The flood waters are finally starting to drop. The crest was 30.15 feet, which did not bring it close to our house, so we’re fine, if still stranded; the only road out is still underwater.

The highest water ever recorded, the 41.00 feet (guesstimated, since the river gauge failed), got into the crawlspace of our home last March, and into the garage, but did not get into our house itself.

As of 9:10 AM EST, the Philadelphia Police Department has not updated its Current Crime Statistics page; the image to the left, on which you can click to enlarge, is a screen capture. Since the page is supposed to be updated “during normal business hours, Monday through Friday,” I have to wonder what has happened. Perhaps the responsible person is taking his New Year’s Day holiday today?

The homicide number for 2021 is still stuck on 559, even though The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that “at least 560 people in Philadelphia were murdered, a bigger tally than in more heavily populated cities including New York and Los Angeles”. If the homicide total is 560, using Philly’s 2020 census figure of 1,603,797, the homicide rate works out to 34.92 per 100,000 population, and a couple more increase it only marginally.

The Philadelphia Shooting Victims Dashboard, which claims to be accurate through the end of the year, stated that there had been 2,327 recorded shootings in the City of Brotherly Love, 486 of which were fatal, and 1,841 in which the victim survived. That means that the gang bangers are pretty poor shots, given that only 20.89% of attempted murders by gunfire were successful, but that’s an ‘improvement’ on the 18.44% success rate in 2020.^[1]414 homicides by shooting, out of 2,245 total shootings. Yeah, I know: my math is kind of morbid sometimes.

We have previously reported that KSDK, Channel 5, the NBC affiliate station in St Louis, crowed about the Gateway City having reduced its homicide numbers back to “pre-pandemic levels.”

Experts said the 2020 spike in violence was driven largely by the pandemic and high tensions following civil unrest. More lock downs, people losing jobs and strained relationships between communities and law enforcement all led to more murders University of Missouri – St. Louis Criminology Professor Richard Rosenfeld said.

Yet, if it was the COVID-19 pandemic — and I hate the word pandemic — and the killing of George Floyd, then why did shootings increase in Philadelphia by 3.65%, and total homicides by 12.22%?

We noted that the homicide numbers in Philly had increased by 15.61% since it became apparent that Joe Biden had defeated President Trump in the election. Why, it’s almost as though the evil reich wing Mr Trump had nothing to do with the homicide rates!

Philadelphia is still plagued by the same government, of Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a George Soros-funded stooge more interested in slapping down the police than prosecuting criminals, and the appropriately-named Police Commissioner, Danielle Outlaw, a bureaucrat appointee of Mr Kenney’s, who couldn’t lead a two-car parade. Philadelphia’s last Republican mayor left office on January 7, 1952, when Harry Truman was President, and George VI was still King of England. It has been three generations since Philly was led by a Republican!

George Floyd died a year and a half ago, and Donald Trump left the White House 348 days ago. The city leadership surrendered to the mob, and the coronavirus panic and shutdowns did not slow down the rate of violent crime in the city.

That was almost two years ago, and since then we’ve had vaccines, no cost vaccines, against the virus, and many — certainly not all in Philly — of the pandemic restrictions lifted, yet the rate of killing in Philly has only increased. At some point, maybe even leftists ought to be asking why the policies of an unbroken for generations Democratic leadership in Philadelphia haven’t worked.
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Updated: 11:55 AM EST

It looks like someone has been trying to update the Current Crime Statistics page, but just isn’t very good at it. It now shows 562 homicides for 2021, which puts the homicide rate above 35, at 35.04 per 100,000 population.