Tag Archives: #Chicago

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Chicago thinks it’s the nation’s murder capital. Philadelphia laughs and says, “Hold my beer!” The good people of those two fine cities are getting exactly that for which they voted.

A police officer places makers on evidence on the 3900 block of Poplar Street 18-year-old Nasir Marks was fatally shot on Tuesday, May 25, 2021. Steven M Falk, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photographer. Click to enlarge.

According to the Chicago Tribune, as of Sunday, December 19th, there had been 783 murders in the Windy City thus far in 2021, 34 more than on the same day last year. As of the same day, 540 homicides had occurred in Philadelphia. The 19th being the 353rd day of the year, that works out to 2.2181 homicides per day in Chicago, and ‘only’ 1.5297 per day in the City of Brotherly Love.

But, according to the 2020 census, there were 2,746,388 people living in Chicago, and 1,603,797 in Philly. Using the homicide rates, that works out to a projected 558 killings in Philly and 810 in Chicago. Murder rates are calculated based on 100,000 population, meaning that Chicago is headed for a homicide rate of 29.4933 per 100,000, while Philadelphia is looking at 34.7924. Philadelphia is far deadlier than Chicago!

We noted that Philadelphia tied its 1990 homicide record of 500 the day before Thanksgiving, and at that point, the city was actually seeing slightly fewer killings per day than it was on December 19th. And guess what: with 547 homicides as of the end of Thursday, December 23rd, the rate has crept up slightly again, to 1.5322 per day, making the projected number of killings 559!

I will admit to a sort of grim fascination with the numbers, but murder in Philadelphia has really changed things. One murder, it has been said, is a tragedy, but 547 is just a statistic, and to the leadership of the city, and the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer, that’s all it is, a statistic, a number that they can attribute of “gun violence,” but never examine the real problem: bad people!

In Ironic Justice: Two Anti-Police Lawmakers Get Carjacked, Robert Stacy McCain noted that two Democratic politicians, one in Chicago and one in Philly, who supported the “reform” of policing — meaning: getting even softer on crime — were carjacked within 24 hours of each other.

Illinois state Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) was targeted in suburban Chicago on Tuesday night, while Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) was carjacked Wednesday afternoon after an event in South Philadelphia.

Well, it seems that, given that Representative Scanlon is a sitting congresswoman, the feds are getting involved:

“The investigation into this incident is in its very initial stages, and we are continuing to investigate and evaluate charging decisions,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “Armed carjacking is a serious federal crime. There have been a rash of violent crimes like this recently, and while there were national security implications to this particular incident, we are always working collaboratively with our local partners to evaluate if cases should be taken federally. Working together means more resources, more tools, more intelligence. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you pick up a gun and use it to commit a crime, together, we will come after you. And we are very good at what we do.”

In point of fact, however, if armed carjacking is a “serious federal crime,” when was the last time the feds got involved in such a case? Just two weeks ago, Philadelphia police said the city has seen an 80% increase in carjackings this year, and what had United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams done in response? Nothing, until a Democratic congresswoman got carjacked in — sweet irony! — FDR Park.

Seriously, go look through the press release archive at the U.S. Attorney’s web site and tell me if you find a case where they previously prosecuted a carjacking. I went back as far as April and didn’t find one, so if the Biden DOJ was making it a priority to “come after” carjackers before this week, they weren’t very successful at it. But then again, success really hasn’t been a hallmark of the Biden administration, has it?

Mr McCain was employing sarcasm, but there’s a not-so-veiled slam at Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, a George Soros-financed stooge whose main goal is getting the bad guys released, not jailed. At some point, you’d think Philadelphians would get tired of all of the crime and violence in their city’s streets, but not tired enough: Mr Krasner was re-elected last month!

The good people of those two cities are getting exactly that for which they voted.

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If the news doesn’t fit Teh Narrative, the left try to ignore it to death.

At some point, people have to admit that Amanda Marcotte is simply not a serious writer. Now, it could be said that I am not, either, given that no one is paying me to write, and I certainly do not have her audience, but for a political writer, living in Philadelphia, to not have mentioned — did she even notice? — that her adopted hometown had just hit, and then quickly passed, 300 homicides for the year, seems pretty unusual. Heck, even The Philadelphia Inquirer noticed! The image to the right, on which you can click to enlarge, is her Salon article archive, and, two days short of half a year after President Trump left office, it’s pretty much all Donald Trump, all the time.

But, her pain is understandable, because it has been shared by so many other leftist writers. The COVID-19 restrictions, on which so many on the left blamed the surge in homicides, are now almost all in the past, and the evil reich-wing Mr Trump is out of office. The Democrats control the White House, the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate. In Pennsylvania, the Governor is a Democrat, as is the Mayor of Philadelphia, as is the City Council, and as is the city’s District Attorney, a man who greatly resists “mass incarceration,” and is so soft-on-crime that it ought to embarrass those who are soft-on-crime. The city’s only serious newspaper is an “anti-racist news organization,” and, let’s face it, virtually every liberal municipal policy imaginable has already been put into force in the City of Brotherly Love.

And yet, and yet, the good people of Philadelphia continue to shoot each other at a prodigious rate. At least 303 murders through 198 days yields a homicide rate of 1.5303 per day, and that works out to 558 or 559 (558.56, to be exact, but you can’t kill half a person) projected homicides for 2021. The record is 500 set in the crack cocaine wars of 1990, with last year’s 499 taking second place.

With all of the liberal policies that one could reasonably imagine being enacted, being in force, in Philadelphia, Miss Marcotte’s fellow city residents are still gunning each other down at appalling rates.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Mindless carnage continues in Chicago

The Windy City has seen more total murders. The Chicago Tribune listed 364 homicides as of July 6th, while the Chicago Sun-Times listed 33 more people bleeding out their life’s blood in the city streets between July 7th and July 17th. That’s 397 homicides in 198 days, 2.0051 per day, on pace for 732 for the year. Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s very liberal policies, combined with the completely Democrat controlled state government, don’t seem to have helped much.

However, if Chicago has seen more homicides than Philadelphia, with a population of 2,679,080, Chicago is 68% bigger than Philly, with 1,591,034 souls. Using the projected killings, Chicago projects to a homicide rate of 27.32 per 100,000 population, while Philly basically says, “Hold my beer!” 558 projected murders divided by 15.79 yields a homicide rate of 35.34 per 100,000!

But, pointing that out doesn’t fit Teh Narrative[1]Not a typo: “Teh Narrative” was intentional. for the left, does it?

So, what is Teh Narrative? That this is a gun control issue, that it’s all about too many guns available, and so we must restrict the rights of law abiding citizens, as though the gang bangers are going to obey such laws.

But, if they tell the truth, that this isn’t a gun control problem, but a cultural problem, a specific cultural problem, virtually everything the left say about ‘racial justice’ and ‘systemic racism’ just falls apart.

References

References
↑1 Not a typo: “Teh Narrative” was intentional.
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Was it worth it?

Demond Goudy, 21, Photo released by Chicago Police Department.

We have thrice mentioned the killing of seven-year-old Jaslyn Adams in the Windy City. Chicago Police have now apprehended a second suspect in that shooting, as Demond Goudy, 21, was taken into custody Monday in the 1500 block of South Springfield following a SWAT standoff. Marion Lewis, 18, allegedly the driver, was previously apprehended.

Mr Goudy has been denied bail, because he was already out on bond awaiting trial on other charges. WGN noted that Mr Goudy’s life had been a long spiral of violence:

In recent years, violence has been a constant in the life of Demond Goudy, one of the men accused of taking part in the fatal shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams earlier this month.

Court records show that Goudy was shot and critically wounded on the West Side last October. That shooting occurred less than two weeks after Goudy’s brother was shot and killed in Humboldt Park. No one has been charged in either case.

Before he was charged in Jaslyn’s killing — a shooting that also left her father seriously injured — Goudy was already facing four separate criminal cases.

Court records show that, in addition to the murder charge, the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has accused Goudy of robbery, manufacturing/delivery of cocaine, possession of a controlled substance, possession of a gun with a defaced serial number and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. None of the charges against Goudy are more than 2 ½ years old.

According to court filings made by his attorney, Goudy was a participant in READI Chicago, “a job readiness program that provides cognitive behavioral therapy and work force training.”

Let’s face facts: young Mr Goudy was a waste case, and no ‘job training’ program was ever going to turn him into a decent and law-abiding member of society. Mr Goudy was already under electronic monitoring when he was shot in the back, just two weeks after his brother, Edward James, had been murdered. Cook County Judge Edward Maloney, asked by Mr Goudy’s attorney to loosen the conditions of Mr Goudy’s monitoring so he could go to medical appointments following his release from the hospital, instead dropped the monitoring altogether, after Cathryn Crawford of the Lawndale Christian Legal Center, Mr Goudy’s attorney, argued that, “Demond is not a threat to anyone given his condition.” Apparently neither the judge nor the defense attorney thought that, eventually, Mr Goudy would recover.

Naturally, I checked out the Lawndale Christian Legal Center’s website, and found this, on their main page:

THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IN OUR COUNTRY IS BROKEN.

It’s costing too much and hurting us all. But we are standing at a pivotal moment where the conversation has begun in earnest about shifting power back to the community as a more effective way to ensure peace, make communities safer and provide equity for everyone.

Over a decade ago at Lawndale Christian Legal Center, we committed to providing legal defense for juvenile and emerging adult clients in North Lawndale, keeping them out of prison, surrounding each one with the right resources to address the systemic problems threatening their future, and involving the community in seeking justice. We believe it is – and always has been – the most effective way to build a system that is fair for everyone.

This is a restorative justice program supported by holistic social and legal services that walk juveniles and emerging adults through, and away from, the court system for good. Through our work, we’ve been helping transform young lives tangled in a deeply flawed system, and inspiring hope in places where hope has been hard to come by.

I get it. Everyone deserves a legal defense. But perhaps, just perhaps, Miss Crawford, their Director of Holistic Legal Services, may just have a bit too much goodness in her heart:

Cathryn is a graduate and former professor of Northwestern University’s School of Law. With a decades long legal career, she joined LCLC due to its unique community-based holistic legal representation model and the vision espoused by Cliff Nellis, Executive Director. Before coming to LCLC, Cathryn worked in Texas representing clients on death row. People like Cathryn’s mother, a single mom and tenants’ rights community activist, instilled in her a strong sense of social justice and work ethic from an early age. Cathryn hopes to reform the justice system by making it holistic instead of punitive and to eliminate the pernicious racism that characterizes it. She wants our clients to be seen as unique individuals with real strengths rather than simply the offense with which they have been charged. She is motivated by her team and by her clients.

Or perhaps she’s just an idiot. Those gang tats on Mr Goudy’s neck ought to have told her something, ought to have told her that perhaps, just perhaps, her “strong sense of social justice” was a bit misplaced when she told Judge Maloney that Mr Goudy wasn’t a threat to anyone. 

Does Miss Crawford even think about Jaslyn Adams, and how the client she helped to get released from monitoring shot her stone-cold graveyard dead?  Does she feel any responsibility, does she have any sense or remorse?

Miss Crawford did Mr Goudy no favors. If Mr Goudy was indeed one of the shooters — remember: he is innocent of that until proven guilty — at least the years he would spend behind bars for his previous crimes would have left him with some hope of eventually getting out of prison. Now, if he is convicted in the premeditated murder of a seven-year-old innocent girl, well, that’s it, he’ll spend the rest of his miserable life in prison.

How about Messrs Goudy and Lewis? The shooting was, apparently, some gang-related action. Yeah, they sure showed Jontae Adams, young Miss Adams’ father, what for, but now the 21 and 18 year olds are looking at never, ever, getting out of prison. Was it really worth it for them?

Well, assuming that Messrs Goudy and Lewis are the guilty parties, they will be held accountable by the criminal justice system.

But what about Judge Maloney, who freed Mr Goudy from monitoring, and Miss Crawford, who worked as hard as she could to see to it that Mr Goudy was out on the street, and able to (allegedly) shoot his victims? We know that, legally, they’ll never be held accountable, but morally and ethically, if Mr Goudy really was one of the men people who killed Miss Adams, Mr Maloney and Miss Crawford are at least in part responsible. This death should gnaw at their hearts forever.

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Show me a bad kid, and I’ll show you rotten parents, part 2

My good friend William Teach tweeted a story which follows up on my Show me a bad kid, and I’ll show you rotten parents:

And here’s the story:

Prosecutors: Boy shot by police was with man who fired gun

Associated Press | Saturday, April 10, 2021 | 5:43 PM

CHICAGO (AP) — A young man who was with a 13-year-old boy fatally shot by a Chicago police officer last month fired the rounds that drew the officer’s attention, prosecutors said Saturday.

Ruben Roman, 21, is seen on video firing the weapon that brought police to the Little Village neighborhood on the night of March 29. He and 13-year-old Adam Toledo fled the scene together, with officers in pursuit, prosecutors said.

Roman was arrested as another officer chased Toledo, who was holding a gun when the officer shot him, prosecutors said. That gun matched the spent cartridge casings that were found in the area where Roman was firing, prosecutors said.

“If the defendant does not bring the 13-year-old with him, if he doesn’t bring his gun with him while on gun offender probation, if he doesn’t shoot that gun seven to eight times on a city street with the victim standing in arms length of him while he’s firing those shots … none of it would have happened,” Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy said in court, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Roman’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Courtney Smallwood, vigorously rejected the implication that Roman is responsible for Toledo’s death, noting that the gun was allegedly recovered from Toledo.

“The victim is dead at the hand of the Chicago police officers, not my client,” she said, calling Toledo’s death “tragic.”

There’s a lot more in the Chicago Tribune’s story, but it leaves as many unanswered questions as answered ones.

Toledo kept running as an officer ordered him to stop, then paused near a break in a wooden fence, Murphy said. The officer ordered Toledo to show his hands. Toledo was standing with his left side to the officer and held his right hand to his right side, Murphy said.

The officer told Toledo “drop it, drop it,” as Toledo turned toward the officer with a gun in his right hand, Murphy said.

The officer fired one shot, hitting Toledo in the chest. The gun Toledo was holding landed a few feet away, Murphy said. The officer radioed for an ambulance and began chest compressions on Toledo, who was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene, Murphy said.

The story does not say that young Mr Toledo raised his right hand or pointed the weapon at the officer. That’s an important detail, which responsible journalism would have covered.

One officer tackled Roman as Toledo kept running. As Roman was being arrested, he dropped a pair of red gloves, Murphy said. Those gloves tested positive for gunshot residue, according to Murphy.

We are not told why Mr Toledo was holding the firearm Mr Roman fired. That’s another bit of poor journalism.

Why was 13-yeaqr-old Mr Toledo with a 21-year-old convicted felon? We aren’t told. Why wasn’t young Mr Toledo at home with his parents? Why was a 13-year-old kid out in dark alleys at 2:35 on a Monday morning? No answers to those questions were in the Tribune.

This story reads like one in which a wannabe thug was with an adult criminal, engaged in criminal acts, and things went predictably bad.

The Tribune noted that, as of April 8th, 155 homicides had been recorded in the Windy City, 27 more than on the same date last year. As we noted back in January:

People think of Chicago under its ridiculous Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, as the nation’s murder capital. In 2020, the Windy City saw 769 homicides, 270 more than Philadelphia. But Chicago has a population of 2,710,000, while Philly’s is 1,579,000. Crime rates are compared by rate per 100,000 population, and that leaves Chicago with a homicide rate of 28.38 per 100,000.

Philadelphia laughs and says, “We can beat that!”, checking in with a murder rate of 31.60 per 100,000.

As of January 25th, Chicago had 44 homicides, compared to Philly’s 37, but the disparity in population means that the City of Brotherly Love was far ahead.

Nothing has changed, of course: Chicago is still ahead in absolute terms, but the City of Brotherly Love, with 132 murders recorded as of that same date, April 8th, is ahead when population is considered. Had the two city’s the same murder rate, Philadelphia should have seen 90 murders on the same date Chicago had 155; if Chicago had Philly’s homicide rate, the Windy City should have seen 224 bullet-riddled bodies on April 8th, not ‘just’ 155.

So, as ridiculous as Mayor Lightfoot is, Philadelphia’s Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw are doing an even worse job!

Chicago will be better off with Mr Roman back off the streets. He is a convicted felon who, on probation, appears to have continued his felonious ways. Young Mr Toledo? Given the path he was on, is there any reason to believe he would not turn out like Mr Roman? It is easier to see a 13-year-old boy, apparently without any substantial parental guidance, clearly consorting with adult felons, winding up as just another gang-banger in Chicago rather than as the next Barack Hussein Obama, had he lived.

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Show me a bad kid, and I’ll show you rotten parents

I hadn’t heard of this story until I saw this tweet:

Yeah, that sounds kind of bad!

13-Year-Old Boy Who ‘Wanted to Become a Cop’ Is Killed by Chicago Police

Pilar Melendez | Friday, April 2, 2021 | 12:10 PM

The death of a 13-year-old boy, who dreamed of joining the police but was gunned down by a cop in an “armed confrontation” this week, has horrified the crime-weary city of Chicago, prompting demands for answers from the mayor on down.

The Cook County Medical Examiner confirmed to The Daily Beast that Adam Toledo died of a gunshot wound to the chest on Monday. His death, which occurred after a confrontation with Chicago police in Little Village, has been classified as a homicide.

The boy’s family, community leaders, and even Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot are demanding police release the body-camera videos of the incident. The officer involved in the shooting has been put on desk duty for at least 30 days pending an investigation.

“Adam was a seventh-grade student at [Gary Elementary] School, enjoyed sports, and was a good kid. He did not deserve to die the way he did,” the Toledo family said in a Friday statement.

Uh huh.

The family said Adam was killed “due to the unreasonable conduct of a Chicago Police Officer” and they would “seek justice for this reprehensible crime.” They added that they were only notified of Adam’s death two days after he was killed.

“We are confident that the Chicago Police Department and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability will conduct a thorough investigation, that there will be transparency, and that Toledo Family will find out the truth of what happened to Adam.”

Police said the incident began at around 2:35 a.m. on Monday when officers responded to a call of “multiple shots fired in the 200 block of S. Sawyer.” When they arrived, they found two males—later identified as Toledo and 21-year-old Ruben Roman Jr.—“in a nearby alley” and at least one was armed. Police said the armed person ran from the scene, prompting officers to start a foot pursuit that ended in an “armed confrontation.”

What, exactly, was a 13-year-old boy doing out on the streets at 2:35 AM on Monday morning?

There’s more at the original, and the Usual Suspects are trying to make this about politics, but two perps, running from the police at 2:35 in the morning isn’t exactly the type of situation in which the officers would have suspected that one was a 13-year-old kid. If the text of the story is accurate, Mr Roman did not flee the police, while young Adam Toledo fled while carrying a firearm. The story states that Mr Toledo was struck “in the chest” by the officer’s bullet; if he was not struck in the back, then it seems likely that he turned after fleeing and confronted the officer. If he confronted the officer with a weapon in his hand, then the officer was justified in taking the shot.

Eventually body camera footage will show the confrontation, but it would seem pretty clear to me: if young Mr Toledo was out at that hour of the night, and was carrying a pistol, then Mr Toledo is responsible for his own demise.

But Mr Toledo isn’t the only one responsible for his death. Where were his parents? Which adult was responsible for the supervision of a 13-year-old boy at 2:35 AM on Monday? Some adult, somewhere, failed in his responsibility, failed not only to have young Mr Toledo inside his home at that hour, and, to be very blunt about it, failed in his duty to rear the child properly.

Mr Toledo is dead, but his parents, or whomever was supposed to be caring for him, are just as responsible for his behavior, and his death, as was the young boy.

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Chicago only thinks it’s the murder capital

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain noted the good mayor of the Windy City, and what had happened to the homicide rate in that toddlin’ town:

Stupid City, Stupid Mayor: Homicide Increases 55% in Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago

January 3, 2021

Remember, dead people are still eligible to vote in Chicago:

A 41-year-old man was shot and killed early Friday morning in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, marking the city’s first homicide of 2021 and following a year of spiking crime rates there and around the nation.

According to Chicago police data, the city recorded 769 homicides in 2020, a 55% increase over 2019.

The increase, reversing a three-year trend, is among the highest in city history, The Chicago Tribune reported Thursday.

Fatal shootings rose by 53%, with December shootings totaling 50, compared with just 19 a year earlier.

According to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, 78% of the gun violence victims were Black.

So that’s about 600 black people shot dead in Chicago last year, a Democrat-run city in a Democrat-controlled state with some of the strictest gun-control laws in the country. If Black Lives Matter actually cared about saving the lives of black people, they’d be rioting about this, but the truth is the Black Lives Matter is just a propaganda operation with only one goal, to help Democrats win elections.

It would be wrong to say to describe this as a “tragedy,” because it’s so predictable. When you elect Democrats, people get killed as a result. If you’re too stupid to understand this, that’s not my fault.

There’s more to the story. The 2020 Census numbers aren’t in yet, but, according to Wikipedia, Chicago’s population was guesstimated at 2,693,976 for 2019. Since crimes rates are calculated by 100,000 population, 769 homicides works out to a murder rate of 28.54.

That’s pretty high, but but Philadelphia laughs, and says, “Hold my beer.”

Philly’s violent year: Nearly 500 people were killed and 2,200 shot in 2020

by Chris Palmer | January 1, 2021 | 5:00 AM EST

For just the second time in its history, Philadelphia’s annual homicide total threatened in 2020 to reach 500, another grim marker in a year where the city has been wracked by the coronavirus pandemic, economic strife, and social unrest over racial inequity.

The number of people killed this year — 494 as of Tuesday — is 40% higher than last year, and more than in all of 2013 and 2014 combined. The only time more people were slain in the city was in 1990, when police reported 500 homicides as violence surged alongside an intensifying crack-cocaine epidemic.

It’s obvious that Chris Palmer, the author, had been working on this story for a couple of days. Though further down in the article he noted that the reported total was 498, he had written this when the reported number was slightly smaller.

The Philadelphia Inquirer noted in a different story that at least one person was murdered on New Year’s Eve, which would bring the total to 499. The population of Philly was guesstimated to be 1,584,064 in 2019. That gives Philly a murder rate of 31.50, leaving Chicago in it’s rear-view mirror. The Philadelphia Police Department should release its final number on 2020 homicides on Monday.

The spike in shootings was even more pronounced. More than 2,240 people were shot since Jan. 1, 40% more than police have ever recorded. Those statistics only date back to 2007, when the department began keeping track of shooting victims separately from the broader category of assaults involving a gun.

As in most years, the vast majority of victims were young, Black men — many from impoverished neighborhoods lacking resources and long afflicted by gun violence. But shots also killed and wounded children playing on the street. A pregnant woman was struck by a stray bullet — forcing the early delivery of her baby. Some gunmen fired indiscriminately into block parties. A witness was shot dead near City Hall in what police believe was a targeted hit for his testimony in a murder trial.

Then came the money line:

Still, the city’s crime picture continued to show uneven and unusual signs: As homicides and shootings soared, overall violent crime — which also includes rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults — remained near decades-long lows, while overall property crime was also lower than last year.

Are there really fewer other crimes? That’s what the statistics say, but there’s an unforgotten factor. Murder is a crime of evidence; dead bodies are very difficult of which to dispose or hide, and they get found. But rape, assaults which don’t result in hospitalization, robberies, etc, are crimes of reporting; if the victims don’t report them, then as far as the police, as far as the statistics are concerned, they didn’t happen.

And with Larry Krasner’s refusal to prosecute seriously the ‘little’ crimes, with the black community hating the police, and with conviction rates so low, it is more probable that other crimes are simply being reported less frequently than it is that fewer crimes are being committed. When your city is stuck with a District Attorney like Mr Krasner, who doesn’t believe in prosecuting criminals, or sentencing them harshly when they are prosecuted and convicted, what reason is there to report that you were robbed?

From the District Attorney’s Wikipedia biography:

During his tenure, Krasner has sought to spearhead criminal justice reform by ending bail payments for low-level offenders, reducing supervision for parolees, and seeking more lenient sentences for certain crimes. Prior to his government service, Krasner had a 30-year career as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney and public defender. He aggressively pursued police misconduct.

Why would anyone go through the hassle of reporting a crime, and perhaps having to testify in court, when the city isn’t going to give the criminals more than a slap on the wrist?

Murder is not normally a criminal’s first crime; the bad guys tend to start out small, and work their ways up to the really bad stuff. But with all of the ‘social justice’ bovine feces, all of the hatred of the police, and the frustration that comes with crimes not being solved, what’s the point of someone in Kensington or Nicetown calling the cops when they get mugged?

Krasner said summer could have been the moment when the near-total shutdown of social services and alternatives to gun violence collided with warmer weather and other traditional drivers of violence, such as long-simmering feuds — suddenly allowed to play out on streets where witnesses, like everyone else, stayed home in the pandemic lockdown.

Really? The Police Department reported that, as of 11:59 PM on October 23rd, there had been 399 homicides in 297 days in the city. That works out to 1.34 killings per day. But with 498 homicides in 365 days, the average is slightly higher, at 1.36 per day; cooler weather didn’t seem to stem the tide of killings. And in the last 68 days, there were 99 killings, or 1.46 per day, a higher rate, around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Mr Palmer’s article concludes with the usual platitudes about not enough legitimate opportunities for young black males growing up in the City of Brotherly Love, and Mr Krasner and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw saying that they are trying to put in programs that involve more than just (the barely existent) law enforcement. But what no one will do is admit the truth, because the truth is so very, very politically incorrect: the only solution to bad behavior by teenagers and young adults, regardless of race, is better parenting and better communities. The parents of young black males need to rear them better, and that has to mean both parents. If their fathers are absent, boys are crippled in a way that is easy to quantify:

Children brought up in single mother homes are:

  • 5 times more likely to commit suicide,
  • 9 times more likely to drop out of high school,
  • 10 times more likely to abuse chemical substances,
  • 14 times more likely to commit rape,
  • 20 times more likely to end up in prison,
  • 32 times more likely to run away from home.

But if that’s easy to quantify, current political realities prohibit us from noting the quality that’s a problem, namely that children need both male and female role models when they are growing up, and they need fathers and mothers who show love and respect for each other, something that cannot happen when they are not living together.

District Attorney Krasner and Commissioner Outlaw can’t do anything about fathers in West Philadelphia not being married to or living with the mothers of their children.

The solution to Philadelphia’s crime rate, to any city’s crime rate, does not come from Mayors or District Attorneys or Police Commissioners. Yes, Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s (R-New York City) “broken windows” policing policies tamped down on serious crime somewhat, but the real solution has to come from parents being married and staying together, and rearing their children properly. Mr Giuliani’s stricter policing may have prevented some bigger crimes, but holding crime down is eventually a losing proposition; only by bringing up kids who don’t want to commit crimes, not because they are afraid of getting caught, but because it’s the right way to live, can society improve.