Tag Archives: #Crime

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Yes, actually, homicide rates can be brought down!

St Louis, Missouri used to be our nations murder capital, but has been downgraded to second place behind New Orleans. The Gateway City saw a whopping 263 homicides in 2020, which, with the city’s population being 304,709 that year, the homicide rate was an astounding 86.31 per 100,000 population.

In 2021, the city dropped to a still horrible 199 murders, and, using 2021’s population guesstimate of 293,310, that works out to a homicide rate of a still horrible 67.85, but at least it’s improving.

As of October 7th of this year, St Louis has seen 154 murders in 278 days, which is on pace for 202.19 homicides for the year. With St Louis population for 2022 guesstimated to have slightly increased, to 298,034, the homicide rate works out to 68.11 per 100,000 population.

Philadelphia’s Democratic leadership have tried to blame the huge increase in homicides on just general stuff, saying that homicide is increasing everywhere, but the actual numbers from St Louis demonstrate that homicides, even one of our deadliest cities, can be reduced.

Part of the solution just might be simply telling the truth about murders. The Philadelphia Police Department issue a gross numbers daily update, while the St Louis report breaks down the statistics the police have. Of course, the statistics are very, very, very politically incorrect!

This year, murders in the City of Brotherly Love have been moving up steadily, and with 416 homicides as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, October 6th, the city, at 1.4910 killings per day, is on pace for 544.22 murders in 2022, a slight improvement on last year’s 562, but still easily in second place all time.

Yeah, Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw are doing what some older Kentuckians would have called a fine, fine, super-fine job.

This article is 10 months old now, but nothing has changed:

Turning the Tide on Gun Violence . . . Everywhere but Philly

Some big city mayors are saying enough is enough and are—finally—doubling down on smart policing and prosecution. Here in Philly? Not so much

by Larry Pratt | December 32, 2021

Last week started with our incredibly shrinking mayor releasing his annual holiday video message to the citizens of Philadelphia. A stirring call to arms in the middle of a gun violence crisis it was not. Instead, it had all the optics of a hostage video—the dour-faced protagonist, reading cue cards in a lifeless monotone, no doubt counting down the days, hours and minutes until he’s free. Someone arrange a ransom payment to Jim Kenney’s City Hall captors!

Watching, it was tempting to feel deflated. Two more years of Kenney fiddles while Philly burns? Breathe, I told myself. Turns out, inspiration was to be had last week, once I widened the aperture of my lens beyond the see-no-evil—and warring—triumvirate of Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner and MIA Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.

In fact, last week may turn out to be an inflection point in the war on murder and mayhem in our cities. On Tuesday, two former two-term mayors appeared at our Ideas We Should Steal Festival, and made one of the most full-throated arguments we’ve seen for investing in smart policing while reforming what needs fixing in law enforcement. As if a clarion call, within days two current big city progressive mayors delivered the same “enough is enough” message—a nuanced argument that you can be tough on crime and (be) just at the same time.

This is the problem: for ‘progressives,’ “reforming the police” means reducing policing, cutting policing, and, let’s be frank about this, eliminating a lot of laws as well. We saw that in Philadelphia, where the idiotic City Council approved the Driving Equality Act, which prohibits the police from stopping a vehicle for some specific “secondary offenses,” something which enabled carjackers like the ones who committed the Roxborough High School shooting to drive a stolen vehicle with an expired Delaware temporary paper tag. The City Council wanted to decriminalize ‘driving while black,’ but the cops can’t usually tell if a driver is black or white when they are behind a vehicle.

“It seems that there’s this notion that we can either reform the police or we can be safe, and I think that’s just bullshit,” former Mayor Michael Nutter said at the Festival. Under Nutter, Philadelphia posted its lowest murder rates in over 60 years, and he went on to paint a picture of how that gets done. “You have to do both. There’s a lot of focus on the numbers, but it’s not just numbers. There are people behind those numbers. Thats a life in this city. That’s a family that’s been damaged. That’s a neighborhood. When someone is shot or killed on a block, it is not just a personal incident. That entire block and community and neighborhood is affected. Those kids are going to have nightmares at night. Just washing down the sidewalk does not take away the trauma.”

That’s a mayor striking at the emotional heart of a searing issue, something we’ve seen far too little of recently. And then he shifted into game-plan mode: “I had a district attorney, Seth [Williams], who we could work with, and talk to,” he said. “Obviously, he had his other issues and challenges, but as DA, Seth Williams did a better job than the person who is in the job right now because he understood the importance of public safety. That partnership—of our administration, Commissioner Ramsey, the DA, the courts, the federal agencies, the A.G.’s office, the governor’s office, and citizens who said we are not gonna tolerate this shit going on in our neighborhoods—that’s why crime went down in Philadelphia.”

Kasim Reed, the charismatic two-term mayor of Atlanta who hired more than 900 cops during his tenure and lowered crime by nearly 40 percent while growing his city into an economic juggernaut, argued that those two things—safety and prosperity—go hand in hand. “When Mayor Nutter cut crime, you see a thriving economy run right on the tails of that because people believe in their hearts, the city is mine, too,” he said. “And murder and violence make you believe less and less that the city is yours. And fundamentally we’re at our best when everybody believes the city is ours.”

It was a great applause line that makes one wonder: Have we heard anything from our leaders that makes us want to applaud? Hell, they won’t even talk to one another. Kenney and Krasner snipe and snub, while the body bags pile up.

There’s more at the original, but it points out that some — certainly not all — major cities have cut their overall crime rates, and homicide rates specifically, by supporting law enforcement.

Why hasn’t Philly? Because the city has a District Attorney who is actually a defense lawyer, someone who wants to get criminals off the hook. Solutions like “Broken Windows Policing,” which has been proven to work, are appalling to Larry Krasner, who prefers to excuse the ‘little’ crimes, even though some of the ‘little’ criminals are emboldened enough to start committing worse and worse crimes. We’ve seen this time and time and time again: someone treated too leniently by law enforcement — Nikolas Cruz being the most extreme example — has been enabled by that lenient treatment, and then goes out to commit a far worse crime, one which can get him locked up for decades, perhaps the rest of his life, and, in extreme cases, sentenced to death. Have such criminals really been done any favors by the ‘progressive’ prosecutors fighting ‘mass incarceration’?

Crime can be reduced, but it cannot be reduced by ignoring the lesser offenses. And it certainly cannot be reduced by treating actual criminals like poor, mistreated, young people.

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Killadelphia: Somebody talked? * Updated! *

Somebody talked.

Someone recognized the five shooters who jumped out of the stolen SUV from which the shooters, and possibly a sixth person, driving the vehicle, at the Roxborough High School shootings following a football scrimmage on September 27th. Perhaps it was the thus-far-unnamed 17-year-old black male who appears to be the intended target of the shooting which killed 14-year-old Nicholas Elizalde and wounded five others, or perhaps it was a bystander.

Or, perhaps nobody talked, but the Philadelphia Police were able to get some of what they need from forensic evidence from the stolen vehicle, which was found dumped outside a strip club.

Philly Police say a 16-year-old is expected to face murder charges in last week’s Roxborough High School shooting

Police believe Dayron Burney-Thorne participated in the crime, which left a 14-year-old boy dead and four others wounded. They declined to say if he’s a suspected shooter or get-away driver.

by Chris Palmer | Tuesday, October 4, 2022 | 2:04 PM EDT

Philadelphia detectives are searching for a 16-year-old who is expected to face murder charges over last week’s fatal shooting outside Roxborough High School, authorities said Tuesday.

Dayron Burney-Thorne, via Steve Keeley on Twitter Click to enlarge..

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said police believe Dayron Burney-Thorne participated in the crime, which left a 14-year-old boy dead and four others wounded. Still, Vanore declined to specify if detectives believe Burney-Thorne was one of the five shooters who jumped out of an SUV and began firing in the ambush-style attack, or if the teen might have served as a getaway driver.“He was there and participated,” Vanore said.

A warrant had already been approved for Burney-Thorne’s arrest on counts including theft and obstruction of justice over his connection to the stolen Ford Explorer that was used in the crime, Vanore said. The teen was now also expected to be charged as an adult with counts including murder, attempted murder, and weapons offenses, according to police.

Remember when I said that, despite young Mr Elizalde’s mother stating that her son isn’t just “a number,” in the larger scheme of things, yes, he really was just a number? Well, in Chris Palmer’s article, Mr Elizalde’s name is not mentioned until the seventh paragraph. Instead of writing, in the second paragraph, “which left 14-year-old Nicholas Elizalde dead,” Mr Palmer wrote, “which left a 14-year-old boy dead.” A small point, perhaps, but noticeable, at least to a careful reader.

The Philadelphia Police Department released Mr Burney-Thorne’s mugshot on Twitter at 12:01 PM EDT, more than two hours before the Inquirer article was published, so reporter Chris Palmer had access to it, but the newspaper didn’t publish it. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw tweeted, at 12:50 PM EDT, that Mr Burney-Thorne was still wanted, meaning that he was not yet in custody, and the newspaper could have helped the police by publishing his mugshot, but they didn’t. The last thing publisher Elizabeth Hughes’ “anti-racist news organization” wants to do is help law enforcement!

It seems that young Mr Burney-Thorne, of whom the Philadelphia Police already had a mugshot, so he’s been arrested previously, has a rather substantial criminal record already, having active warrants for theft, obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence and criminal conspiracy, and he’s just 16 years old.

Juvenile records are normally sealed, so perhaps we’ll never know, but it has to be asked: has Mr Burney-Thorne, who was only 12 when District Attorney Larry Krasner took office, been the beneficiary of lenient treatment by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and was it possible that Mr Burney-Thorne could have been locked up last Tuesday, had the District Attorney treated him seriously, when he (allegedly) made the ‘mistake’ that could send him to adult prison for the rest of his miserable life? If he could have been incarcerated in juvenile detention, he would not have been (allegedly) involved in Mr Elizalde’s murder, and who knows, perhaps Mr Elizalde would still be alive today.

We’ve seen this time and time and time again: someone treated too leniently by law enforcement — Nikolas Cruz being the most extreme example — has been enabled by that lenient treatment, and then goes out to commit a far worse crime, one which can get him locked up for decades, perhaps the rest of his life, and, in extreme cases, sentenced to death. Have such criminals really been done any favors by the ‘progressive’ prosecutors fighting ‘mass incarceration’?
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Updated! Tuesday, October 4, 2022 | 9:55 PM EDT

Via Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News, we find that yes, Mr Burney-Thorne has been treated leniently by the system:

Dayron Burney-Thorn’s priors include resisting arrest by @PhillyPolice in March last year while possessing gun illegally, law enforcement sources tell FOX29 News. Another arrest just 10 months ago in January. Law Enforcement sources tell FOX29 News Dayron Burney-Thorn,16, was then caught in January by @PhillyPolice 10 months after gun arrest, pushing a carjacked vehicle into a parking lot trying to hide it. He was charged with receipt of stolen property in that case. Burney-Thorn was released without bail after his latest charge in January for receipt of stolen property involving the prior carjacked vehicle he was caught pushing into a parking lot to hide it.

So, in March of 2021, Mr Burney=Thorne was arrested for the illegal possession of a firearm. If the District Attorney’s office levied any punishment at all against the offender, then aged just 15 years old, he was nevertheless out on the streets in January of 2022. He was then caught trying to hide a carjacked vehicle, and charged under Title 18 §3925, which is a third degree felony if the value of the stolen property exceeds $2,000 but is under $100,000. Under Title 18 §106(b)(4), the penalty for a felony in the third degree is imprisonment for up to seven years. Mr Burney-Thorne was released without any bail on this charge.

So, what do we have? A criminal suspect, who previously been arrested for the illegal possession of a firearm, was caught in possession of a carjacked vehicle, a crime of dramatically increased incidence in the City of Brotherly Love, and the DA just lets him go free? Is it any wonder that the suspect thought that he could get away with murder?

Mr Krasner and his office did Mr Burney-Thorne no favors. Caught with an illegal firearm, little or nothing was done. Then caught with a carjacked vehicle, again, nothing was done. Now young Mr Elizalde is stone-cold graveyard dead — something that could have happened without Mr Burney-Thorne’s participation — and the suspect is looking at a sentence of spending the rest of his pathetic life behind bars.

If the District Attorney had found a way to keep the suspect behind bars, he’d have been looking at a maximum sentence of seven years for the carjacking case, but still having the prospect of getting out of jail while in his twenties. Now, he’s looking at life.

This is the kind of thing that happens when ‘progressive’ George Soros-sponsored defense attorneys get elected as prosecutors: in their oh-so-noble sympathy for the poor and downtrodden, they enable the small-time criminals to become big-time criminals, rather than giving them the harsh lessons early, lessons which might, just might, persuade them to stop being criminals.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” is an old, old saying, one in which Mr Krasner clearly does not believe, but in the case of Mr Burney-Thorne, that spoiled child just might spend the rest of his days in a maximum security prison.

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Mayor Jim Kenney just can’t think things through

On Tuesday, September 27, 2022, Mayor Jim Kenney (D-Philadelphia) signed an executive order banning the possession of firearms and other deadly weapons at city parks and recreation centers, something that even The Philadelphia Inquirer recognized as likely to draw a legal challenge.

It didn’t take long: on Monday, October 3rd, the executive order was tossed by a judge:

Judge bars Philadelphia from enforcing Mayor Jim Kenney’s ban on guns at rec centers and playgrounds

The lawsuit cited a Pennsylvania state law that prohibits the any city or county from passing gun-control measures stricter than state gun laws.

by Robert Moran | Monday, October 3, 2022

A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge on Monday blocked the city from enforcing an executive order Mayor Jim Kenney signed last week banning guns at recreation centers and playgrounds following the fatal shooting of a Parks and Recreation employee last month.

The Gun Owners of America, on behalf of several state residents, filed a lawsuit last Tuesday, the day Kenney signed his order. After hearing arguments Friday, Judge Joshua H. Roberts issued his ruling siding with the plaintiffs and ordering Philadelphia to be “permanently enjoined” from enforcing Kenney’s ban.

The lawsuit cited Pennsylvania state law that prohibits any city or county from passing gun-control measures. The preemption law, which the city has repeatedly sought to overturn, bans local government from passing gun-control measures that are stricter than state gun laws.

Andrew B. Austin, the attorney representing the plaintiffs, said in an emailed statement: “For my part, I am gratified that the Court of Common Pleas was able to so quickly resolve this suit, but that was in large part because the law is so explicit: The City is not allowed to regulate possession of firearms in any manner.”

There’s more at the original, and the pre-emption law is pretty clear and explicit.

The right to keep and bear arms is pretty explicit in our Constitution, and I support that without reservation. In this, I am going to ignore the constitutional and legal issues, but ask the obvious question: just what would Mr Kenney’s executive order have done were it allowed to go into effect?

A ban on the possession of firearms at city parks would probably be mostly obeyed by legal gun owners in the city. If someone has gone to the effort of obtaining a license to carry a firearm, he is pretty much a law-abiding citizen.

But the impetus for the Mayor’s order, the killing of Mill Creek Recreation Center worker Tiffany Fletcher by a stray bullet allegedly fired by 14-year-old Makie Jones, was not something that the executive order would have prevented had it been in place at the time. Young Mr Jones was using a “ghost gun,” a privately-manufactured weapon put together with spare parts and having no serial number, which had an extended magazine. Mr Jones supposedly saw some of his enemies, and a gun battle ensued:

The killing came after a shootout around 1 p.m. Friday between Jones and at least three other people near the rec center on the 4700 block of Brown Street, Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said Monday. Vanore said it was not clear what sparked the gunfire, but that investigators later recovered 12 fired cartridge casings at the scene — eight on one side of the street, and four on the other.

Does the Mayor seriously believe that a 14-year-old who was willing to obtain and carry a ghost gun with an extended magazine, and engage in a gun battle with his enemies would care about an executive order banning the carrying of firearms in a city park? Anyone with any sense at all — a definition which certainly excludes Mr Kenney — would know that someone like the alleged killer wouldn’t care at all about such a restriction, not that one would suspect young Mr Jones of having read the Inquirer to even know of its existence.

One question to which I have never received an answer is just how Mr Kenney thought his executive order could be enforced? Was he hoping that Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw would have Philadelphia Police officers stationed at the rec centers, stopping and frisking everyone there for a weapon? I saw nothing like that in the media, though, to be fair, I could have missed it.

Back to the main article cited:

Kevin Lessard, a spokesperson for Kenney, said in an emailed statement: “We are reviewing today’s decision and are disappointed by the outcome, which as it stands prevents city employees from making the reasonable request that anyone with a firearm or deadly weapon leave a recreation facility. Since 2019, nearly 300 reported incidents of gun violence have occurred at city recreation facilities, in addition to dozens of other incidents of violence with a deadly weapon.”

OK, then: the mayor was apparently counting not on the police, but on unarmed city employees, employees like the late Tiffany Fletcher, to ask people spotted carrying firearms to leave. Has the Mayor forgotten assaults by three ‘unruly’ teenaged girls on July 21st, which led to vandalism, led the city to drain the pool and close it for the rest of the season. City Parks and Recreation said that the pool was closed due to concerns for the safety of staff and visitors, and that this pool, in the crime-ridden Kensington section, has had many problems, including multiple break-ins after hours. The Parks Department did not say that the staff had all just up and quit, or refused to work at that pool again, but the city has had a serious shortage of lifeguards for the pools, and opened only 50 of the 65 pools in the city. If the city had to close the McVeigh Recreation Center because three uncivilized, but apparently unarmed, brats were disruptive, and vandalized the place, just how can he expect unarmed staff to confront and ask to leave someone they believe is carrying a firearm?

This is a huge problem when it comes to the left: they just can’t seem to think things through! Anyone with any common sense ought to have realized that an enforcement incident, the way Mr Lessard described it, is too fraught with danger in a city like Killadelphia; it’s a way to get an unarmed staffer killed.

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It wasn’t a difficult prediction to make

I wrote, on September 27th:

As we have noted many times before, The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl. So, while a 14-year-old boy being killed would normally be seen as the death of an “innocent,” a planned “hit” on a group of junior varsity football players certainly sounds like there was something to have generated bad blood between at least one of the players and a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families.” The dead player might not have been involved in whatever dispute the “clique beefers” had, but the obvious assumption is that at least someone among the departing players might not have been quite the “innocent” the Inky would like to make him out to be.

When the Inky stops telling us what a good and noble fellow the dead boy was, we’ll know a lot more.

Subsequent reports in the Inquirer have indicated that yes, this was a gang hit an unfortunate action by a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,”[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading but that the Philadelphia Police believe that the targeted individual was a 17-year-old black male who had been shot himself in the commission of a carjacking and has been “referenced several times for his criminal activity, and who was not on one of the football teams, but the only victim who was killed, 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde, was apparently an innocent casualty rather than being part of such a gang clique himself. That means it’s time for the Inky to run a nice story on him!

The mother of Roxborough shooting victim Nicolas Elizalde, 14, has a message: ‘He isn’t a number’

“He was happier than he’s ever been,” Meredith Elizalde said of her son, 14, starting the school year and joining the football team.

by Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham | Saturday, October 1, 2022

Nicolas Elizalde had begged his mother to let him play football for years, but she always said no, too worried about the injuries that can come with the sport.

This year, Nick was starting high school in a new area, and needed a way to make friends. So Meredith Elizalde gave in. And in August, they trekked to the athletic store to buy him a new pair of cleats.

They were the cleats that she saw from afar on Tuesday, as she ran toward the sound of gunfire outside Roxborough High School.

But even before she saw them, she knew.

There are dozens more paragraphs, plus photos, in the Inquirer original, telling us that young Mr Elizalde was a good kid who never got into any trouble. Our heartstrings are pulled when we are told that his corneas were donated to help save the vision of two other people.

But despite what his mother said, young Mr Elizalde is just a number, number 401 in the list of people murdered in the City of Brotherly Love. Most of the people killed in Philadelphia are just as bad a guys as the guys who killed them, and Mr Elizalde, like Tiffany Fletcher just a few weeks earlier, will be forgotten in not much more time, as the number of dead bodies continues to rise. As of the end of Thursday, September 29th, two more Philadelphians were shot in broad daylight walking down the public streets, in an obviously targeted hit — note that the victims started to run as the shooter got out of the car, because they recognized that this was a hit, in a way innocent people most probably would not — and no story in the Inky tells us what we already knew: these were just as much gang-bangers as the guy who shot them.

Josef Stalin purportedly said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” There were 562 people murdered in Philly last year, and if the current year is slightly behind that pace, it’s not behind by much, and unless the daily average of murders falls dramatically, there will be something on the order of 540 to 550 homicides in 2022.

And this is why young Mr Elizalde really is just a number. Why is he just a number? It’s because nobody really cares! Most Philadelphians aren’t out there shooting people, but the people who know who the shooters are still keep their mouths shut, still don’t help the police solve murders.

Some of that is clearly fear, but the police have set up well-publicized anonymous tip lines which could at least get the police pointed in the right direction. Some of it is that so many residents just plain hate the cops and hate law enforcement, as evidenced by the fact that the voters re-elected, by landslide margins, a District Attorney who loves to prosecute cops but does not want to send street criminals to jail. And some of it is a sense that most of these killings are public service homicides, one group of bad guys taking out another group of bad guys. In that, and yes, I recognize that I’m being an [insert slang term for the anus here] for pointing it out, but young Mr Elizalde was simply collateral damage.

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”.
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Punishment before the trial?

We noted, on September 2nd, the case of Eyvette Hunter, 52, a nurse accused of deliberately killing a 97-year-old patient because he was agitated and difficult. Miss Hunter just had her bail reduced and trial scheduled . . . for next June.

Eyvette Hunter, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Bond reduced for Lexington nurse accused of murder. Trial date set for June 2023

by Taylor Six | Thursday, September 29, 2022 | 5:19 PM EDT | Updated: Friday, September 30, 2022 | 7:30 PM EDT

Fayette Circuit Court Judge Thomas Travis has granted a $50,000 bond reduction for a former Lexington nurse accused of killing a man through an unauthorized injection.

Eyvette Hunter, 52, was indicted on one charge of murder and arrested on Aug. 23, according to court records. Police say Hunter’s maltreatment caused the death of James Morris, a 97-year-old patient who died at Baptist Health Lexington on May 5.

On Thursday afternoon, she appeared in court after her attorney filed a motion to lower her bond, which was set at $100,000. Hunter’s attorney, Daniel Whitley, successfully requested that the bond be reduced 50% to $50,000 full cash, according to court testimony.

Mr Whitley argued before the judge that the previous bail was simply beyond the means of the family, while the prosecutors, Aubrey McGuire and Traci Caneer, were strongly opposed, and stated than Miss Hunter’s bail should be increased, not reduced. Miss Hunter, if her family make bail, will not be required to wear an ankle monitor, given that she has no past criminal record, and is a low flight risk.

Herald-Leader reporter Taylor Six, from her Twitter biography.

A lengthy section follows, containing the Commonwealth’s allegations against Miss Hunter, which are contained in my previous article on the case, so I needn’t repeat them here; you can also read the Lexington Herald-Leader’s account here. It was the conclusion of Taylor Six’s news article which got to me:

Whitley also said that before the commonwealth indicted Hunter for murder, they neglected to consult with a medical examiner, nor did they seek to do any toxicology to determine the levels of Ativan, or any other substance, in his system at the time of death.

The commonwealth has yet to tender any discovery from any witness stating that the alleged victim died due to the use of Ativan, Whitley said in court documents.

A trial date was set for June 12 and is scheduled to last four days.

Now, what does this mean? Does the prosecution not already have enough evidence put together? Did the defense request this extreme delay? The article states, “The commonwealth has yet to tender any discovery from any witness stating that the alleged victim died due to the use of Ativan,” according to the defense. Does this mean that the prosecution is not yet ready to proceed? If the defense attorney’s statement is accurate — and it was apparently made to the judge — then the prosecution has not given to the defense the required material for the defense to prepare.

I have to ask: what purpose is served by scheduling a trial 8½ months in the future? The defendant has already spent more than a month behind bars, and, if despite the bail reduction, she can’t make bail, would wind up spending 294 days, almost ten months, in jail for a crime of which she has been accused but not convicted? The prosecution wanted Miss Hunter’s bail not only not decreased, but increased, because the Commonwealth’s Attorney apparently wants to keep her locked up for those 294 days, to punish her for that almost ten months, before she even goes to trial, before the Commonwealth has to prove its case against her.

What if she is acquitted? The prosecution wants to punish her in advance, just in case they don’t win.

Miss Six did not include, in her article, whether either the prosecution or defense requested the June trial date, or whether this was simply a decision by the court.

One final point: while in previous Herald-Leader articles on this case, Miss Hunter is alleged to have injected James Morris with Lorazepam, while in this one, the drug mentioned is Ativan. While these are two brand names for the same drug, any reader who did not know that could be confused.

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Killadelphia: I told you so!

I told you so! I said yesterday evening, concerning the shooting at Roxborough High School, “Four shooters, huh? Were we not reliably informed by (The Philadelphia Inquirer) that there are no gangs in the city, just ‘cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,’ I would have said that, yeah, this was a gang hit, but apparently it was just a beef of some sort between cliques. I suppose that I’ll have to stop using the term ‘gang-bangers’ and replace it with a more politically correct ‘clique beefers.'” Now we learn from Steve Keeley of Fox29 News:

The Inquirer actually admitted that it was a deliberately targeted hit:

At least one teen shooting victim was targeted, officials say

by Erin McCarthy | Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | 3:48 PM EDT

Philadelphia police officials on Wednesday showed video footage that captured the moments when five shooters, all of whom appear to be juveniles, opened fire on a group of Roxborough High School football players after a Tuesday afternoon scrimmage.

Nicholas Elizalde, 14, of Havertown, was killed in the attack, and Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said he believes Elizalde was “a totally innocent victim.” Investigators believe one or more of the other victims were targeted, Smith added.

“There was possibly some altercation in the lunchroom” earlier Tuesday, Smith said, noting investigators had interviewed three of the five victims and were still looking into several possible motives.

“Do we believe it was targeted? Yes,” Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said. “Who was the target? We’re still working to determine that.”

The five shooters, one more than had previously been reported, waited near the football field for six minutes, Vanore and Smith said, until the five victims walked by the shooters’ light-colored Ford Explorer.

Then, five people exited the SUV and started firing. Four ran back to the car after the initial volley of gunfire, police said. A fifth shooter continued running down the street, shooting at the 17-year-old victim, who was not a Roxborough football player and whom Smith said he believes was targeted.

“That victim collapses on sidewalk. [The shooter] stands over top of him and continues firing,” Smith said. “The only thing that stopped this individual from firing was that apparently he had run out of bullets and the slide had locked.”

In all, police recovered more than 60 fired cartridges at the scene. They are looking for the five shooters and a sixth individual who drove the SUV.

What the Inky did not have was that the 17-year-old (apparently) intended victim was a previously identified carjacker and “is referenced several times for his criminal activity.” Did those “Law Enforcement sources” tell FOX 29 News but not the Inquirer, or was it the Inky’s usual censorship of the news?

The unidentified 17-year-ols was shot once in his right arm and thrice in his left leg. How, I have to ask, could the shooter have been “stand(ing) over top of (the victim) and continu(ing to) fire,” and still not kill his victim?

Of course, the Inquirer had a feature on how to fudge the truth to your own kids:

How to talk to kids about the Roxborough High School shooting

Tips for how to talk to kids about grief and violence after the Roxborough High School shooting.

by Sarah Gantz and Abraham Gutman | Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | 4:48 PM EDT

On Tuesday, five high school students were shot after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School. One has died.

Whether you are talking to children directly affected by this latest school shooting, ongoing neighborhood violence, or the death of a loved one, guiding them through this emotional thicket can be tough. You may be asking yourself:

How much should you tell children?

How do you make them feel better?

You know, I’m not going to quote any of the psychobabble from the article; if you want to read it, click on the link. But you know how to talk to kids about the Roxborough shooting? Tell ’em that this is what happens to gang-bangers cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families, and if they want to avoid being gunned down, the best way to do that is to do the right things, not the wrong, and stay away from the wannabe thugs.

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Killadelphia: Not a “gang hit”, but just a “beef” between “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families”

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Ellie Rushing, Jessica Griffin, Ximena Conde, and Chris Palmer wrote, on September 19th:

In Philadelphia, there are no gangs in the traditional, nationally known sense. Instead, they are cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families. The groups have names — Young Bag Chasers, Penntown, Northside — and members carry an allegiance to each other, but they aren’t committing traditional organized crimes, like moving drugs, the way gangs did in the past.

(William Fritze, an assistant district attorney who heads the Gun Violence Task Force in the DA’s Office), though, said it’s time to call them what they are: “I think we are now at a point where we can comfortably say there are gangs.”

Beef between rival crews sometimes goes back years. But increasingly, he said, the feuds are fueled by — and chronicled on — social media, particularly Instagram. Members of one group often make posts or livestreams mocking and claiming the shootings of people in rival crews as a way to build street cred.

So, since the learned journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading of the Inquirer tell me there are no real gangs in the City of Brotherly Love, I guess that this wasn’t a gang hit, but simply a beef between a couple of “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families.”

A 14-year-old boy was killed and 4 other teens wounded in a shooting after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School

Just after 4:40 p.m., players participating in a football scrimmage were walking off the field and heading to a school bus when gunfire erupted.

by Ellie Rushing, Kristen A. Graham, and Robert Moran | Tuesday, September 27, 2022 | 8:32 PM EDT

A 14-year-old boy was killed and four other teens wounded in a shooting after a football scrimmage outside Roxborough High School late Tuesday afternoon, police said, marking the 23rd shooting death of a child this year as Philadelphia continues to face a surge in gun violence.

Just after 4:40 p.m., players participating in a football scrimmage were walking off the field and heading to a school bus on Pechin Street when shooters opened fire from a car and unleashed a volley of bullets on the team, police said.

A 14-year-old boy who suffered a gunshot wound to the left side of his chest was rushed by police to Einstein Medical Center and was pronounced dead at 5:09 p.m.

The boy was a football player on the Roxborough team, but he attended Saul High School, a nearby magnet school that focuses on agriculture, Philadelphia School District spokesperson Christina Clark said.

Further down:

The three-way scrimmage between Roxborough, Northeast, and Boys Latin High Schools’ junior varsity football teams had just finished around 4:30 p.m. and players were grabbing their gear and walking towards the bus.

Suddenly, four shooters ambushed members of the Roxborough team and shot five of them, police said.

Four shooters, huh? Were we not reliably informed by the Inky that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” I would have said that, yeah, this was a gang hit, but apparently it was just a beef of some sort between cliques. I suppose that I’ll have to stop using the term “gang-bangers” and replace it with a more politically correct “clique beefers.”

As we have noted many times before, The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl. So, while a 14-year-old boy being killed would normally be seen as the death of an “innocent,” a planned “hit” on a group of junior varsity football players certainly sounds like there was something to have generated bad blood between at least one of the players and a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families.” The dead player might not have been involved in whatever dispute the “clique beefers” had, but the obvious assumption is that at least someone among the departing players might not have been quite the “innocent” the Inky would like to make him out to be.

When the Inky stops telling us what a good and noble fellow the dead boy was, we’ll know a lot more.
__________________________________________

Updated: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 |  8:59 AM EDT

Shooters remain unidentified, and their motive remains unclear

By Ellie Rushing, Kristen A. Graham, and Robert Moran | 7:20 AM EDT

It remains unclear what led to the shooting outside Roxborough High School, said Capt. John Walker, head of the Police Department’s nonfatal shooting unit, adding that there have been no other recent incidents involving players on these teams.

It was also unclear just how many shots were fired, but there were more than 70 evidence markers throughout the street, noting both shell casings and bullet fragments.

The photo in the Inquirer shows an investigator carrying an evidence marker numbered 74.

Let’s tell the truth here: the surviving victims almost certainly know which “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families” shot them, and their wounds were primarily in their legs:

During Tuesday’s shooting, another 14-year-old boy was shot once in his left thigh, and a 15-year-old was shot in the leg. A 17-year-old was also shot in the right arm and three times in his left leg. All were rushed to Einstein and Temple Hospital, and were in stable condition Tuesday night, police said.

A fifth player suffered a graze wound, but did not require medical treatment, police said.

Translation: their wounds, though doubtlessly painful, are not serious enough that none of them would have been able to be questioned by the police. If the police do not know the identities of the shooters and at least the players’ version of the dispute which led to the attack, then the players simply aren’t talking. They’re following the street code, and expecting that street ‘justice’ will avenge their shootings.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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Killadelphia and Killington

We have been noticing that the homicide rate in the City of Brotherly Love has been taking a slightly different path this year than in 2021’s record-setting bloodbath. At the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend of 2021, there had been 363 homicides in the city, where the number was 372 this year. The statistics slightly skew, because Labor Day was on September 6th in 2021, and September 5th this year.

In 2021, the homicide rate really took off after Labor Day, rising from 1.4578 per day, to 1.7155 per day for the rest of the year, taking the projected number of total murders from 532 to 562.

But this year, that surge hasn’t been seen, and the number of homicides has fallen behind 2021’s awful toll; as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, September 25th, Philly is six homicides behind last year’s same-day numbers. At 1.48134328358209 killings per day, Philly actually has a lower daily death rate than the 1.504032258064516 seen at the end of the Labor Day holiday. At the end of Labor Day, the killing numbers projected out to 548.97, while now they’re down to 540.69 now. That’s still a terrible number, but perhaps, just perhaps, the city can avoid setting a new record for murders this year. Sure, it’s almost certainly going to be above 500, second-place all time, but that’s better than another gold medal.

However, the gold medal is what Lexington, Kentucky has won:

Woody LaPierre, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Lexington ties 2021 homicide record after man dies in Sunday morning shooting

by Taylor Six | Sunday, September 25, 2022 | 9:18 AM EDT | Updated: 3:39 PM EDT

Lexington has tied its record for homicides, set in 2021, with the city’s 37th homicide of 2022 taking place Sunday morning on Oxford Circle.

According to Lexington Police, officers responded to the 1800 block of Oxford Circle where they located 25-year-old Adentokunbo Okunoye, who had been shot around 4 a.m.

When officers arrived, they located Okunoye suffering from a gunshot wound. According to police, he was declared dead at the scene by the Lexington Fire Department.

Police arrested 29-year-old Woody LaPierre and charged him with murder. He is currently being held at the Fayette County Detention Center.

There’s more at the original, but it’s just noting the statistics: with 37 homicides, Lexington has tied last year’s record. In 2021, the 37th murder occurred on December 30th, while the city had seen only 27 killings at this time last year.

At 37 murders in 268 days, one every 7.24 days, Kentucky’s second-largest city is on a path to 50.39 murders for the year. Just four days ago, the number was at least under fifty, at 49.585.

In a bit of good news, the Lexington Police Department has solved the killing of Dietrich Murray:

Man arrested in connection to August murder on Dakota Street, Lexington police say

by Taylor Six | Sunday, September 25, 2022 | 9:54 AM EDT | Updated: Monday, September 26, 2022 | 10:59 AM EDT

James Catlett, photo by Fayette County Detention Center on August 6, 2014, and is a public record.

The Lexington Police Department arrested a man in connection with a homicide that occurred in August on Dakota Street.

Forty-five-year-old James Catlett was arrested on Saturday and charged with murder for the August 31 shooting death of Dietrich Murray, 29, according to police.

Murray was found lying in a Lexington road last month with a gunshot wound and died at the hospital, according to Lexington police.

Lt. Joe Anderson of the Lexington Police Department said the night of the homicide, the police received a report of a shooting at approximately 7:45 a.m. Murray was found in the intersection of North Broadway and Loudon Avenue when officers arrived.

According to court documents, a single spent .380 caliber shell casing was found at the scene of the shooting. Catlett was identified as a suspect and it was determined the shell casing came from a handgun that was in Catlett’s possession during a traffic stop on Sept. 1, according to an affidavit.

It was unclear if Catlett was a suspect in the shooting at the time of the traffic stop.

An eyewitness confirmed Catlett as the shooter through a photo lineup, according to court documents. Police didn’t comment on additional details of the investigation when asked Monday.

There’s more at the original.

As usual, what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal did not publish the mugshots of either criminal suspect, despite the fact that that the Lexington television stations had.

With a guesstimated population of 337,000, Lexington had a homicide rate of 10.98 per 100,000 population in 2021. If the city hits the projected 50 this year, the rate would be 14.84 per 100,000 population. Killington isn’t quite in Killadelphia’s league, but perhaps it ought to quit trying.

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With 100 days left in the year, Lexington is just one homicide short of tying its all-time record.

In 2019, Lexington, Kentucky, set its all-time homicide record of 30, but that record didn’t last long. There were 34 homicides in 2020, and then 37 in 2021. Well, it l;ooks like the gang-bangers have taken breaking the record yet again as a personal challenge, as the city saw it’s 36th killing on THursday:

One person dead, police investigating after a shooting in Lexington

by Christopher Leach | Thursday, September 22, 2022 | 2:08 PM EDT | Updated: 4:43 PM EDT

One person has died after a shooting on Jennifer Road in Lexington, police say.

The shooting happened around noon Thursday. Police received a report at 12:01 p.m. of an individual who had been shot at an apartment complex in the 1700 block of Jennifer Road, according to Lt. Joe Anderson with the Lexington Police Department.

That individual was transported to a hospital with life-threatening injuries, according to Maj. Jessica Bowman with the Lexington Fire Department. The victim, a male, was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to police.

The Fayette County Coroner’s Office identified the victim as 51-year-old Raymond Brooks.

The suspect fled the scene before officers arrived, police said. Police didn’t release any additional information on a possible suspect. More information is expected to be released later.

There’s a little more information at the original.

Lexington’s 36th homicide of 2021 didn’t occur until December 17th, so the city is 86 days ahead of last year’s bloody pace. 36 homicides in 265 days works out to a projected 49.585 killings for the year, if the same pace is maintained, one killing every 7.361 days.