Screen capture from OnePA website, taken at 10:20 AM EDT on May 9, 2023. Click to enlarge.

When people tell you who they are, believe them!

What does OnePA support? They support depriving property owners of their rights by opposing eviction for non-payment of rent. They are, simply put, socialists and a group opposed to law enforcement. And naturally, they support Helen Gym Flaherty!

A Philly campaign worker for a progressive political group fatally shot another canvasser in East Germantown, police say

Both men were canvassing for the city’s upcoming primary election on behalf of OnePA. Police said it was not immediately clear what sparked the shooting.

by Sean Collins Walsh, Chris Palmer, and Ellie Rushing | Monday, May 8, 2023 | 9:44 PM EDT

A 46-year-old man was fatally shot on Monday afternoon in East Germantown while canvassing for the city’s upcoming mayoral primary, police said, in an incident that stemmed from a dispute with a 22-year-old man, who was also canvassing on behalf of OnePA, a progressive-leaning political group.

It was not immediately clear what prompted the 22-year-old to shoot the older man, and police declined to identify either of them.

The tragedy on the campaign trail came one week before high-stakes mayoral and City Council elections that have been defined by debates about public-safety issues amid the city’s ongoing gun violence crisis.

OnePA Executive Director Steve Paul said members of the group were “heartbroken, and our condolences and sympathy are with their family.”

At this point in the article, an advertisement appears, something that stops a lot of readers.

“Today, a One PA team member tragically lost their life,” Paul said in a statement. “We are mourning this senseless loss and continuing to gather the facts and investigate what happened.”

Paul previously worked in the Council office of Helen Gym, who is now a mayoral candidate running in the May 16 primary with the backing of OnePA and other progressive organizations. The group is also canvassing on behalf of Council candidates Seth Oberman-Anderson, Rue Landau, Amanda McIllmurray, Isaiah Thomas, and Erika Almirón.

So, it took Inquirer reporters Sean Collins Walsh, Chris Palmer, and Ellie Rushing six paragraphs to let readers know that the canvassers were canvassing for Helen Gym Flaherty. If a reader’s only news source was the Inky — mine isn’t — wouldn’t he wonder for whom OnePA was canvassing? I sure hope his attention span was long enough to get past the first advertisement!

The 22-year-old — who was in legal possession of his handgun — remained on the scene afterward the shooting and was taken to the homicide unit to be questioned by detectives, according to Chief Inspector Scott Small. The 22-year-old’s car was also still on the street after the crime, Small said, and OnePA pamphlets could be seen in its passenger seat.

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said the victim and the man accused of shooting him knew each other and began arguing after they “happened upon each other” on the 2000 block of Church Lane^[1]At or near the intersection with Lambert Street, near the Church Lane Food Market, a bodega. around 4 p.m. Vanore was not certain what the argument was about, but said detectives were investigating the possibility that it related to an existing dispute.

Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, the head of the Police Department’s homicide unit, said that the two men “had always had a beef,” and that when they crossed paths on the street, the 46-year-old pulled out a gun — which was not registered to him — and the 22-year-old then pulled his firearm, shooting the older man once in the armpit.

The shooter claimed that he was acting in self-defense, but the important part to note is that both men were packing heat, one of them illegally, while canvassing, in broad daylight, for Mrs Flaherty. No wonder the guy carrying illegally was part of OnePA, ’cause he certainly seems to support the voting ‘rights’ of felons.

The candidate, of course, prefers sending “non-police mental health mobile crisis units” to reduce the city’s “gun violence” crisis, but perhaps there were no social workers in the canvassing crews.

Mrs Flaherty expressed sorrow, but made it clear that the shooter and his victim were not part of her official campaign.

In a statement issued Monday night, Gym said she was “devastated to hear about the tragic death of a canvasser today.”

“My thoughts are with the family of the victim, the One PA community, and everyone impacted by this irrevocable loss,” Gym said. “Though the canvasser was not part of our campaign, this loss is deeply felt by all of us.”

If Mrs Flaherty, who promises to “Get illegal guns off our streets,” and to “Provide interventions to stop those in the path of violence,” had anything to say about people canvassing for her carrying guns, the Inquirer never mentioned it.