Tag Archives: #Crime

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Another victory for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner!

Another victory for Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner! Mr Krasner just loves to put Philadelphia Police Officers in jail, and to release bad guys who are in prison.

Homicide detective Philip Nordo was clearly a bad cop, as The Philadelphia Inquirer reported:

A former Philadelphia homicide detective was arrested Tuesday and accused of grooming and sexually assaulting male witnesses during criminal investigations, then intimidating them to keep them silent — part of what prosecutors concluded was a pattern of misconduct during nearly a decade in one of the Police Department’s most prestigious units.

The accusations against Philip Nordo, 52, who was fired in 2017 after 20 years on the force, were unveiled in a grand jury presentment following a long-running probe into the ex-detective’s conduct. The charges include multiple counts each of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, and sexual assault.

Mr Nordo was convicted on multiple charges and then sentenced to 24½ to 49 years in prison, which at his age 56, at the time of sentencing, is effectively a life sentence.

The District Attorney then began investigating convictions in which Mr Nordo had been involved, including the conviction of Arkel Garcia, then 21, for the murder of Christian Massey. Mr Krasner then got that conviction overturned:

A Philadelphia judge on Friday overturned a 2015 murder conviction after prosecutors said they believe the lead detective — who has since been charged with raping and sexually assaulting male witnesses during his time on the force — built a questionable case while also attempting to groom potential witnesses as sexual targets.

The District Attorney’s Office said in court documents that it no longer believes the defendant, Arkel Garcia, is guilty of killing Christian Massey, a 21-year-old man with special needs who was shot dead in Overbrook in 2013 over a pair of headphones.

Instead, prosecutors wrote, they believe ex-Detective Philip Nordo obtained a false confession from Garcia — the main piece of evidence supporting an otherwise weak case — as he simultaneously tried to pursue sexual relationships with two men he interviewed as part of the investigation.

“Nordo had ulterior motives during this investigation that had nothing to do with solving this murder,” Assistant District Attorney Michael Garmisa said in court Friday.

So, Mr Garcia was freed after 11 years in the big house. Great thing, right? Well, maybe not so much.

A man whose murder conviction was overturned for its connections to a disgraced ex-detective is now wanted for another murder

Arkel Garcia is suspected of beating an elderly acquaintance to death inside an apartment in Northwest Philadelphia.

by Ryan W. Briggs and Chris Palmer | Saturday, November 15, 2025 | 11:01 AM EST | Updated: 1:45 PM EST

A man whose murder conviction was overturned because of its connection to disgraced former Philadelphia homicide detective Philip Nordo is now suspected of committing another homicide, according to police.

Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Arkel Garcia, 31, for the fatal beating of an elderly acquaintance on Wednesday inside a fourth-floor apartment in the city’s Stenton section in what authorities believe was a robbery, according to law enforcement sources.

Shortly before 11 a.m. Wednesday, 35th District officers responded to a report of a person with a weapon at an apartment unit on the 4900 block of Stenton Avenue, according to a police report. After a maintenance worker let officers into the unit, they discovered David Weinkopff, 68, in a wheelchair, with blunt force trauma to his face and stomach, his apartment ransacked.

Paramedics pronounced him dead a short time later.

Further down:

After Krasner’s office charged Nordo with sex crimes, it began reinvestigating more than 100 cases the detective helped build, and prosecutors later moved to overturn at least 15 convictions tied to him. Some reversals were considered exonerations — instances in which a conviction was overturned and charges dropped — while others were overturned and resulted in guilty pleas to lesser charges.

The District Attorney decided not to prosecute Mr Garcia again after the conviction was overturned.

Garcia’s impending arrest marks at least the second time that a person whose case was overturned due to Nordo’s misconduct was accused of committing another crime.

James Frazier was sentenced to life in prison after he confessed to being an accomplice in a 2012 ambush slaying of a man and his girlfriend. But he later appealed, arguing Nordo had coerced him into signing a false statement of guilt.

Frazier’s conviction was overturned in 2019. But he was later charged with shooting a man twice in the leg in 2021, apparently as part of a botched drug deal. He pleaded guilty the next year and was sentenced to 11½ to 23 months in jail, court records show.

If Mr Garcia is actually the man who murdered Mr Weinkopff — and he is presumed innocent until proven guilty — then it is obvious: the criminal-loving prosecutor’s efforts to release Mr Garcia are directly responsible for Mr Weinkopff’s death. Mr Garcia had previously confessed to assault in the killing of Mr Massey, a young man with ‘special needs,’ though he denied being part of the killing, but the throwing out of the convictions meant the assault to which he had confessed was also thrown out. He did assault several sheriff’s deputies in the courtroom, witnessed by the judge and everyone else in that room, and was sentenced to 5 to 10 years for aggravated assault, which is why he was not released from prison until about a year ago.

That former Detective Nordo is a bad guy does not mean that all of the cases he investigated were bad ones. But when the city’s chief prosecutor apparently believes all non-police officers are helpless and innocent little lambs, that’s what the City of Brotherly Love gets.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Drug criminal released early under President Biden caught back to his old ways

Khyre Holbert, mugshot by Omaha Police Department, and is a public record.

Another one of the violent criminals released early by Biden White House staffers misusing the President’s autopen signature — no, no one will admit that it was one of the staffers, but I’d bet 20€ that’s what happened — has returned to his previous life, a life of violent crime, to the surprise of absolutely no one. From Fox News:

Felon freed by Biden arrested after shooting, raising fears of more ‘second chances’ gone wrong

Case highlights concerns over 2,490 inmates freed in Biden’s final clemency wave for drug and gun offenses

By Stepheny Price | Sunday, November 9, 2025 | 8:00 AM EST

A Nebraska felon whose prison sentence was reduced under a Biden administration clemency initiative is accused of possessing a gun linked to multiple crimes, intensifying scrutiny over whether reform efforts have come at the expense of public safety.

Federal prosecutors say 31-year-old Khyre Holbert, who had served roughly seven years of a 20-year federal sentence for gun and narcotics offenses, was arrested after an Oct. 4 shooting in Omaha’s Old Market district.

Investigators allege Holbert discarded a loaded handgun fitted with a high-capacity magazine as officers closed in, a weapon later tied to several other violent crimes across Nebraska.

Holbert’s sentence had been commuted in January 2025 despite objections from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which warned of his gang ties, long criminal record and prior weapons convictions. Months later, he’s accused of reoffending and his case has thrust former President Joe Biden’s clemency program back into the national spotlight.

This is where the Fox News headline is bad. “(S)econd chances”? Mr Holbert has a “long criminal record and prior weapons convictions,” so it would seem to me that “second chances” were far back in his rearview mirror.

I have said it before: we should allow leniency, some leniency to first-time offenders, in the hope that a reduced sentence and some probation might show them the error of their ways and give them a chance to straighten up and fly right. But second and subsequent offenses? Such criminals have clearly not learned to become civilized men, and should be sentenced to the maximum allowed under the law. At second and subsequent offenses, justice should be about protecting the public.

Mr Holbert (allegedly) discarded a gun following a shooting in a public place, a firearm with an extended magazine, and which was ballistically linked to other crimes. It would seem that Mr Holbert simply went back to the same group of bad guys he ran with seven years earlier.

The linked story continues to note other felons released under the autopen clemency program; Mr Holbert is not the only one who quickly returned to a life of crime.

For Michael Rushford, founder and president of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, Holbert’s arrest is more than a tragedy. It’s a warning. . . . .

This is my morning coffee as I write this!

“You have to look and see if there was a real injustice in the case,” Rushford said. “With the Biden administration, I’m not sure that was done. The Justice Department under him was not really interested in fighting crime.”

The concern extends beyond Nebraska. In March 2025, authorities in Alabama arrested Willie Frank Peterson, another Biden clemency recipient, on new drug- and gun-related charges, just months after his release.

According to a federal complaint, Peterson, who had served more than a decade of a 20-year sentence, was caught with cocaine, meth and a loaded handgun. His sentence was also commuted in Biden’s Jan. 17, 2025 clemency wave, which freed 2,490 inmates, mostly for drug and gun offenses, according to the DOJ Office of the Pardon Attorney.

Rushford said that by the time offenders reach federal prison, most have already exhausted their “second chances.”

Mr Rushford also questioned whether President Biden was really directly involved with the clemencies, implying what I stated directly, that I believe that many of the pardons and commutations were begun by young, #woke staffers, with little if any input from the doddering Delawarean. Mr Biden was, as a Senator before he began losing his marbles, involved in passing stricter sentences for drug dealers and traffickers.

Now what we have is an epidemic of crime by previously caught criminals, criminals released by judges — often with little choice — and criminals arrested but not prosecuted by criminal-loving and police-hating prosecutors like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner. The time has come, the time has long passed, when we need to protect the decent, law-abiding people in our society rather than give the bad guys uncountable second chances. Remember: the criminal who is in jail is not out on the streets committing more crimes.

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“Now, only the best will drive”

In the aftermath of two illegal immigrants causing fatal accidents while driving tractor-trailers, there are a lot of stories, mostly in social media, about increased federal commercial driving regulation enforcement, particularly along Interstate 40 through Oklahoma. Drivers are being tested for the ability to read English, which is mandatory for holders of commercial driver’s licenses (CDL). It’s not just road signs, but the driver must be able to read manifests and the material warning data on potentially hazardous loads.

I’m old enough to remember the publicity when the federal government mandated CDLs to drive certain vehicles. “Now, only the best will drive” was the slogan. At the time, I had what was called a chauffer’s license in Virginia, and I occasionally drove dump trucks. The company for which I worked brought in all of the drivers one Saturday morning, to take the CDL written test, with their road tests grandfathered. I didn’t bother because we had a concrete pour out of the plant in Newport News Shipbuilding, I was doing the quality control work, and I hadn’t driven a truck in a while. I never bothered with getting my CDL because I didn’t really want to drive anyway.

That the fee for the CDL was $40.00, while a regular operator’s license was just $5.00 might have had a little bit to do with it as well.

Now, “only the best will drive” means that commercial drivers have to meet qualifications. They’re getting tested for English proficiency by being asked to read a passage out of a children’s book; it’s not quantum physics. They’re being pulled for wearing flip-flops, when regulations require full shoes while driving, supposedly because sandals can slip off your feet and get caught under the pedals. That one seems silly to me, but it’s still the rule, and virtually every truck has air conditioning these days, so it’s not as though the driver’s feet will get too hot.

I particularly liked this one:

He’d driven trucks for fifteen solid years, mastering every highway curve and weather condition. At a weigh station stop, an officer slid a simple kids’ book across the counter: “Read this.” The words blurred, the sentences tangled; he couldn’t. License gone in an instant. After all those miles, it wasn’t the road that ended his career—it was the system.

Say what? The driver had, allegedly, been driving here for “fifteen solid years” and he still hadn’t mastered enough English to read a passage from The Cat In The Hat?

A lot of the stuff on Facebook pictures drivers who are Sikh or Indian, and there’s no way to tell if the driver pictured is the one who lost his CDL on the spot, but it’s important to know that the story is real, even if the social media picture is possibly faked.

US bars 7,200 truck drivers for failing English tests, Indian-origin truckers hit hard

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced the crackdown on October 30. It comes close in the heels of a crash involving an Indian-origin truck driver

Written by Manraj Grewal Sharma | Updated: All Soul’s Day, November 2, 2025 | 03:11 PM IST

More than 7,200 commercial truck drivers have been disqualified across the United States this year after failing mandatory English proficiency tests, in an aggressive enforcement campaign by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) after a series of fatal highway incidents involving Indian-origin drivers.

The North American Punjabi Truckers Association estimates that 130,000–150,000 truck drivers work in the US, coming directly from Punjab and Haryana due to established recruitment networks, and many of them have been impacted.

Announcing the crackdown on October 30, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy confirmed that 7,248 drivers were declared “out of service”—effectively debarred from driving—in 2025 for failing real-time roadside English Language Proficiency (ELP) checks. The figure, drawn from real-time data in the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) national inspection database, marks a dramatic jump from roughly 1,500 such debarment orders until July 2025.

The move comes in the wake of several high-profile accidents, including a devastating pileup on a California highway in October involving an Indian driver accused of killing three Americans. According to Department of Transportation (DOT) sources, the driver, an illegal alien who was able to secure a California Commercial Driver’s License (CDL), failed the English test multiple times before the incident. DOT officials allege that the state’s lax adoption of Trump-era language rules enabled the tragedy, with Secretary Duffy publicly criticizing “sanctuary states” like California for flouting new federal guidance.

In another case earlier in August, Indian national Harjinder Singh was involved in a deadly triple-fatality on the Florida Turnpike despite questionable English language proficiency credentials, according to safety records. Both cases have intensified scrutiny of Commercial Driver’s License issuance practices, especially toward non-domiciled drivers from India and other South Asian countries, a demographic increasingly prominent in US trucking owing to persistent driver shortages.

When trucking companies can pay non-citizen drivers 52¢ a mile and get haulers, many don’t want to pay 75¢ or 80¢ to get a real American citizen who can read Green Eggs and Ham.

And here’s the money line:

The revived rule, 49 CFR 391.11(b)(2), requires all Commercial Driver’s License holders to read and speak English well enough to converse with the public, understand signs, communicate with officials, and maintain accurate reports. Enforcement was relaxed under an Obama administration memo, which since 2016 had discouraged inspectors from removing drivers solely for English language proficiency (ELP) deficiencies. This changed after President Trump’s 2025 executive order and a series of directives by the transportation department mandating immediate debarment for failing English language tests as of June 25, 2025.

In other words, the two fatal accidents reported in the article can be directly traced to the feet of Barack Hussein Obama! It’s not that immigrants are doing the jobs that Americans won’t do, but that immigrants are doing the jobs that Americans won’t do for 52¢ a mile. And when CDLs are being issued to “non-domiciled” drivers — meaning: drivers with no home address, drivers basically living in their trucks — those “non-domiciled drivers” can afford to work for 52¢ per mile, because they aren’t paying for a house and wife and kids.

It makes me wonder: how many “non-domiciled drivers,” men living in the sleeper cabs of their trucks, having little better to do, are maintaining separate logbooks to conceal how many hours they’re driving?

This is not to say that real American truck drivers don’t have accidents; they absolutely do. If there are any statistics showing a difference in accident rates between citizen and non-citizen drivers, I have not found them. But Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy noted that several states, including California, were improperly issuing CDLs to non-domiciled drivers and was working to get the practice within regulations.

It’s worth noting that the previous Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, whom Vice President Kamala Harris Emhoff wanted as her 2024 running mate, but decided against it because he is openly homosexual, and who has aspirations of running for President in 2028, did not take any actions to get unqualified drivers off the roads.

Will this cost consumers? Yes, it will, but perhaps not that much. The difference between 50¢ a mile and 75¢ a mile, over a 1,000-mile delivery — and most are less than 1,000 miles — is an extra $250.00 for the driver, but if he’s hauling 50,000 lb, is only ½¢ a pound. Using some rough measurements, a 53 ft trailer, loaded to the max with toilet paper, not exactly a heavy load, could carry 15,500 rolls of TP, so $250 extra for the driver would add 6.45¢ to the cost of a four-roll pack, over that same 1,000-mile delivery. That, to me, is worth getting unqualified drivers, especially illegal immigrant drivers off the road. When they find that they can’t work anywhere, they’ll eventually head back to India, or Mexico, of from wherever else it is they come.

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy!

It appears that having a father who is a well-paid, high-powered attorney, being a college athlete, and living in a $1.4 million home in Lower Gwynedd Township, Pennsylvania, doesn’t somehow protect you from being an absolute idiot. The trouble is that it has prevented him from paying much of a penalty for his previous crimes.

Lower Gwynedd man charged with attempted murder of a police officer

Officials say Dalton Lee Janiczek, 21, struck a Plymouth Township police officer with his car multiple times before fleeing the scene.

by Denali Sagner | Saturday, October 25, 2025 | 8:25 PM EDT

A Lower Gwynedd man has been charged with the attempted murder of a law enforcement officer after authorities say he struck a Plymouth Township police officer with his car multiple times before fleeing the scene.

Dalton Lee Janiczek, 21, faces multiple felony charges, including attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, aggravated assault, and fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer.

Around 10:19 a.m. on Friday, Janiczek fled in a white Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon from an attempted traffic stop by Springfield Township police officers, according to police. The officers did not pursue but instead broadcast information about the incident to neighboring police departments.

No, of course The Philadelphia Inquirer did not publish the mugshot of the accused; that’s from Patch.com’s Plymouth-Whitemarsh’s local site. But the story caught the attention of London’s Daily Mail as well.

Young Mr Janiczek has apparently racked up a bunch of previous charges.

The suspect lives with his parents, including his high-flying lawyer father Lee Janiczek, at their $1.4 million home in Ambler, Pennsylvania . His father is a partner at Lewis Brisbois LLC, representing corporations and insurance companies with their liability claims. He did not respond for comment when contacted by the Daily Mail. Janiczek is a student at Loyola Marymount University. He’s part of the college rowing team, and previously he was a member of La Salle College High School’s crew team all four years.

The seasoned athlete was named captain senior year, and won multiple awards for his sport during his time in school. Despite his sporting and academic successes, the 21-year-old has wracked up an incredible rap sheet, with 11 criminal charges since 2023. Nearly all of his arrests are connected to reckless driving, including speeding, driving an unregistered vehicle, misusing plate cards, careless driving, driving without a license, and parking illegally.

The Patch.com story stated that Mr Janiczek was driving a Mercedes G Wagon, a luxury vehicle retailing at around $148,000, but, according to the Daily Mail, can cost up to $186,000. The Inquirer story noted that the “Whitpain Township Police Department were ‘familiar with Janiczek’ and his SUV,” though there was no current warrant for his arrest.

Being known to the police is never a good thing, and one wonders how much his father’s money kept him from suffering more serious consequences in the past. Now Mr Janiczek is facing charges for the attempted murder of a police officer, and could wind up spending twenty years in the state penitentiary.

He won’t of course, because his father’s money means a top criminal defense attorney, and almost certainly some form of plea bargain. Fortunately, this is a Montgomery County case, so Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner can’t ‘negotiate’ a completely suspended sentence, but if he is convicted of the crimes for which he has been charged, several years as a guest of the Commonwealth need to be part of the sentence. If he does not do some hard time, young Mr Janiczek will learn the wrong lesson, that his daddy’s money means he will get away with anything.

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Hold them accountable! How many officials' inactions and ineptitude contributed to the murder of Kada Scott?

Communications between Philadelphia law enforcement agencies.

Given that warrants and communications between the courts, the District Attorney’s Office, and the Philadelphia Police Department are done via quill pens and parchment paper, and sent between each other by messengers on foot, it is perfectly understandable that sometimes messages just don’t get delivered in a timely manner. And if the days are cloudy, sometimes it’s difficult for the recipients to read their ledger books clearly by just the light of their oil lamps. All of that makes what happened in the Keon King/Kada Scott case completely understandable!

Months before Kada Scott’s killing, Keon King was wanted for kidnapping his ex, but no one arrested him — even in court

by Ellie Rushing | Thursday, October 23, 2025 | 4:35 PM EDT

A month after Keon King was charged with breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and attempting to strangle her, police say, his violence escalated: In January, he returned to her home with a gun, then kidnapped and assaulted her.

A warrant for his arrest was issued days later.

In the weeks that followed, King twice appeared in Philadelphia court and stood before a judge in the initial strangulation case. But no one in the courtroom seemed to know he was wanted for kidnapping.

So both times, King walked out.

Clearly, the city was at fault for relying on messengers on foot, rather than providing a horse on which the messengers could get their pieces of parchment to the right people in a timely manner.

In February, despite the warrant for King’s arrest, prosecutors — seemingly unaware that police said he had recently attacked their key witness — withdrew the burglary and strangulation case when the victim failed to appear in court.

Police did not go to either hearing to take him into custody, and do not appear to have alerted the prosecutor about the new arrest warrant.

The messenger on foot must not have made it to the District Attorney’s Office on time.

And King was not formally charged with the kidnapping until April, when, for reasons that are unclear, he turned himself in.

Turned himself in to whom? Normally, a criminal suspect would have turned himself in at a police station, but reporter Ellie Rushing was not specific about that. But, regardless of where he surrendered, he was out on the streets again twenty days ago.

The shortcomings in those earlier cases came into focus this month after police said King abducted Kada Scott from outside her workplace Oct. 4, then killed her and buried her body in a shallow grave behind an East Germantown school. The death of Scott, 23, of Mount Airy, has unnerved a community and drawn national attention.

Naturally, in his attempt to win re-election, the District Attorney tried to shift blame onto someone else:

District Attorney Larry Krasner has said it was a mistake for prosecutors to withdraw the charges in the alleged kidnapping of King’s ex — and his office has since refiled them. He said the decision not to proceed with the case was made by a young assistant district attorney who was new at handling such prosecutions and who saw the victim’s absence as a fatal flaw, even though there was video evidence of the attack.

Also read: Ben Mannes, “Ideology over justice — How Larry Krasner’s policies failed Kada Scott“

Can we really say that the distinguished Mr Krasner threw a “young assistant district attorney” under the bus, given that there were no buses during the days of quill pens and inkwells?

Or perhaps it was the Republicans who control the state Senate who are to blame, for not funding SEPTA and its buses adequately?

If this “young assistant district attorney . . . was new at handling such prosecutions,” shouldn’t the District Attorney himself, or at least one of his more senior prosecutors have been supervising the “young assistant district attorney”? Shouldn’t someone more senior in that office been teaching him what he ought to do, for what he ought to check? Shouldn’t someone in the District Attorney’s Office other than the “young assistant district attorney” now squished under the wheels of a SEPTA bus he held accountable for his mistakes? Shouldn’t the DA himself bear the responsibility for the “missteps” which put Mr King out on the streets to (allegedly) have kidnapped and murdered Miss Scott?

Kada Scott, victim, and Keon King, alleged murderer. Photos via WPVI TV, because, naturally, the Inquirer would never publish them.

The rest of Miss Rushing’s article details the missteps and miscommunications between the police and prosecutors, something the District Attorney blamed on “their digital information systems (being) decades old.” Really? Microsoft stopped support for Windows XP a couple of decades ago; is the DAO still using that? I was using dispatching systems in the 1990s, the early 1990s, when our Dispatch office was able to send delivery tickets to satellite plants via modems. That was over thirty years ago.

But it needs to be said: if the accusations against Keon King are accurate, then a lot of other people contributed to Miss Scott being murdered. Under Pennsylvania Title 18 §2504(a), “A person is guilty of involuntary manslaughter when as a direct result of the doing of an unlawful act in a reckless or grossly negligent manner, or the doing of a lawful act in a reckless or grossly negligent manner, he causes the death of another person.” Were the inactions of the District Attorney’s Office, including the District Attorney himself grossly negligent?

I’m dreaming, of course: no judge would allow a charge of involuntary manslaughter against a government official for gross neglect of his duty, because such could be turned around against the judge himself. But it’s clear that somebody, a lot of somebodies, need to lose their jobs over this. Mr Krasner himself doesn’t have enough of a sense of shame to resign over this, but he should be overwhelmingly defeated in the upcoming election. Whoever was supposed to supervise the “young assistant district attorney” needs to resign or be fired. Whoever is responsible for communication between the police and prosecutors, at both ends of that, needs to join the unemployment line. Should the Police Commissioner, Kevin Bethel, resign? And whoever is responsible for informing judges of other judges’ cases and acts needs to start tending bar somewhere on South Street.

At least as of this writing, the Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer have not yet published their endorsement for District Attorney. We can only hope they endorse Pat Dugan and not again support soft-on-crime Larry Krasner.

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Killadelphia: It’s a good thing that crime is down!

I saw this tweet earlier, but decided to wait to write about it, waiting for The Philadelphia Inquirer, for which I am paying to subscribe, to have more. Sadly, the Inky didn’t have all that much more:

Police are investigating the death of a Philadelphia firefighter as homicide

The 56-year-old man was found dead in the Holmesburg section early Wednesday morning.

by Nate File | Wednesday, October 15, 2025 | 10:43 AM EDT | Updated: 11:08 AM EDT

A Philadelphia firefighter was killed in the city’s Holmesburg section in the early hours of Wednesday morning, police said.

The 56-year-old man was found dead inside a home on the 4700 block of Shelmire Avenue at 4 a.m. after police were called.

A 27-year-old male suspect is in custody, and detectives are investigating the incident as a homicide. The suspect told police when they arrived that there had been a disturbance in the home, but the circumstances of the incident were unclear.

There’s one more paragraph in the story, but it tells us nothing.

But what interested me is something on which I’ve previously written. The homeowners of 4725 Shelmire Avenue were so afraid of thieves and street criminals that they literally put themselves in jail, adding bars to their front porch to keep them out. They aren’t the only ones on the block who’ve done that, as the row house at 4755 Shelmire has the same barred-in porch.

A look at the 4700 block of Shelmire Avenue via Google Maps Streetscapes shows not a run-down row home neighborhood, but a wide street, with homes at least visually decently kept. Many have been modified to close in their porches to create additional interior space. There’s no garbage strewn around — the images were taken just last July — and the Holmesberg section of Northeast Philadelphia is far from the worst section of the city, yet we can still see residents afraid of crime.

Zillow shows the interior details of 4725 Shelmire, so it was obviously on the market recently, and Zillow guesstimates the value of the three bedroom, two bath, 1,280 ft² home to be $211,800. An affordable home in a clean-looking neighborhood in Northeast Philly!

The newspaper reported, just two days ago, that an increasing percentage of Philadelphians are paying more than 35% of their income on rent, a percentage that the Department of Housing and Urban Development considers to be “cost-burdened.” Looks to me that they should be buying on Shelmire .  .  . if they are not too afraid of crime.

 

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl!

Precious Hamilton is only fifteen years old, but she just might spend the next couple of decades in prison. Her initial claims are that it was all an accident, but someone is still stone-cold graveyard dead.

15-year-old girl charged with third-degree murder in fatal shooting of Abington teen

Abington Township police arrested Precious Hamilton in a shooting that killed 17-year-old Baseem “Seyven” Baker

by Jesse Bunch | Tuesday, October 7, 2025 | 5:18 PM EDT

Precious Hamilton, mugshot via Fox 29 News.

Montgomery County prosecutors charged a 15-year-old girl with third-degree murder Tuesday in the shooting death of an Abington teenager in his family’s apartment on Monday afternoon.

Precious Hamilton, of Eddystone, was arrested that evening by Abington Township police in connection with a shooting that left 17-year-old Baseem “Seyven” Baker dead from a gunshot wound to the head, prosecutors said.

No, of course young Miss Hamilton’s mugshot was not published by The Philadelphia Inquirer, but a quick Google search found it for me, from more than one source.

Police arrived at Baker’s apartment on the 100 block of Old York Road to find the teen dead in his bedroom, authorities said.

Police said Hamilton had been staying at the apartment over the weekend and had shown Baker the gun, a small-caliber revolver, on Sunday when “dry firing” the weapon out of Baker’s window, according to videos and a photo recovered from Baker’s iPad.

Though the article does not state it explicitly, reporter Jesse Bunch’s article makes it appear that the gun was Miss Hamilton’s. The charges filed, including possession of a firearm by a minor and carrying a firearm without a license, support that reading. What, I have to ask, was a 15-year-old girl doing carrying a firearm?

Further down:

During an interview with Hamilton and her mother, police said, Hamilton told investigators she shot Baker accidentally after the gun was left in the cocked position from Sunday.

She told investigators she grabbed the revolver while going to pack her belongings, and that while grabbing the weapon in a “rapid fashion,” the gun discharged and struck Baker, who was on the bed and fell to the floor, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Hamilton’s arrest.

Hamilton told investigators she and Baker had previously dated, then maintained a friendship for about a year, according to the affidavit.

I’m surprised that Mr Bunch included that last paragraph. What he did not include in his article, though it ought to be obvious from the fact that the alleged killer’s name was released, is that Miss Hamilton has been charged as an adult.

Young Miss Hamilton has been charged with third-degree Murder, Title 18 §2502(c), which, under Title 18 §1102(d) carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. She has also been charged with Involuntary Manslaughter, which, under Title 18 §2504(b) is a first degree misdemeanor, which under Title 30 §923(a)(7) carries a penalty of a fine of between $1,500 and $10,000, and the possibility of imprisonment for not more than five years.

Mr Bunch should have included that in his story, because there’s a huge difference between third degree murder and involuntary manslaughter. My guess is that young Miss Hamilton will be offered an involuntary manslaughter plea bargain, if there is no evidence that she was carrying a firearm because she was part of a gang. Since this was in Montgomery County, and not Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner can’t simply dismiss the charges. We are no longer surprised when we read about 15-year-old boys carrying firearms; perhaps we shouldn’t be as surprised as we are that some 15-year-old girls are now packing heat.

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That thing that never happens has happened again You in a heap o' trouble, boy!

This is the second time in a row I have used this headline, but according to my WordPress software, the seventh time I’ve used it; there could have been more. I will admit to some surprise, because my source, The Philadelphia Inquirer, told us more than they might have. Then again, the reporter is Vinny Vella, whom I have previously noted might have gotten in trouble with his editors for telling too much of the truth.

A local Montco supervisor has been charged with sexually abusing a boy for years

The abuse allegations come weeks after Nicholas Fountain had been charged with soliciting child pornography in Maryland.

by Vinny Vella | Monday, October 6, 2025 | 9:41 AM EDT

Nicholas Fountain, photo via Channel 10 Philadelphia.

A Skippack Township supervisor, already facing charges of soliciting child pornography, has been charged with sexually abusing a boy who was in his care for several years, investigators said Monday.

Here’s the part that several newspapers, and sadly, law enforcement agencies, hide: the sex of the victim. I have previously admitted that when I see a story written to conceal the sex of the victim, my first instinct is to guess that the sexual abuse was homosexual in nature. Mr Vella did not hide it, and it was even part of the headline.

Nicholas Fountain, 38, was arraigned late Sunday on charges of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, indecent assault, and related crimes, after investigators say he admitted to the crimes in an interview with Pennsylvania State Police detectives.

He remained in custody, denied bail. It was unclear if he had hired an attorney.

Fountain had been in custody since Sept. 24, when state police troopers arrested him on a warrant issued by the Hartford County Sheriff’s Office in northeast Maryland. He was charged with soliciting nude pictures from an undercover officer posing as a 14-year-old boy.

Naturally, the Inquirer didn’t include the photo of the accused, either in this story or the previous one cited in their article. I suppose it doesn’t matter, because all of the local Philly television news stations had his picture plastered all over their reports. Even Victor Fiorillo of Philadelphia Magazine, who has complained about Steve Keeley and Fox 29 News crime coverage, included Mr Fountain’s photo. Instead, the newspaper used a photo of the Skippack Township office building.

With the charges of seeking child pornography, and since he runs two daycare centers in Pennsylvania, state police detectives decided to see if there was more potential criminal activity by Mr Fountain, and began interviewing:

people close to him about any potential criminal activity, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest in Montgomery County.

In one of those interviews, the victim, now 18, told police Fountain sexually abused him, beginning when he was 9 years old and continuing until he was 16, the affidavit said.

There’s actually a lot to unpack in those two short sentences. While the story does not say so, the first question which came to my mind was: did any of the adults interviewed know of any suspicious activity by Mr Fountain? How did the detectives come to interview an 18-year-old boy? WPVI-TV’s report noted that Mr Fountain is married — yes, to a woman — and has two younger children along with a stepchild.

How, I have to ask, did Mr Fountain, if he is guilty of the charges against him, and he is innocent until proven guilty, manage to conceal all of this for so long? If the victim’s story is accurate, he started this at least nine years ago, when he would have been 31, and somehow left no clues? His wife never picked up on it? None of his friends noticed anything strange about him? A boy who was nine at first, continuing sporadically for seven more years, managed to keep it a secret from his parents and siblings — if he has any — and his friends? Make it make sense, because I certainly can’t understand it.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer supports immigration lawlessness

Screen capture Philadelphia Inquirer website main page, September 8, 2025 at 8:20 AM EDT.

That our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper supports illegal immigration is no surprise to regular readers and me. The main article listed tells readers how “Rapid Response” activists have been tailing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to try to intimidate ICE in its apprehension of illegal immigrants, but the subsequently listed articles are all pro-illegal immigration.

Chasing ICE: ‘Rapid-response’ activists follow agents, then stand up for immigrants during arrests

“They’re trying to do this quietly, they’re trying to do this when nobody is watching,” one immigrant-advocate said.

by Jeff Gammage | Monday, September 8, 2025 | 5:00 AM EDT

When ICE agents headed out to raid the Super Gigante food market in West Norriton this summer, they didn’t travel alone.

Following behind them were cars carrying members of the Montgomery County Watch rapid-response team, immigration activists who work to find and follow the Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Their goal: to record agents’ activities, to alert people to protest at the scenes of arrests, and, at times, to loudly confront the officers.

The group had discovered ICE agents and cars gathering that July morning in the parking lot outside the Plymouth Meeting Regal Cinema movie theater.

From there it was 4½ miles to the supermarket. The two groups arrived nearly simultaneously.

As ICE arrested 14 people for immigration offenses, activists yelled at and questioned the masked agents, asking if they told their children that they worked separating families.

That’s what every law enforcement officer does when he arrests someone for breaking the law. When the Philadelphia Police Department arrests a gang-banger for shooting another gang-banger, he’s separating a family.

“Show your face! Show your face!” they demanded.

We know their reasons. The newspaper’s far-left columnist Will Bunch among others has decried ICE agents wearing masks for the very simple reason: they want to publicly identify and dox them, to intimidate them from doing their jobs.

“Get back!” an ICE agent shouted as a woman in sandals and a T-shirt approached him.

“Cowards!” came the rejoinder.

The agents did not respond to the taunt.

“They’re trying to do this quietly, they’re trying to do this when nobody is watching” ― and the rapid-response team aims to ensure that doesn’t happen, said Stephanie Vincent, an organizer who was among those who went to the supermarket that morning. “The citizens are front line right now.”

The front line of what, of protecting criminals? Because that’s what these people are trying to do, trying to protect people who are in the country illegally from being removed from the country. Further down, they admit that directly:

“People are showing up and protesting, to show we support [migrants] and don’t want them taken out of the community, and asking ICE to think about what they’re doing,” said Rachel Rutter, executive director of Project Libertad, a Phoenixville-based organization that assists immigrant families. “It’s a direct response to the increase in enforcement.”

In other words, they are aiding and abetting criminals, trying to keep the illegals from being deported.

ICE noted that the agents are performing legal enforcement actions, and that while everybody has freedom of speech, if they actually interfere with ICE while making arrests, they are committing a federal crime.

There’s a lot more to the article, noting the legality of the protests, but it’s heavily slanted toward glorifying the activists. That goes right along with the newspaper’s Editorial Board’s support of illegal immigration, saying “Heavy-handed immigration enforcement efforts accomplish little beyond the upheaval and inhumane treatment of people just trying to get ahead and make a better life.” They can try to get ahead and make a better life .  .  . in Mexico or Guatemala or from wherever it is they came! That’s our law, and they are breaking the law every time they cross our borders or overstay a visa and every time they provide forged documents to obtain jobs or work for cash and not pay income of Social Security taxes.

Kick them out, and if they want to return to the United States, they can apply for legal immigration from their home countries. That’s the American way!