arrest release.

5/ He had already violated the house arrest before the murders in Palmetto Street house. Another bench warrant for that house arrest violation was issued the day after the triple murder April 29th.

Tweets slightly edited by The First Street Journal for spacing and clarity.

As we have previously noted, the rest of the professional media in Philly don’t much like Mr Keeley reporting the facts when it comes to crime, but the Inquirer story had no details on Tyree Lennon other than his name, and a site search of inquirer.com for “Tyree Lennon”, at 12:42 on Tuesday, May 2^nd, returned no other stories mentioning him.

Some have stated on Twitter that it was Judge Jacki Lyde-Frazier who reduced Mr Lennon’s bail. If this is true, how do we hole Judge Frazier-Lyde accountable for reducing the bail to a level that Mr Lennon could manage, to let him out of jail, to (allegedly) shoot four people? When even the notoriously police-hating, soft-on-crime District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office are requesting a million-dollar bail amount, you know that they believed that Mr Lennon was a real threat and flight risk.

Back to the Inky:

Two others, ages 15 and 16, have also been charged with illegal gun possession in connection with the incident. Police believe the teens dropped off a 16-year-old, who had been shot in the stomach at the Palmetto Street shooting, at Jefferson Frankford Hospital on Friday afternoon. Police recovered their vehicle, a Ford Edge, crashed nearby shortly after and arrested the teens.

There’s a lot of information we haven’t been given. Were the two teens arrested with the Lennons, or were they with the victims? Whichever it was, they were carrying firearms illegally.

“My son was a good kid,” said Khalif Frezghi’s mother, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons. “He was caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

We really can’t expect a murder victim’s mother to say anything other than something good about him, but if he was at the Lennons’ for an unspecified but very probably illegal “transaction,” he was more than at “the wrong place, at the wrong time,” but also there for the wrong thing, with the wrong people, as well.

After the previous quoted paragraph were more, telling us what good kids the deceased were, and the Inquirer published them uncritically. The Inky is still trying to push the image that the deceased were just innocent little angels, trying to tell us a story rather than simply telling us the truth.