Oh, that’s not how the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney would put it, publicly, but that’s his intention.

Mayor Cherelle Parker taps a new top police leader to head the department’s Kensington strategy

Pedro Rosario, a new deputy commissioner for the Kensington initiative, is the highest ranking Latino in the history of the Philadelphia Police Department.

by Anna Orso | Thursday, January 11, 2024 | 9:09 AM EST | Updated: 1:21 PM EST

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker announced Thursday that the Police Department has tapped a new deputy commissioner whose sole job will be to head the department’s strategy in Kensington, home to a sprawling open-air drug market that Parker has vowed to shut down.

Pedro Rosario, formerly a captain in the city’s East Division that includes Kensington, was sworn in as the highest-ranking Latino to ever serve on the force and is the only deputy police commissioner in recent memory whose job will be focused on one neighborhood.

The majority of the neighborhood’s population are Hispanic, 59.9%, primarily Puerto Rican or Dominican, with 19.0% being non-Hispanic white, and 15.1% being non-Hispanic black. Formerly the Captain of the 24^th Police District, which includes parts of Kensington, the new Deputy Commissioner is very familiar with the area

The promotion was the first major hire announced by new Police Commissioner Kevin J. Bethel, who was himself sworn in just last week. While it’s common for new department heads to shake up their executive teams, Rosario’s appointment was significant in that it makes him a key leader in executing Parker’s public safety vision in Kensington.

“Kensington for a very long time has been not a priority,” said Rosario, who has spent most of his three-decade career in the neighborhood. “It’s important that now, with the leadership that we have in place, we’re moving in a direction to make it a priority.”

The announcement, one of just a handful of public appearances the mayor has made since her inauguration last week, again signaled that Kensington, the epicenter of the city’s drug overdose crisis, has factored heavily into her first moves as mayor. But Parker and Rosario stopped short of laying out a plan for the embattled community Thursday, saying top officials will develop a strategy through the first 100 days of the new administration.

Philly saw 1,413 drug overdose deaths in 2022, a new record, 10.74% higher than the previous record, set the previous year, of 1,276. While those are citywide numbers, not just Kensington, the city saw sharp increases in fatal overdoses there and in North Philadelphia, especially in ZIP codes 19124, 19132, 19133, and 19144. As we previously noted, on September 14^th of lasy year, the Philadelphia City Council passed an ordinance to prohibit supervised drug consumption sites across most of the city. Outgoing and good-for-nothing Mayor Jim Kenney vetoed that ordinance, but the City Council easily overrode his veto on September 28, 2023.

The ordinance allows the creation of such shooting galleries only in the Third District, which is in West Philadelphia, and does not include Kensington.

Now, why did I say that Mr Krasner has filed suit to stop Mrs Mullins plans?

DA Larry Krasner files suit to quash state’s special SEPTA prosecutor as unconstitutional

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, who has clashed with Krasner, signed the law in a December budget deal. Transit funding was left out.

by Thomas Fitzgerald and Chris Palmer | Thursday, January 11, 2024 | 10:00 AM EST | Updated: 1:55 PM EST

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner filed suit Thursday in an effort to block as unconstitutional a state law written by Republican lawmakers that removes his authority over crimes on SEPTA property and gives that power to a special prosecutor appointed by the state attorney general.

The measure is the latest attempt to limit Krasner, a progressive prosecutor conservatives accuse of prioritizing criminal justice reform over punishing offenders — a long-running fight that threatens to overshadow the issue of stable state funding for public transit.

During an hour-long news conference featuring remarks from a host of supporters, Krasner criticized the law as a politically motivated, improper attempt to remove power from an official elected twice by voters.

”It’s got nothing to do with SEPTA,” Krasner said. ”This is 100% about eliminating, erasing, and normalizing the elimination and erasure of votes.”

Does Mr Krasner believe that the voters of Philadelphia have the authority to vote state laws out of existence? Because that is what has happened with the election and re-election of Mr Krasner, a far-left ideologue who believes that drug addiction is not a law enforcement problem. But Mrs Mullins was also elected by the people. In the primary, she ran against further left Helen Gym Flaherty, who clearly allied herself with Let ’em Loose Larry and his policies; Mrs Flaherty, the darling of the left, finished third, with her strength primarily in the areas of the city which have seen less rather than more crime.

Governor Josh Shapiro (D-PA) was also elected by the voters, and even though he’s a Democrat, he’s at least sensible when it comes to crime. Mr Krasner doesn’t like to enforce the gun laws on the books unless someone is actually shot, which then-Attorney General Shapiro knew, so he arranged a sting with the Philadelphia Police that resulted in the arrest of 65 thugs for gun possession and drug crimes, cutting Mr Krasner and his office out of the loop.

And that is the issue. With Deputy Commissioner Rosario’s appointment, Commissioner Bethel and the Mayor are signaling that law enforcement is going to be a major part of the plan to close down the open-air drug markets and clean up the blighted and benighted neighborhood. But for law enforcement to mean anything, those arrested must also be prosecuted, and Mr Krasner does not want to do that. He once said:

This office believes that reform is necessary to focus on the most serious and most violent crime, so that people can be properly held accountable for doing things that are violent, that are vicious, and that tear apart society. We cannot continue to waste resources and time on things that matter less than the truly terrible crisis that we are facing.

Thus enter the special prosecutor. The law gives the special prosecutor — who has yet to be appointed — prosecutorial authority over crimes committed on or within 500 feet of SEPTA property. And part of the open-air drug market falls within that 500-foot zone of SEPTA’s Allegheny Station. More, with the elevated tracks over part of Kensington Avenue, that 500-foot boundary extends along a fairly long stretch of that road, including buildings on either side, and in some places on the nest streets over, running parallel to Kensington Avenue. The District Attorney has made it clear that he does not want to prosecute people for drug crimes, and he’s worried that the special prosecutor would prosecute them.

Let’s tell the truth here: the huge drug market in Philadelphia exists because the city has so many junkies. The police could arrest dozens, maybe hundreds of dealers, and they’d be replaced by new drug dealers the following day. To clean up Kensington, the Mayor and Police Commissioner have to concentrate on arresting the addicts, and putting them in jail at least long enough to get them through withdrawal and detoxification. This is something Mr Krasner would never do, because, Heaven forfend! it would leave the poor dears with a criminal record.

And so, Mr Krasner is suing, ostensibly to protect the integrity of his office, but the reality is that, if he wins such a suit, it would decimate any plans to clean up Kensington.