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Street justice The kind of justice you seek when you are boneheadedly stupid

Michael Lemond. Photo: Fayette County Detention Center.

We have previously noted the shooting, and blinding, of then-five year old Malakai Roberts; Michael Lemond and Teyo Waite, both 18, have been charged.

So why did they do it? It was a f(ornicating) mistake! They were shooting at the wrong house!

    Detective: Shooters accused of blinding Lexington boy ‘simply got the wrong house.’

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | July 27, 2021 | 10:49 AM | Updated: 12:05 PM EDT

    The young men accused of blinding a 5-year-old Lexington child shot into the wrong house, a Lexington detective testified Tuesday.

    Detective Jordan Tyree said Tuesday that the suspects in the Dec. 21 shooting intended to target the home of another person with whom 18-year-old Michael Lemond had gotten into an argument on social media. The intended target allegedly disrespected the victim of a 2019 homicide. But the suspects had the wrong address.

Teyo Waite. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center.

I understand that ‘disrespect’ used as a verb is a part of street language, but it seems to me that Jeremy Chisenhall, the article author, and Peter Baniak, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s editor, showed great disrespect for the English language by doing the same thing.

So, Messrs Lemond and Waite, the alleged shooters, were doubly stupid: they were ‘beefing’ with some other guy, looked up his address, and got the wrong one. They had to show him good, but didn’t even have the courage to face him. Instead they fired into a house, from the street, and blinded a child for life.

Young Mr Roberts has also lost his senses of smell and taste.

Detective Tyree said, “There were numerous bullet holes all through the upstairs and downstairs of the house.” In other words, spray and pray, the mark of a poor shooter. Young Mr Roberts mother, Cacy Roberts, was also struck by a bullet, which entered and exited her arm.

    Lemond also allegedly texted someone else about an hour before the shooting and told them “I love you … but I can’t let this s**t slide,” Tyree said.

    The intended target, who lived near where the shooting happened, allegedly “disrespected” Bryant Gaston, the victim in a fatal 2019 shooting. A 15-year-old was charged with murder in Gaston’s death.

Well, at least Mr Chisenhall put “disrespected” in quotation marks this time, indicating that it was slang.

Mr Lemond, again allegedly, got into an argument on social media with someone, so, again allegedly, he went after them with a gun. Street justice!

The detective revealed that Mr Lemond confessed, and gave up Mr Waite on the shooting as well.

So, over an argument on social media, Messrs Lemond and Waite decided that it would be a wise idea to show up at someone’s house and spray it with bullets. They got the wrong house, had no idea at whom they were shooting, and even if they had gotten the right house, had no way to tell if they were actually going to hit their target.

The Herald-Leader stated that each man male faced two counts of assault and two counts of wanton endangerment.

508.010 Assault in the first degree.

(1) A person is guilty of assault in the first degree when:
(a) He intentionally causes serious physical injury to another person by means of
a deadly weapon or a dangerous instrument; or
(b) Under circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human
life he wantonly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of death to
another and thereby causes serious physical injury to another person.
(2) Assault in the first degree is a Class B felony.

508.060 Wanton endangerment in the first degree.
(1) A person is guilty of wanton endangerment in the first degree when, under
circumstances manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life, he
wantonly engages in conduct which creates a substantial danger of death or serious
physical injury to another person.
(2) Wanton endangerment in the first degree is a Class D felony.

A Class B felony is punishable by 10 to 20 years in a Kentucky state prison, while a Class D felony is punishable by at least one year and no more than five years in state prison. In theory, if convicted on all charges, the offenses are all charged in the first degree, and sentenced to the maximum with sentences to run consecutively, each suspect could get fifty years (20 + 20 + 5 + 5 = 50) in the state penitentiary. Fifty years could keep them locked up until they are 68 years old. Unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that, if convicted, the judge would set sentencing in that fashion. Sadly, the attorneys and prosecutors will probably work out some sort of plea bargain arrangement which will let the defendants out of jail while they are still relatively young men males. If the prosecution really does have the goods on the defendants, they should not agree to any plea bargain which does not sentence the defendants to the maximum.

Young Mr Roberts will never see anything again, never smell or taste anything again, for the rest of his life; the defendants, if convicted, should spend the rest of their miserable lives behind bars.

I urge you to donate to young Mr Roberts.

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The Wall Street Journal notes that professionals who can are leaving cities and moving to the ‘exurbs’ What will this mean for the climate emergency activists who want us all to live in cities with mass transit?

The COVID-19 ‘pandemic’ has hastened a social change that was already happening. People were getting frustrated with the incredible urban density of our major cities, and the ever-increasing crime rates there, along with the problems of trying to bring up children in apartments with no outdoor space. It doesn’t matter how much money you have; bringing up children in your apartment in Central Park West still means that your kids have a long way to go to see things like actual grass and trees. From The Wall Street Journal:

    The ‘Great Reshuffling’ Is Shifting Wealth to the Exurbs

    The flow of white-collar workers to fringe outlying communities could reshape everything from transportation to real estate

    By Laura Forman | Updated: June 25, 2021 | 2:51 PM ET

    White collar workers are trading their expensive lives in the nation’s most densely populated areas for cheaper, greener pastures. Online real estate company Zillow Group calls it the “Great Reshuffling.”

    These moves will reshape transportation, real estate and an emerging fixture of American life: the exurb.

    Fringe outlying communities of major metropolitan regions were prized for their extreme privacy or more affordable housing before the pandemic, but were typically much less wealthy than the denser cities and affluent suburbs they surrounded.

I look at places like Hockessin, Delaware, where it was only a short commute, fewer than ten miles, from downtown Wilmington. While there was some gentrification going on in the city, out in Hockessin, when I lived there, 2000 to 2002, builders were building like mad in developments like Hockessin Green and Hockessin Chase, in part because New Castle County development ordinances restricted the number of homes which could be built on a 100-acre lot. This led to pricier homes built on larger lots, which meant larger lawns on which kids could play. These were things that the execs at MBNA and DuPont wanted.

I’ve had years of cramped up city life, living like a duck in a pen.
All I know that it’s a pity life can’t be simple again.

With the restrictions brought on by COVID-19, telecommuting was put into practice where it could be, and as some urban professionals found that they could do their work from home, it became reasonable to continue that, at least for some days during the week, even as the restrictions were ending. Of course, with the recent surge, there’s more reason for corporations to allow more frequent telecommuting. Add to that reduced office costs, and there can be real reasons why companies which can have workers work from home to allow it to continue, at least for some days during the week.[1]My younger daughter, an IT professional, worked from home for a few months during the shutdowns, and while she continued to be paid and worked, even she would admit that she was less productive while … Continue reading

    The Great Reshuffling will likely make these far-flung exurbs richer and denser. The median household income across U.S. exurbs was $74,573 as of 2019, according to data from The American Communities Project. That likely ticked up over the last year as city dwellers in major job centers such as San Francisco and New York relocated to exurbs for the same or similar salaries. In 2019 the median household income in the San Francisco Bay Area was nearly $115,000 and in the New York metro area it was more than $83,000.

What can you get in New York City on an $83,000 income? Where I live now, you could get a house and acreage and grass and trees; in Manhattan, you’d get a shoebox apartment in a six-story walkup on 96th Street!

2305 Beasley Avenue, Antioch, California.

Really? On February 20, 2020, 2305 Beasley Avenue in Antioch, California, sold for $360,000, and it’s just 1,174 ft², and wasn’t in good shape. It’s in Contra Costa County, the adjacent county to Oakland and Berkeley. I’m ‘familiar’ with the house because it was the one my parents bought when my father got back from Japan after the Korean war, and that’s where I lived up through the second grade.[2]I tend to look up my past residences on real estate sites. Yes, I still recognize the place, even though I haven’t seen it since I was eight years old. The chain link fence is a new addition, … Continue reading It looks pretty rough in the photos, but those were from the site when it was for sale; perhaps the new owners have made some improvements.

    The money stockpiled from leaving pricier areas, coupled with stimulus checks and enforced saving over the last year, are padding the bank accounts of these new movers. Rising credit scores are, in turn, enabling other major purchases such as cars. The new arrivals in the exurbs are finding they need their first or second automobile now that they are located in a more remote part of a metropolitan area. A January survey conducted by Engine Insights on behalf of Xperi DTS found 55% of millennials surveyed said car ownership was more important than ever.

But, but, but, the global warming climate change emergency activists want us to get away from personally owned vehicles, and commute by electric buses and trains. If the Journal story is correct, people are doing the opposite of that, moving into situations where cars are more important to them. Even if you commute by bus or train, odds are that you will need a car to get from your home to the commuter bus stop or train station. And now the ‘millennials,’ the group on which the global warming climate change emergency activists most heavily depend for political support are increasingly seeing personal vehicle ownership as important.

With a two car garage, I suppose the new owners of 2305 Beasley Avenue can install electric vehicle charging stations, and that’s what the urban professionals moving to the ‘exurbs’ are going to need.

But let’s face facts: what the global warming climate change emergency activists want is pretty much diametrically opposed to the American lifestyle and culture.

References

References
↑1 My younger daughter, an IT professional, worked from home for a few months during the shutdowns, and while she continued to be paid and worked, even she would admit that she was less productive while working from home. Too many distractions like puppies and cats and sunshine — her computer was set up on the screened in, northwest facing porch — led to perhaps not as much concentration.
↑2 I tend to look up my past residences on real estate sites. Yes, I still recognize the place, even though I haven’t seen it since I was eight years old. The chain link fence is a new addition, and the windows on the left of the house go to what used to be my bedroom. The old, roll out windows in metal frames have been replaced since I lived there.
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It’s getting closer and closer! School districts . . . should require all students and all adults to wear a mask while in the classroom and other indoor settings, Andy Beshear said

It was just last Friday that the Fayette County public schools, the Commonwealth’s second largest,, announced that most COVID-19 restrictions were going to be lifted for when school begins again next month:

    Many COVID restrictions are lifted in Fayette school cafeterias. And all kids eat free.

    By Valarie Honeycutt Spears | July 23, 2021 | 10:29 AM | Updated: July 23, 2021 | 10:38 AM

    Many COVID restrictions will be lifted in Fayette school cafeterias in 2021-2022, a year in which all kids will eat free regardless of family income.

    Breakfast and lunch meal service will resume normal operations that were in effect prior to the COVID pandemic. Meals will not be delivered to the classrooms. High Schools will resume a la carte lines.

    Students may eat in the cafeteria, classroom, and other designated areas, a letter to families said.

Of course, Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) waxed wroth!

    Beshear says Kentucky schools should consider requiring all students to wear masks

    By Alex Acquisto and Valarie Honeycutt Spears | July 26, 2021 | 3:13 PM | Updated: 5:38 PM EDT

    Gov. Andy Beshear on Monday sent a clear message to schools on when Kentucky students should wear masks in the fall, though he stopped short of issuing an order.

    Beshear said all unvaccinated students and adults should wear masks in classrooms and other indoor school settings. He said schools should require all students under the age of 12 to wear masks in classrooms. Those students are not yet eligible for vaccines.

    School districts wishing to optimize safety and minimize risks of educational and athletic, disruptions should require all students and all adults to wear a mask while in the classroom and other indoor settings, Beshear said.

    “There’s only one right answer that protects the kids,” Beshear.

    Beshear said a mandate is “not off the table.” Be he said he thought school districts would do the right thing before that was necessary.

I’ve said it before: Mr Beshear loves him some dictatorial powers, and while he hasn’t reissued his illegal and unconstitutional mask mandate yet, it seems like he’s getting closer to doing that, every day.

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Fear is the mind killer * Updated! *

We have previously noted how fear is being used to control the population. The government has been spreading fear, and one young lady has given us a very thorough demonstration of how well it has worked:

She posted a series of ten tweets in the thread, which I’ve quoted and linked below, to save space. I have also condensed her two paragraph tweets into single paragraphs.

  1. First tweet: I’m a vaccinated anaesthetist and this is how I shop for my family.
  2. Second tweet: Preparation is key. If possible, I go at quieter times or click and collect if I’m organised. If I need to go in, I have my respirator mask, sanitiser, a list, and the bags which I always forgot pre-pandemic.
  3. Third tweet: Current rules are that maximum one person per household can go each day. We minimise this as much as possible. Either my hubby or I go. Never together. No kids.
  4. Fourth tweet: Once parked I put on my respirator. I’m in healthcare so have a stock of self-purchased N95’s in the car. I take a moment to ensure that it is fitted correctly. No leaks.
  5. Fifth tweet: At the entrance I check in using the QR code the furtherest away from the front door. I sanitise my hands. Big smile with my eyes and thank you to the greeter.
  6. Sixth tweet: Once inside, it’s a race. I assume I have covid. I assume everyone else has covid. I shop with laser sharp focus. No browsing. I avoid crowded aisles. Keep distant. Get only what I need, touch only what is necessary. I don’t squeeze every avocado to see which is ripe….
  7. Seventh tweet: Once I have everything, I pay via self-service usually at the end one if free. I get outta there ASAP. Smile and thank the attendant. Sanitise on exit. Check out via the app. A long shop is 15 mins, usually 7.
  8. Eighth tweet: So why do I do this? Am I outta my mind? I didn’t care about germs before the pandemic. Well, in my job we are all about risk minimisation. I want to protect myself, my family, my patients and my colleagues. I don’t need to spend ages faffing about in there.
  9. Ninth tweet: I don’t want to bring covid into my hospitals. I want to do all I can as an individual to minimise risk. Also, if the supermarket ends up being an exposure site, I don’t want contact tracers to need to trace me and my contacts.
  10. Tenth tweet: Kudos to all the folk doing the right thing, and those working frontline in our supermarkets.

Note that these were tweeted on Saturday, July 24, 2021, not sometime during the summer of 2020.

Of course, everything she has said her husband and she are doing is perfectly legal, and they have every legal right to take the precautions she has mentioned. But this is the second summer — although it’s winter for her, in Australia and New Zealand — of COVID-19, and at some point people have to return to being the social animals that we are.

_____________________________________
Update: 10:03 PM EDT

Naturally, I notified the original tweet author, but it seems that she didn’t like it. When I tried to bring up the tweets again this evening, I got:

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We can’t have a solar park there; it’ll shut down the drive-in theater!

You can’t have your solar park when it’s going to drive out a drive in theater!

When I spotted this on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, I was tempted to just forward it to William Teach, since this is more his kind of story than mine. But one photo in there prompted me to use it myself.

Joe Farruggio, the owner of the land that the Mahoning Drive-In sits on, says he believes Greenskies was unfairly bullied away from its plan to build a solar farm on the four-acre property. Photo by Steven M Falk, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photographer

Judging by that photo, maybe Greyskies would have been a better name than Greenskies! 🙂

Here’s the story:

A beloved Poconos drive-in theater was set to become a solar-panel farm. Then the fans stepped in.

Hundreds of die-hard fans of the Mahoning Drive-In banded together to convince a green-energy company to withdraw its plan.

By Vinny Vella | July 25, 2021

Virgil Cardamone couldn’t sleep July 13. He obsessed over how to relay the message that everything he and his friends had built over the last six years on a grassy lot in rural Carbon County was in jeopardy.

The next morning, it dawned on him: He would, as he put it “tear his heart open” in a smartphone video broadcast over social media, pleading with hundreds of the regulars at the Mahoning Drive-In to help save the institution.

In the six-minute video, Cardamone laid out the scenario: A green-energy company out of Connecticut had paid to option the land the theater sat on for a solar-panel farm. The local zoning board was going to vote in a few weeks, and the 38-year-old was rallying fans of ‘80s classics, forgotten B-movies, and films everywhere to plead with Greenskies Clean Energy LLC to change its mind.

“The drive-in will never die,” Cardamone said in his sign-off, flicking tears out of his eyes with his thumb. “Mark my words.”

I moved away from what Vinny Vella, the article author, called “tourist darling Jim Thorpe” on July 1, 2017, roughly ten miles from the Mahoning Drive-In, and back to the Bluegrass State, but I’d certainly passed the place, on state route 443, many times. While my wife had taken our kids to see a few movies there, I hadn’t gone myself. Still, it was a local-to-me story; we lived in Jim Thorpe for fifteen years!

Two days and hundreds of emails, Facebook posts, and phone calls later, he posted a second video, announcing, almost in disbelief, that the grassroots campaign had been successful. Greenskies had agreed to pull their plan, and the theater’s landlord had expressed a willingness to sell the four-acre property to Cardamone and his business partners.

“To have the whole entire culture rise up and let them know how much it means to them, for me, I feel this business is invincible, even with all the madness going on,” Cardamone said in an interview last week. “This place is an escape for people, and it’s a celebration of a simpler time.”

So, the drive-in has been saved, at least for now.

I’m not sure just how much electricity a four-acre solar park would generate. The Nesquehoning Solar Park, off of state route 54 between Nesquehoning and Lake Hauto, for which I supplied some, but not all, of the concrete during its construction, covers, according to its website, 100 acres, and “will generate enough electricity to power 1,450 homes.” At the same efficiency, a four-acre solar park would power roughly 58 homes.

Regardless of that, some drive-in and old film buffs have managed to save the Mahoning Drive-In. What, I have to ask, will the global warming climate change emergency activists say about that? One thing is certain: in the push for ‘renewable’ energy sources, primarily solar and wind power, a lot of acreage is going to have to be taken up for solar panels and windmills, and there will always be pushback from those who don’t want the land used that way, and who object to having their scenic views taken up.

As it happens, we have more than four acres on the farm, and good, sunny, southwestern exposure; it would be perfect for a solar farm. But our best view is to the southwest as well, and there’s no way Mrs Pico would ever consent to spoil it with solar panels.

Photo taken on June 17th, while baling our second crop of hay for the season. The near tree line begins the downslope to the Kentucky River.

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Why don’t neoconservatives, who support American-style liberty and democracy abroad, support liberty at home?

When commenting on Patterico’s Pontifications, I am styled “The libertarian, but not Libertarian, Dana”, since one of his main writers is named Dana.

The site host was previously a Republican, and certainly a conservative, but he left the GOP when Donald Trump started to make headway toward the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, and became one of the #NeverTrumpers. His dislike of our 45th President has been apparent from the start, and he wanted Mr Trump not just impeached, but removed from office.

Patterico has been vocal in advocating that people get vaccinated against COVID-19, and I agree: they should. But this I did not expect from him:

I have previously noted how neoconservatives Max Boot and Bill Kristol, upset that not as many people as they believe should have have freely chosen to take the COVID-19 vaccines, have urged making vaccination mandatory.

When Patterico tweeted:

We may get to a point where the big debate becomes: why on Earth didn’t we institute more coercive measures on the unvaccinated in July 2021, when we could have stopped COVID before it mutated beyond the vaccines’ capacity to immunize people against it?

he has not precisely stated, as Messrs Boot and Kristol have, that he believes that vaccination should be mandatory, but one wonders: just what does he mean by “more coercive measures”?

A clue, I suppose, comes from his retweet from Allahpundit, who referenced yet another #NeverTrumper, David Frum, and his article in The Atlantic:

    Vaccinated America Has Had Enough

    In the United States, this pandemic could be almost over by now. The reasons it’s still going are pretty clear.

    By David Frum | July 23, 2021

    In the United States, this pandemic could’ve been over by now, and certainly would’ve been by Labor Day. If the pace of vaccination through the summer had been anything like the pace in April and May, the country would be nearing herd immunity. With most adults immunized, new and more infectious coronavirus variants would have nowhere to spread. Life could return nearly to normal.

The article title itself practically drips with contempt: “Vaccinated America has had enough.” With that, the distinguished Mr Frum, an urbanite who lives in Washington, DC, and Wellington, Ontario, tells his readers that “vaccinated America” and he are just better than the riff-raff who have decided against it.

    Experts list many reasons for the vaccine slump, but one big reason stands out: vaccine resistance among conservative, evangelical, and rural Americans. Pro-Trump America has decided that vaccine refusal is a statement of identity and a test of loyalty.

Or, perhaps, they have decided that they just don’t trust government very much. Such used to be commonplace among conservatives. Actually, it’s pretty commonplace among liberals as well . . . when conservatives are in power. Conservative states have been tightening up election security, but the left see that not as insuring against election fraud, but as trying to prevent some citizens from voting at all. And the left certainly distrusted government during President Trump’s four years in office!

Naturally, I cannot quote all of Mr Frum’s article; that would violate Fair Use standards. Suffice it to say that he spends the next three paragraphs telling us of all of the evils and sorrows the vaccine hesitant and conservative politicians have spread throughout conservative states.

    Reading about the fates of people who refused the vaccine is sorrowful. But as summer camp and travel plans are disrupted—as local authorities reimpose mask mandates that could have been laid aside forever—many in the vaccinated majority must be thinking: Yes, I’m very sorry that so many of the unvaccinated are suffering the consequences of their bad decisions. I’m also very sorry that the responsible rest of us are suffering the consequences of their bad decisions.

There it is again: Mr Frum is telling his readers that he is just so much smarter than those with reservations, that those who have not been willing to take the vaccine are irresponsible. As I have pointed out previously, insulting people, telling them that they are stupid, might not be the best approach to get them to buy what you are trying to sell.

    As cases uptick again, as people who have done the right thing face the consequences of other people doing the wrong thing, the question occurs: Does Biden’s America have a breaking point? Biden’s America produces 70 percent of the country’s wealth—and then sees that wealth transferred to support Trump’s America. Which is fine; that’s what citizens of one nation do for one another. Something else they do for one another: take rational health-care precautions during a pandemic. That reciprocal part of the bargain is not being upheld.

And here I thought that Mr Frum was supposed to be a conservative! Now he’s using the leftist argument that the liberals support conservatives. Well, Philadelphia might seem more productive, with its inflated prices for everything, and their 2020 voting pattern (81.44% for Mr Biden vis a vis 17.90% for President Trump), than Estill County, Kentucky, where I live, (77.98% for Mr Trump, 20.72% for Mr Biden) but we sure don’t kill each other the way they do in the City of Brotherly Love! We don’t have to surround our homes with iron bars to keep the criminals out!

    Can governments lawfully require more public-health cooperation from their populations? They regularly do, for other causes. More than a dozen conservative states have legislated drug testing for people who seek cash welfare. It is bizarre that Florida and other states would put such an onus on the poorest people in society—while allowing other people to impose a much more intimate and immediate harm on everybody else. The federal government could use its regulatory and spending powers to encourage vaccination in the same way that Ron DeSantis has used his executive powers to discourage it. The Biden administration could require proof of vaccination to fly or to travel by interstate train or bus. It could mandate that federal contractors demonstrate that their workforces are vaccinated. It could condition federal student loans on proof of vaccination. Those measures might or might not be wise policy: Inducements are usually more effective at changing individual behavior than penalties are. But they would be feasible and legal—and they would spread the message about what people ought to do, in the same way that sanctions against drunk driving, cheating on taxes, and unjust discrimination in the workplace do.

Mr Frum, like Patterico, is an attorney, and just loves him some ways of forcing people to comply. No, he didn’t say, “Make the vaccines mandatory,” but wants to try to regulate the non-compliant into poverty. And Mr Frum wonders why some people wouldn’t trust the government!

    In the end, the unvaccinated person himself or herself has decided to inflict a preventable and unjustifiable harm upon family, friends, neighbors, community, country, and planet.

And here we see the urbanist liberal argument again: that those who are doing nothing wrong — say, by owning a firearm even if they have never shot anyone — simply by living their lives as they see fit, are still guilty, guilty, guilty! of hurting other people. Mr Frum does not, and cannot, know whether any particular unvaccinated person has contracted the virus and then spread it to “family, friends, neighbors, community, country, and planet.” He simply assumes that all are guilty. Yet, at least here in the Bluegrass State, the Fayette County Health Department, in the Commonwealth’s second largest city, reported that 24.3% of all new COVID cases in July were “breakthrough” cases, instances in which vaccinated people still contracted the virus.

I look at people like David Frum and Max Boot and Bill Kristol, neoconservatives who supported American intervention to bring American-style liberty and democracy to places which were not liberal Western democracies,[1]Mr Frum was a speechwriter and assistant to the younger President Bush in 2001 and 2002, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. yet don’t seem to support liberty here at home.

References

References
↑1 Mr Frum was a speechwriter and assistant to the younger President Bush in 2001 and 2002, in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer proves my point

We have said, umpteen times, that The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t really care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an innocent, a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl.

    Two young athletes were fatally shot this week, leaving West Philadelphia school communities shattered: ‘This can’t be normal’

    “This can’t be normal, this can’t be accepted,” a Boys’ Latin football coach said he told his players. “You have a victim, but you also have a family behind them that are left to pick up the pieces.”

    By Anna Orso | Friday, July 23, 2021

    It had been just a few weeks since K.J. Johnson got his driver’s license. He picked up friends, including his childhood pal Tommie Frazier, and headed to play basketball on Wednesday, a sunny afternoon in West Philly.

    The ride ended in tragedy. Johnson, 16, and Frazier, 18, were fatally shot just after noon while seated in a car on the 200 block of North 56th Street in West Philadelphia, after unidentified gunmen fired into the vehicle. Another 16-year-old was wounded by the bullets fired in broad daylight near a day care and a bus stop.

    As of Friday, no one had been arrested and homicide investigators were still searching for video and witnesses. Police said they found 17 shell casings at the scene.

There’s plenty more at the original, but it all boils down to the same thing we’ve written about before: the victims were good high school athletes, the victims were somebodies.

A previous story noted that:

    The shooting happened at 12:10 p.m. on the 200 block of North 56th Street, when unidentified gunmen opened fire on the teens as they sat in a car, said Deputy Commissioner Benjamin Naish.

    Two males, ages 16 and 18 — whom police did not identify — were pronounced dead at Penn Presbyterian Medical Center after each was struck several times. The other teen, a 16-year-old boy, was taken to Lankenau Medical Center in stable condition, police said.

Seated in a car, each struck several times, and the police recovered 17 shell casings at the scene. This wasn’t random; these victims were deliberately targeted.

Was Mr McCain telling me that I’ve been too much of a broken record on Philadelphia murders? 🙂

Next came another story:

    He ‘didn’t deserve to die this way,’ says family of the 22-year-old killed outside Pat’s Steaks

    Police have charged a Reading man with murder in connection with the killing of David Padro Jr., a 22-year-old from Camden.

    by Anna Orso and Mensah M. Dean | Updated: July 23, 2021

    David Padro Sr. expected to spend this weekend like he did the last one: surrounded by family and hanging out by his pool in South Jersey with his 22-year-old son.

    Instead, he’s planning his son’s funeral.

    David Padro Jr., 22, was fatally shot early Thursday morning in South Philadelphia outside Pat’s King of Steaks, the famed cheesesteak joint where he had stopped for a bite. His father said Padro, of Camden, was in Philadelphia with his girlfriend to go to a nightclub when they stopped to eat and an argument broke out among patrons.

    Then, police say, Paul C. Burkert, a 36-year-old from Reading, pulled a gun. Padro was shot in the shoulder and abdomen and transferred to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after 1 a.m. Police said Burkert fled the scene and then turned himself in to National Park Police at Independence Mall.

Burkert faces murder and weapons charges. Court records show he pleaded guilty to a felony drug charge in Berks County in 2019 and was prohibited from possessing a firearm. No attorney for him was listed in court records Friday.

Gee, a convicted druggie, probably a drug dealer, carrying a handgun while out to buy a cheesesteak. He may have been from Reading, but that was real Philadelphia of him!

The Inquirer reported that, despite previous rumors that it was an altercation between Eagles and Giants fans, it was an altercation over a parking space. A photo accompanying the story shows just how crowded Philly’s narrow streets are in that area.

But both cases show what the Inquirer does. They pick some unusual aspect, high school basketball players, or out-or-towners who didn’t know each other, while the typical murders, one bad guy shooting another bad guy, get ignored, and they get mostly ignored because the city doesn’t want to face the real problem: it’s not guns, but a culture which says it’s perfectly reasonable to pull out your Glock and blast someone else.

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No jail term will ever be long enough

As we have noted so many times previously, the Lexington Herald-Leader follows the McClatchy Mugshot Policy and does not print the photos of accused criminals.

    Lexington teen accused of attacking his mom is charged in shooting that blinded child

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | July 22, 2021 | 11:19 AM | Updated: July 22, 2021 | 4:27 PM

    Michael Lemond. Photo: Fayette County Detention Center.

    A Lexington teenager accused of punching and shooting his mother has been linked to a 2020 shooting that left a 5-year-old boy blind, according to police and new court records.

    Michael Lemond, 18, was charged with two counts of first-degree assault Wednesday after police accused him of firing the shots that struck 5-year-old Malakai Roberts and Roberts’ mother, Cacy Roberts. Malakai was permanently blinded by the shooting after one of the shots went through his head.

    The shooting happened around 2 a.m. on Dec. 21, according to police. The shots were fired from outside the Roberts’ home on Catera Trace. Malakai’s injuries were initially considered life-threatening. Four other people were in the home when the shooting occurred, police said at the time.

It seems that Mr Lemond is, allegedly, of course, not a very nice guy. He was already locked up at the time of these new charges, because he had (allegedly) punched and fired three shots at his own mother, on May 23rd. Police recovered three shell casings at the site.

Malakai Roberts was playing inside his own home, when a bullet came through from outside. The Herald-Leader doesn’t publish mugshots, because they might be harmful to the offenders, but, not to worry, young Mr Roberts will never see the mugshots of the men males responsible for shooting him, because he is permanently blind. When Mr Lemond gets out of jail, he will still be able to see.

    2nd Lexington teen charged in shooting that blinded a 5-year-old boy

    By Jeremy Chisenhall | July 23, 2021 | 7:13 AM

    Teyo Waite. Photo by Fayette County Detention Center.

    A second teenager has been charged with assault in a shooting that blinded a 5-year-old boy and injured his mother, according to Lexington police.

    Teyo Waite, 18, was arrested Thursday and charged with two counts of assault plus two counts of wanton endangerment, according to jail records. Police confirmed Waite was charged in connection a shooting on Catera Trace which blinded Malakai Roberts, who’s now 6. His mother, Cacy Roberts, was also shot. Other people were in the home at the time, according to arrest records.

    The shooting happened around 2 a.m. on Dec. 21, police said. It was one of several shootings that occurred. Malakai was blinded by a bullet that went through his temple and narrowly missed his brain, his family said.

    Malakai Roberts sat with his gifts on his 6th birthday. Roberts was permanently blinded when he was unexpectedly shot by someone outside his home on Dec. 21. Photo by Cacy Roberts.

    “You won’t find a more sweet kid than Malakai despite what he’s going through,” detective Cal Mattox previously told the Herald-Leader. Mattox, a Lexington police narcotics detective, wasn’t directly involved in the shooting investigation. But he helped launch a fundraiser for the family, which has raised more than $16,500.

    Police previously charged another 18-year-old, Michael Lemond, with the same crimes in the same shooting. Lemond was already in jail due to an unrelated arrest, which occurred in May.

If you can spare the money, I urge you to go ahead and make a donation to help young Mr Roberts. The GoFundMe site has, thus far, raised $16,890 for him, but it will never, ever, be able to replace what this young boy has lost. If Messrs Waite and Lemond are convicted for the blinding of Mr Roberts, I would suggest that they should get out of prison the day that Mr Roberts regains his sight.

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I’m surprised that the Usual Suspects aren’t already out protesting But, then again, the day is still young

An article not to be found on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page:

    Man fatally shot by police in Kensington after allegedly firing at officers

    The shooting occurred on the 3000 block of North Water Street.

    By Robert Moran | July 22, 2021

    An unidentified man was fatally shot by police after he allegedly fired shots at two officers during a large neighborhood fight in the city’s Kensington section Thursday evening.

    The man, described as in his late 40s or early 50s, was shot in the shoulder and abdomen just before 6:30 p.m. on the 3000 block of North Water Street near Clearfield Street, said Chief Inspector Scott Small. The man was transported by police to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7:30.

    The officers were undercover as part of a long-term narcotics investigation and were sitting inside an unmarked Nissan when the fight broke out, Small said. Some of the people involved in the fight jostled up against the unmarked vehicle and then the officers saw the man allegedly pull out a gun.

    Small said the officers got out of the vehicle and identified themselves as police. The man then allegedly fired at least two shots into the crowd and in the direction of the officers, who then returned fire.

North Water Street near Clearfield Street, Google Maps streetview.

There’s more at the original. I hope that the entire exchange was caught on tape, and I’m surprised that the Usual Suspects aren’t already out protesting.

If you look at the Google Maps street view of North Water Street, with Clearfield Street the intersection visible, you’re going to see a crime-ridden neighborhood. How do I know that? Even in this streetview of a racially integrated neighborhood, you can see at least six homes in which the owners have put themselves in jail, adding bars to the fronts of their houses to keep the bad guys out. Follow the link, and toggle through, and you’ll see plenty of others.

This is the part the Inquirer never points out. Yes, I know: the reporter, Robert Moran, doesn’t have this kind of investigation as part of his job, so I can’t blame him, but somebody, somebody! at the Inquirer ought to be out there, taking pictures and doing interviews on streets like this, an obviously poorer neighborhood, in which people are spending their too-few dollars on drugs — that’s why the police were conducting an undercover investigation there — and metal bars to keep their meager possessions safe from theft.

Perhaps the Inquirer might be asking, ‘Why, in a city in which jobs are going unfilled, are so many in this neighborhood poor?’ Perhaps the Inquirer might ask, ‘Why, in a neighborhood in which people are so obviously poor, are they wasting what money they do have on drugs?’

But the Inquirer won’t ask those questions, because the #woke editors and reporters already know the answers, and sure don’t want those answers made public.