Tag Archives: #Crime

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Hold them accountable! When criminals are not treated harshly, bad things happen

When criminals are not treated seriously, when they are given lenient plea bargain deals, and when they are let out of jail early, or never jailed at all, bad things can happen. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

Gary Wilburn Elmore, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Lexington man, previous offender accused of sexually assaulting a woman under his care

by Christopher Leach | Friday, July 15, 2022 | 8:24 AM EDT

A Lexington man who was previously convicted of a sexual assault crime has been charged with rape and and sexual abuse, according to court records.

Gary Elmore, 52, is accused of sexually assaulting a female while she was asleep. Elmore’s arrest citation said he was the victim’s care taker and the abuse happened daily while the victim was under his care for approximately one month.

The victim is a vulnerable adult and relied on Elmore for care and assistance for completion of nearly all daily living activities, according to court documents.

Elmore is listed on the Kentucky State Police sex offender registry for pleading guilty to third degree rape in 2010 in Jefferson County. Court records show the charge was amended down from first degree rape and he was sentenced to five years of supervised probation.

Elmore was also charged with failure to comply with the sex offender registry twice — later in 2010 and again in 2012, per court records. He pleaded guilty in 2010 to attempting to not comply with the registry. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to failing to comply.

At this point I would normally write that there’s more at the original, but there isn’t; Christopher Leach’s story is only those five paragraphs long.

Mr Elmore would seem to fall into the category of “was known to the police.” His record at the Fayette County Detention Center shows not just one, but five separate mugshots, dated September 15, 2015, December 5, 2021, December 25, 2021, June 16, 2022, and July 14, 2022. The first two mugshots are identical, so it is possible that the Merry Christmas mugshot was to replace the duplicate one used twenty days previously.

Under KRS §510.040, first degree rape is a Class B felony, the punishment for which is a minimum of ten years to a maximum of 20 years under KRS §532.060. Had the charge not been amended down, Mr Elmore could still have been behind bars when he (allegedly) raped his victim.

Under KRS §510.060, third degree rape is a Class D felony, punishable by 1 to 5 years in prison. While I certainly don’t like that Mr Elmore was allowed to plead down, this could very well have been to save the victim further trauma from having to testify in court, something I do understand.

However, he was given 5 years probation, with apparently no jail time at all, and twice tried to evade the sex offender registry, which should have resulted in him being sent to prison, but if he was, the story does not tell us.

A first offense of failure to comply with sex offender registry requirements is a Class D felony under KRS §17.510, the penalty for which is 1 to 5 years in prison, and each subsequent offense is a Class C felony, the sentence for which is a minimum of 5 years to a maximum of 10 years. The victim would not have to testify for this. While the first plea bargain could have been made to save the victim from having to testify, the attempt to evade the register would not have required her testimony; the case could have been made simply via paperwork. The Commonwealth could have locked up this cretin for up to five years on the first offense, which would have made up for him not being jailed previously due to the plea deal.

If he had been sentenced to just one year for that first offense, he would have been free in 2012, the date of his second registry offense, and could have gotten locked up for ten years.

This is a story of a lot of failures by people other than Mr Elmore. Who hired him to work as a caregiver for a mostly helpless woman, despite the fact he was a convicted felon and on the sex offender registry? Did someone check and know about this, and hire him anyway, or did someone simply fail to check the background of a person who was going to be sent into the hole of a disabled woman? In either case, the person who hired him needs to be held accountable.

It has to be asked: just who treated Mr Elmore so leniently in the criminal justice system, leniently enough that he was able to (allegedly) rape a 52-year-old woman who was disabled enough that she required a caregiver? Mr Elmore could have spent at least five years behind bars, though that would not have had him in jail when he (allegedly) raped his helpless victim, but at least the public would have been protected from him for that time. Whoever treated Mr Elmore leniently needs to be held accountable.

Both first degree rape and first degree sodomy (KRS §510.070) are Class B felonies, unless the victim receives a serious physical injury, which would upgrade the charge to a Class A felony, which carries a penalty of not less than 20 nor more than 50 years in prison, or a straight life sentence. The story does not tell us if the victim was injured.

If Mr Elmore is found guilty, he needs to spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars. If he is convicted of both first degree rape and sodomy, he should be sentenced to the maximum, with the sentences set to run consecutively, not concurrently.

The Herald-Leader is telling readers that the Commonwealth’s prisons are once again getting overfilled, but letting criminals out early is not the answer; the answer is to build more prisons to hold the bad guys behind bars for as long as the law allows. This might help deter some of the other bad guys, but it will definitely protect the people of the Bluegrass State.

 

 

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“She snuck out that night and been with some bad friends.”

We have previously noted the murder of James “Simmie” Lambert, 73, beaten to death by a group of seven young Philadelphia teens. There’s outrage in the city, as people have been asking, over and over again, why a group of kids ranging from (at least) 10 to 14 years old were out on the streets running wild at 2:30 in the morning on Friday, June 24th. ‘Where were their parents?’ is the usual cry.

Gamara Mosley, mugshot by Philadelphia Police Department, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

Well, one of the parents, the mother of 14-year-old Gamara Mosley, who has been charged with third-degree murder, was dumb enough to talk to reporters:

‘I’m sorry, as a parent’: Mother of 14-year-old charged in death of James Lambert, Jr. speaks out

By Alex Holley | Published July 15, 2022 11:33PM | Updated July 16, 2022 7:17AM | Philadelphia | FOX 29 Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – Young teens are charged as adults in the deadly assault of 73-year-old James Lambert, Jr. and the mother of one of those teens, 14-year-old Gamara Mosley, sat down with Alex Holley Friday to talk about her daughter.

“All social media about me and my child is not true. I’m not a bad mom,” mom Shara stated.

A whole lot of people would disagree that Shara — no last name is given in the article — isn’t a bad mother.

“What do you say to some people who looked at that video and say, ‘How could a good kid be capable of something like that, beating a 73-year-old man with the traffic cone to his death?” Holley asked.

“It’s the other kids and, you know, bad influence. She probably didn’t know, didn’t mean to do it,” Shara answered.

From Chapter 18 §2502.

Young Miss Mosley is shown, on the surveillance video, picking up a traffic cone and throwing it at the victim’s head, but hey, she probably didn’t really mean to do that. Perhaps, just perhaps, had Shara been a good mother, and taught her lovely daughter that assaulting an elderly, partially disabled man — photos of Mr Lambert show him holding a cane — is not a good or acceptable thing to do, her daughter wouldn’t be locked up and facing a first-degree felony in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Under Pennsylvania Chapter 18 §2502, as I read it, young Miss Mosley could have just as easily been charged with second-degree murder.

Under Pennsylvania Title 18 §106(b)(2), “A crime is a felony of the first degree if it is so designated in this title or if a person convicted thereof may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, the maximum of which is more than ten years.” The normal sentence would be 10 to 20 years, but it could be longer. Second-degree murder can carry a sentence of life in prison.

“Since her dad’s gone, it’s just…things are different cause we ain’t got that family no more, like we used to have. We used to be in the house and stuff like that as a family,” Shara explained. “She’s going through a lot.”

“Why was it important for you to talk to us?” Holley asked.

“That’s my daughter and I care. And, like I said, she wasn’t with me when it happened. She snuck out that night and been with some bad friends,” Shara answered.

“So, she’s never snuck out before?” Holley asked.

“No,” Shara replied.

Just how does her mother know that Miss Mosley has never “snuck” out before?

Shara apologized to the family of Mr Lambert in the interview, but the family were having none of it:

Family of 73-year-old murder victim speaks out, asking for all involved to be charged

By Shawnette Wilson | Published July 15, 2022 11:46PM

Richard Jones, mugshot by Philadelphia Police Department, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

CENTER CITY – James Lambert’s niece says she wants all of the kids charged and she doesn’t accept an apology she heard from one of the parents Friday evening.

“She’s not a bad kid. Why did she have to be around them kids that make her do them things?” stated the mother of one of the two teens charged, Shara.

Tania Stephens, the niece of James Lambert, Jr, reacting to the words from the from Shara, whose 14-year-old daughter, Gamara Mosley, is charged with murder and conspiracy in the death of Lambert.

14-year-old Richard Jones and Mosley are both charged with Third Degree Murder and Conspiracy, as adults, which is why their photos are being shown.

A 10-year-old was released and not charged and a 13-year-old girl, whose lawyer says she tried to stop it, was also released and isn’t facing charges.

Stephens reached out to FOX 29 to speak after seeing, over the past week, four children turn themselves in with lawyers and their family alongside them. “I want everyone to be charged. Everyone. I don’t want house arrest. They were all part of the crime, no matter if they actually threw a cone. They were there and everyone is guilty even the parents, from the 10-year-old, to the parents.”

Miss Stephens continued to say that those who physically assaulted Mr Lambert should be charged with murder, and those in the group who did not should be charged with aiding and abetting.

It has to be asked: what legal liabilities do the parents of these seven delinquents face? They clearly failed in their responsibilities as parents to rear their children properly. The answer is that they almost certainly face no legal problems, though they ought to be at the very least ostracized and run out of town. Of course, that would just mean that some other town would wind up with those parents living there.

The area in which Mr Lambert was murdered is not that bad looking. A row house at 2021 Cecil B Moore Avenue, a block from 21th Street where the murder occurred, is currently for sale, listed at $439,900, while another in the general area is listed at $405,900. There are some other properties in the area listed for lower, but some of them are vacant lots.

Yes, I do look at real estate listings to judge the character of a neighborhood, though I can’t imagine spending over $400,000 for those places. Of course, the fact that we just bought a house in better condition — at least now that my nephew and I redid the plumbing — than the ones listed for a whopping $69,999 might color my opinion on that, but that house is in a small town in east-central Kentucky!

I have to say that I agree with Miss Stephens: all of these kids need to be charged. I can understand why some people are reluctant to charge a 10-year-old, but in Pennsylvania, 10-year-olds can be declared delinquents, and the 10-year-old in question is the brother of 14-year-old Richard Jones, charged with murder, and very probably brought up the same as Mr Jones. The attorney of a 13-year-old girl involved claimed that she attempted to stop the beating, and called 911 to get Mr Lambert help after it was over, but she was still there, and under Pennsylvania law, she was an accomplice.

As we previously noted, The Philadelphia Inquirer printed an OpEd piece, 2½ weeks after Mr Lambert was murdered, claiming that the Commonwealth should cease charging juveniles with crimes to be tried in adult courts. But criminals charged as juveniles have one huge advantage: not only are they released based on age rather than the severity of the crime, but juvenile records are sealed, meaning that, if soft-hearted and soft-headed, social and racial justice warrior District Attorney Larry Krasner gets the charges knocked down to juvenile offenses, Mr Jones and Miss Mosley and perhaps some of the other three killers who have yet to turn themselves in, or be apprehended, could, after age 18, return into the community and apply for any job they wanted, and the fact that they killed somebody would not appear on their records.

If tried as adults, they would still get out of jail when they are in their prime crime-committing years.

Yes, despite her claim, it appears that Shara is a bad mother, but its more than that. Several mothers and (absent?) fathers were bad parents, in that they were allowing teenagers that young to roam the streets of North Philadelphia at 2:30 in the morning. What decent parent does that? Beyond that, the entire community apparently tolerates kids that age to be out on the streets at that time of the morning, and nothing is said.

Jail will (hopefully) punish these kids, but the prospect of prison doesn’t seem to deter most of the other bad kids in North Philly, and the cops can’t be everywhere; the Philadelphia Police Department are undermanned now, but even at full staffing they can’t cover everything.

The real solution, if there is one at all, must come from within the community itself. The people in the community must ostracize the bad kids, and rear the children who still have a chance at leading decent, normal lives to be good citizens. Race and poverty are not valid excuses.

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73-year-old man murdered by teens in Philly The Inquirer wants to keep teen offenders out of the adult court system

Surprisingly enough, The Philadelphia Inquirer actually reported, albeit briefly, on two murders in the city yesterday.

Two people were killed and eight others wounded in separate shootings around Philadelphia on Monday, police said.

Just after 3 p.m., an unidentified man believed to be in his late 30s was outside on the 2700 block of North Broad Street when he was shot 13 times, police said.

The man was taken by medics to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. Police said a person was in custody but released no further information on the case.

Around 1:30 a.m., a 36-year-old man was fatally shot in the head outside on the 3800 block of North 9th Street in Hunting Park. The man, who was not identified, was pronounced dead at the scene by medics. Police reported no arrests.

Note that the Philadelphia Police press releases identified the races of the victims, but the Inky scrubbed that part.

This was a bigger crime story in Philly:

Brothers, ages 10 and 14, surrender to Philly police in traffic cone beating death of 73-year-old man

James Lambert Jr. was crossing Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 21st Street when a group of juveniles attacked him. Another North Philly woman said she was attacked a month earlier at the same intersection.

by Robert Moran and Oona Goodin-Smith | Monday, July 11, 2022

Two brothers — ages 10 and 14 — have surrendered to police for questioning by homicide detectives as “persons of interest” in a fatal attack on a 73-year-old man last month in North Philadelphia, police said.

No charges have been filed as police continue to investigate the June 24 assault of James Lambert Jr., who was crossing Cecil B. Moore Avenue near 21st Street just before 2:40 a.m. when a group of juveniles assailed him. In a surveillance video, one of the participants can be seen knocking him to the sidewalk with a traffic cone.

Police say seven juveniles were involved.

While Lambert remained on the sidewalk, a girl can be seen in the video picking up the traffic cone and throwing it at Lambert, who then appears to stagger down Cecil B. Moore, followed by the girl, who retrieves the traffic cone and throws it at him again. She is wearing a bright pink long-sleeved sweater, with matching pool slide sandals. White-framed sunglasses are propped on top of her head.

As many as seven youths had gathered by that point. Video shows them talking before leaving the area.

Lambert suffered head injuries and died the next day, police said.

The photo of Mr Lambert is from a tweet embedded in the Inquirer story.

You know what wasn’t mentioned in the Inky? The Philadelphia Police released a video of the attack on Mr Lambert, including the descriptions shown on the right. But when the Inky reported on the story — which, to be fair, did include a link to the video — “four Black male and three Black female teen offenders” became “four males and three females”.

I might not have written about this story, save for one OpEd that was also in the Inquirer, still on the website main page, while the story about the two brats surrendering has been pushed back to the crime page:

Pennsylvania needs to stop prosecuting children as adults

This legislation will reduce recidivism, control costs, make our communities safer, and allow all young people the opportunity to grow.

by Camera Bartolotta and Anthony H. Williams | Monday, July 11, 2022

Imagine only seeing the sun for one hour a day while crammed into a 6-by-8-foot cell. Now imagine that you are only 16 years old, yet to be found guilty, and you are spending your days in an adult jail when you should be in school or spending time with your family. This is the reality of many children charged as adults through “direct file.”

Really? Imagine that you are 73-year-old James Lambert, walking alone, with the help of a cane,[1]The released video obscures the cane, but if you look at the published photo of Mr Lambert, you’ll see the handle of a walking cane. at 2:38 in the morning, and you’ll never see the sun again.

And am I really supposed to believe that, following the high-profile murder of Mr Lambert by teenagers, the Inquirer’s editors didn’t deliberately decide to print this OpEd with keeping these cretins out of the adult system in mind?

Direct file, or “statutory exclusion,” is a provision where kids under 18 are automatically prosecuted as adults for certain offenses, without the chance of a review by a juvenile court judge. This practice often forces the youth to be held in adult jails before trial and, if found guilty, adult prisons. And it doesn’t affect all children equally — according to the Pennsylvania Juvenile Justice Task Force’s findings, 56% of kids convicted as adults are Black boys, even though they make up just 7% of Pennsylvania’s youth population. This disparity is even starker than the disproportionate treatment that Black youth face in other parts of the justice system.

Whenever I see numbers like those, I always finish the article, and you know what I never see? There is never, ever, even the slightest hint that perhaps, just perhaps, if “56% of kids convicted as adults are Black boys, even though they make up just 7% of Pennsylvania’s youth population,” somewhere around 56% of crimes committed by minors which wind up in adult courts are committed by black boys.

There is always the implied, but usually unspoken, argument that if there is a ‘racial disparity’ in arrests, prosecutions, convictions, or incarcerations, it simply must be the result of racism; there is never the consideration that such ‘racial disparities’ are a reflection of a ‘racial disparity’ in who actually commits crimes.

Me? I’m 69-years-old and retired, so I can’t be ‘cancelled’, which means I can actually write the very politically incorrect truth. If I were an Inquirer reporter, and I had the temerity to write something like that, I’d have the security guard, ready to escort me out the door, watching me as I emptied out my desk, while Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Gabriel Escobar stood nearby, tapping his foot, smugly happy for having fired me, while murmurs, and possible jeers, sounded across the newsroom. In journolism,[2]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 the truth shall set you free . . . from your job.

Stan Wischnowski was unavailable for comment.

Was the attack on Mr Lambert perhaps an isolated incident?

About a month before Lambert was killed, a 53-year-old woman from North Philadelphia said she, too, was ambushed at 21st and Cecil B. Moore.

Watching the video of the attack on 73-year-old Lambert on the news, the woman said she thought it “could have been me.”

The woman, who spoke to The Inquirer on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said she was walking on 21st Street toward the subway on her way to an overnight nursing shift in late May when she spotted a group of young teenage girls on the street.

One of the teens — whom the woman said she recognized from the video of the attack on Lambert — asked her for a dollar. When she did not give them money, the woman said the teens began to swear at her. One threw a brick at her chest, and slammed a metal dolly on her back, leaving deep bruises. Startled, the woman said she threw her cup of hot coffee at the group and ran, phoning her family. . . . .

She said she didn’t contact the police initially about the attack, but called on Friday after hearing about Lambert’s death.

We have previously noted the difference between crimes of evidence and crimes of reporting. If a man rapes a woman on the streets of Philadelphia, as far as the police are concerned, if it wasn’t reported, it didn’t happen. It is commonly assumed that most rapes go unreported, with some guesstimates being as high as 90% not reported. Crimes like robbery might go unreported if the victims do not trust the police or think it will do any good, or are fearful of revenge by the criminals. When your city is stuck with a District Attorney like Mr Krasner, who doesn’t believe in prosecuting criminals, or sentencing them harshly when they are prosecuted and convicted, what reason is there to report that you were robbed?

To the Philly police, the assault on the 53-year-old woman, by at least one of the murderers, murderers!, of Mr Lambert, never happened in late May, because she got away and didn’t report it, or didn’t report it until she saw the video of Mr Lambert’s murder.

Why? Well, she feared retaliation, she said. Whether her assault was caught on camera we do not know, but there was nothing the police could do about a crime that, to them, never happened.

And so we get back to state Senators Bartolotta’s and Williams'[3]Camera Bartolotta is a Republican state senator. She represents Beaver, Greene, and Washington Counties. Anthony H. Williams is a Democratic state senator. He represents parts of Philadelphia and … Continue reading OpEd. They don’t want minors charged with serious crimes to be tried in adult courts. But if the 14-year-old who turned himself in for Mr Lambert’s murder is tried as a juvenile, he will be out of whatever juvenile institution they put him in when he turns 18, and his record, for murder!, will be sealed. It will be as though it never happened.

But James Lambert will still be stone-cold graveyard dead.

States do not put juveniles into the adult system for littering or out-of-control horseplay, or racing unregistered dirt bikes down city streets; they go into the adult system for really serious crimes. The senators tell us that they only want to change the system, and that juvenile offenders can still be sent into the adult system if their crimes are really heinous, but they want a juvenile court judge to take that decision. Thanks, but no thanks: we need to treat crime harshly, not so much for deterrence — which doesn’t seem to work anyway — but to get these miscreants off the streets!

References

References
↑1 The released video obscures the cane, but if you look at the published photo of Mr Lambert, you’ll see the handle of a walking cane.
↑2 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.
↑3 Camera Bartolotta is a Republican state senator. She represents Beaver, Greene, and Washington Counties. Anthony H. Williams is a Democratic state senator. He represents parts of Philadelphia and Delaware County.
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Irresponsible journolism from the Lexington Herald-Leader

No, that’s not a typo in the title: the spelling of ‘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.

What my, sadly late, best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal published a story this morning on an escaped prisoner from an addiction-treatment center.

Prison inmate is at-large after escaping custody in Lexington, police say

by Christopher Leach | Monday, July 11, 2022 |10:20 AM EDT

Authorities across Kentucky are searching for an inmate who escaped custody on Saturday.

According to Kentucky State Police, David Lewis, who was staying at the Hope Center’s recovery residence in Lexington, removed his ankle monitor and walked away from the facility at approximately 1 p.m. Saturday. Trooper Josh Satterly with state police confirmed at 9:15 a.m. Monday that Lewis is still at-large.

Lewis, originally an inmate at the Blackburn Correctional Complex off Spurr Road in Lexington, was last seen wearing blue jeans and a white sleeveless shirt, according to state police. He was also carrying a black trash bag of personal belongings.

Read more here.

The Herald-Leader‘s story continued to tell us that Mr Lewis is 5’5″ tall, weighs 145 lb, and has black hair and brown eyes. Mr Lewis turns 42 years old this coming Saturday, and was, on May 6, 2020, sentenced to five years in prison. But what the newspaper didn’t do was publish his photo! If the Herald-Leader is going to inform readers that they can call State Police Post 12 at 502-227-2221, or a local police agency, if they have any information as to Mr Lewis’ whereabouts, why wouldn’t they publish his picture, in case a reader happens to see him out on the street?

We have mentioned the McClatchy Mugshot Policy many times before, but that policy does allow for exceptions, if approved by the editor. Wouldn’t an escaped prisoner, in this case a man already convicted, not just someone accused of a crime and awaiting trial, and apparently addicted to drugs, merit that exception?

Did editor Pete Baniak decide that no, the newspaper wouldn’t help locate Mr Lewis? Did article author Christopher Leach not even ask him if the photo could be used? I found it easily enough; Mr Leach could have as well.

This is just irresponsible on the part of the Lexington newspaper!

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Killadelphia Last year saw a lull in the killings between July 9th and Labor Day; will the same happen this year?

It was one year ago today that we correctly projected the number of homicides in 2021 for Philadelphia, 562.

It was just yesterday that we noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t seem to pay much notice to the murders of young black males in the City of Brotherly Love. I pointed out, in the footnote, that with 287 homicides in 188 days (as of 11:59 PM on July 7th) equaled 1.5266 homicides per day, projecting a total of 557 for the year.

Well, it looks like the city’s thugs realized that they weren’t quite meeting their quota, because after two straight days of the Philadelphia Police Department reporting only one homicide, the gang bangers caught up: the Current Crime Statistics page shows 291 killings as of 11:59 PM on July 8th. 291 ÷ 189 days in the year, = 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year.

Then, guess what happened? Eight days later, we reported that the homicide rate had dropped slightly, to 1.5306 homicides per day, and the projection dropped down to 559.

It kept falling from there, and on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, we were able to report that there had been a real lull in killings in the City of Brotherly Love:

The Philadelphia Police Department reported that, as of 11:59 PM EDT on Labor Day, September 6th, there had been 363 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love so far this year. With 249 days of the year having elapsed, that gives Philly an average of 1.4578 murders a day, which would yield 532 murders for the entire year, if that average was maintained.

As we reported on July 9th, the city then had a rate of 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year. Thus, even with the really, really bad part of the year in the statistics, the ‘projected’ homicide total for 2021 has dropped by thirty souls.

But there’s more. Over the last 1½ months, the murder rate has really dropped. There had been 314 homicides as of July 22nd, the 203rd day of the year. Since that time, 46 days ago, there have been ‘just’ 49 murders, a rate of 1.0652 per day. With 116 days left in 2021, if that rate were maintained, there would be ‘just’ 124 more killings, for a total of 487 for the year, 12 fewer than last year, and 13 fewer than 1990’s all time record of 500. If that number was the final one, it would be 75 fewer homicides than the math had projected just two months ago.

Which raises the obvious question: why has the homicide rate decreased? After all, mid-July through Labor Day is part of the long, hot summer, when killings seem to be at their peak. Did a really bad gang or two just get completely wiped out? Did a few gangs come up with a truce? Whatever happened, this ought to be a question real journalists would attempt to investigate.

The Philadelphia Police Department does not report the statistics on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, so we won’t get the numbers specifically for today, but only the aggregate totals for Friday, today, and Sunday on Monday morning. My question is: will we see a similar lull this year, as the hottest part of the summer is coming upon us? Just yesterday, I did the math: 280 homicides ÷ 188 days = 1.4894 per day, or a projected 543.62 murders for the year. Done a different way, dividing the number of murders this year, 280, by the same number on the same day as last year, 287, and then multiplying by 562, last year’s homicide total, I came up with a projected 548.29 killings. Either way, the city is looking at a homicide total in the 540-550 range.

The lull didn’t last in Philly. On September 24, 2021, the day before Thanksgiving, the city tied its all-time record of 500, set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990, pushing the rate back up to 1.5244 per day, for a projected 556.40 homicides for the year. After that, the rate kept slowly creeping up, and at the end of the year finished with 562, 1.5397 per day.

The lull? August of 2021 was not abnormally hot, with only 14 days in which the temperature reached or exceeded 90º F, and just three in which the temperature met or exceeded 95º. Beginning on July 9, 2021, from when the lull began, there were only 7 days in which the temperature reached or exceeded 90º, and 95º was never reached. Nighttime lows — and most homicides occur during the evening and nighttime hours — were in the low 70º range throughout the period.

From July 9th through the end of Labor Day, there were only 20 days with any rain recorded, only 4 of which saw rain exceeding 1 inch.

I do not know the reason for the mid-to-end of summer lull in homicides, but it’s difficult to attribute it to the weather.

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Killadelphia Black Lives Don't Matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer

When I saw that the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page had shot up to 274 homicides, as of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, July 6th, from 268 the previous day, I had to check the Philadelphia Shootings Victims Database, to see if perhaps some of the six new fatalities were simply data catch-ups. As you can see from the chart on the left, there were six fatal shootings, out of thirteen total, yesterday. The chart is a direct copy from the shootings database, though I hid some of the data cells and made some of the data clearer — such as replacing ones and zeros with “no” and “yes” — and easier for the reader. Feel free to follow the link and confirm my data with the original. You can click on the chart itself to enlarge it for easier reading.

I have said, many times, that black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer, and, as of 12:13 PM EDT on July 7th, there was not a single story about any of the murders, either on the newspaper’s website main page or it’s crime page. There was, however, a photo, of Jailene Holton, the cute white girl murdered on June 28th, and a story about her (alleged) killer being arrested. Of course, we have also often said that The Philadelphia Inquirer does not care about murder victims unless they are an innocent, a ‘somebody,’ or a cute white girl, and this is just more evidence of that.

Who were the six people murdered in Philly yesterday? All six were black males, and, with one exception, all were in their twenties. The “anti-racist” Inquirer doesn’t want to tell us diddly, even though long-time Inky columnist Helen Ubiñas once lamented that so many victims received barely a few paragraphs.

Now, they’re not getting even that much! It’s just too politically incorrect for the newspaper to do something really radical like actually report the news. As we noted just yesterday, the advent of digital publication, even though the dead trees edition has gotten physically smaller, newspapers in digital format are no longer constrained by word counts or assigned column inches. Newspapers have always had the ability to go more in depth than television news and their quick-fire show-and-tell stories, and now, with space constraints gone, really get into the heart of stories. Four of the six homicides occurred before 3:00 PM, meaning that the newspaper has had plenty of time, plenty of time, to write something, anything, on the killings, two of which occurred in a double homicide in the 5000 block of Germantown Avenue. But the 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 at the Inquirer have, instead, stopped covering the news that simply does not fit its editorial slant, or publisher Elizabeth Hughes’ dictates.

Black lives simply don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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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Six killed in Highland Park shooting, and everybody knows about it; ten killed in Philly, and no one cares. Could it possibly be because the Highland Park victims were 'innocents', and Philly's murder victims are mostly not?

Robert Crimo III, via Twitter.

This morning’s news is all about the shootings in Highland Park, Illinois, at a Fourth of July parage, allegedly committed by Robert Chimo III, who was arrested without incident. The left, of course, concluded that because he surrendered and was arrested alive, he was the recipient of some kind of ‘white privilege.’

But, while Mr Crimo (allegedly) killed six people, in a story which has swept across the nation, at least ten people were murdered over the holiday weekend in the City of Brotherly Love, and nobody cares. Of course, The Philadelphia Inquirer didn’t have anything on the Highland Park shootings, either, but that’s probably because the city had its own bullets flying at the Independence Day parade on the Ben Franklin Parkway.

According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, 267 people were killed as of 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, July 4th. The previous update, done last Friday and including those killed as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, June 30th, was 257 murders. The PPD only updates that page on normal business days.

What did we have? As closely as I could get the information –primarily from Fox 29 reporter Steve Keeley’s tweets — one person was murdered on Friday, and four on Saturday. I saw stories listing two murders on Sunday, so, if those counts are accurate, that means three more killed on the Fourth of July.

Two police officers shot on the Ben Franklin Parkway amid Philadelphia’s July 4th celebrations

by Justine McDaniel, Chris Palmer, Jason Nark, and Kristen A. Graham | Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Two police officers were shot and injured in front of the Philadelphia Art Museum while on duty at the city’s Independence Day celebrations on Monday night. The incident caused stampedes of people watching fireworks on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to flee what they believed was an active shooting.

Investigators were still seeking to determine where the shots were fired from, how many were fired, and whether the shots were intentionally fired toward police or the officers were struck by stray gunfire. Police said no one else was shot.

It is possible, I suppose, that the shots fired were at random, but that they struck two Philadelphia Police Officers, and no one else, seems rather improbable.

No arrests had been made and no suspects were in custody as of 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference outside Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

Each officer suffered a graze wound, one to the forehead — the bullet was found in the police officer’s hat — and one to the shoulder. Both were treated and released from Jefferson within about two hours after the shooting, which happened just after 9:47 p.m.

“We’re all just extremely grateful that this wasn’t worse than what it was,” Outlaw said.

If they recovered the bullet in the officer’s hat, the police now have the ballistic evidence needed to tie it to a particular weapon, so if they catch some cretin with the weapon on him, he can be prosecuted.

Neither The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page nor its specific crime page had a single story on any of the ten, ten! homicides in the City of Brotherly Love over the long holiday weekend. Oh, there were older stories about a 16-year-old being sought after what appears to be an accidental shooting in Upper Darby Township, and four items on a senseless, apparent ‘road rage’ murder, in Springfield Township, but not a single item on any of the weekend killings in Philly itself.

Publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes set forth several principles she stated were necessary to make the Inquirer an “anti-racist news organization,” including:

  • Establishing a Community News Desk to address long-standing shortcomings in how our journalism portrays Philadelphia communities, which have often been stigmatized by coverage that over-emphasizes crime.
  • Examining our crime and criminal justice coverage with Free Press, a nonprofit focused on racial justice in media.

Apparently the result of that is to simply not report on city homicides at all!

The story about Robert Crimo will be across the national news for days, because the left will use it to argue to further restrict our constitutional rights. He’s easy to use, because he’s white, though apparently #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading, in that he actually has a tattoo above his left eyebrow that reads “Awake.” The Washington Post noted that he was a small-time rapper — see the “aspiring rapper” definition in the Urban Dictionary — and none of the major newspapers I checked had Mr Crimo’s photo with the stories, perhaps to avoid Ann Coulter’s tweet, “One gun control law I think we could all get behind is no guns for anyone with a face or neck tattoo.”

More, Mr Crimo’s victims are from a mostly white and Hispanic community; only 1.53% of the population are black, according to the 2020 census, and ‘innocents,’ in a randomly targeted assault. The editors of the Inky know that most, if not all, of the ten murders over the last four days are just as much bad guys as the guys who killed them; Philly’s 100 Shooting Review Committee Report noted that two thirds of the shooting victims had criminal records, most with violent felony records, most with prior firearms charges. The majority of the arrested shooters had violent felony records as well, had prior firearms charges, and PWID – possession of drugs with the intent to distribute – charges. Naturally, Publisher Hughes and Executive Editor Gabriel Escobar don’t want to say too much about Philly’s murders, save in the release of aggregate numbers, because that would not fit Miss Hughes’ “anti-racist” directives at all.

The truth shall set you free, but if you are looking for the truth, you will not get it from The Philadelphia Inquirer.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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Killadelphia Idiocy, fueled by alcohol, leaves a young woman dead, and a man who'll, hopefully, spend the rest of his miserable life in prison

We have often said that The Philadelphia Inquirer does not care about murder victims unless they are an innocent, a ‘somebody,’ or a cute white girl. One second she was happy and alive, and the next she had a bullet in her brain.

Bystander killed in shooting at Northeast Philadelphia bar

The woman was later identified by a relative as Jailene Holton

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Wednesda, June 29, 2022 | 10:12 AM EDT

Jailene Holton, via Steve Keeley, Fox29 News. Click to enlarge.

A bystander was killed after a disgruntled customer sprayed bullets into a Northeast Philadelphia bar late Tuesday night, police said.

Around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, three men were kicked out of the Philly Bar and Restaurant, on Welsh Road, after causing a disturbance at the bar. While two of the men left without issues, one had to be forced out.

That man, after being thrown out, walked to a pickup truck about 200 feet away and then shot at least 15 times into the front of the bar. Five of the bullets went through the window and one struck a 21-year-old woman in the head. Continue reading →

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Los Angeles Times “diversity” columnist thinks white people won’t accept blacks legally carrying firearms

Erika D Smith, an opinion writer for what Patterico calls the Los Angeles Dog Trainer, writes as though there aren’t a lot of black people in city already carrying guns.

Is California ready for more Black people to legally carry guns in public?

by Erika D Smith | Monday, June 27, 2022 | 5:00 AM PDT

Nathan W. Jones leads the Bay Area chapter of the Black Gun Owners Assn. But until a few years ago, he wasn’t even into guns.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. And George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, sending racial justice protesters into the streets. And white supremacists trashed the U.S. Capitol in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Suddenly, it seemed as if America was on the brink. And with the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe vs. Wade on Friday, emboldening a militant array of white Christian nationalists, we clearly still are.

So, on Thursday, while many were apoplectic over the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the rights of gun owners to carry a loaded weapon in public — throwing gun control laws in California and New York into limbo at a time when shootings are increasing — Jones was thoughtful.

Here’s where the OpEd column veers off into the weeds. The author noted that shootings have been increasing, but that was before the Supreme Court’s ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen, so the previous law wasn’t stopping shootings.

The ruling was a fairly simple one: it did not overturn New York’s law requiring people who owned firearms to have a permit to do so, but overturned the Empire State’s very restrictive requirements that the people needed a specific, approved reason to own a firearm, a reason that the state approved, and that a desire to own a weapon for self-protection was insufficient. The state can still require a permit, and laws which ban previously convicted felons from having firearms still apply, but the state cannot ban law-abiding people with ordinary reasons from obtaining such permits.

As we have previously noted, in Pennsylvania, where concealed carry permits are required, law-abiding people have been applying for permits at record-breaking rates because so many gang bangers have been carrying firearms, and have been killing people in record-breaking numbers.

On the one hand, he wants it to be easy for law-abiding citizens to be able to defend themselves “if and when the time arises.” But on the other hand, he’s a 50-year-old realist who knows that fear and hatred of Black people run deep in the United States, especially when we’re armed.

“There’s no overt racism when we go to the gun range, but we know how people are looking at us,” Jones said of the dozens of Black members who meet up to go shooting. “We know the things that people think.”

Setting aside Mr Jones exercise into mind-reading, the obvious point becomes: shouldn’t he want for the public to see law-abiding black citizens, to get people used to picturing black Americans as decent citizens? I am reminded of the Sacramento Bee putting into plain language its reasons for ceasing the publication of police mug shots, because they “perpetuat(e) stereotypes about who commits crime in our community,” by which they meant that black people are seen as criminals.[1]Erika Smith worked for the Sacramento Bee, but left before the Bee began that policy. Shouldn’t black Americans want to break that stereotype by showing themselves as responsible citizens?

Following a couple of paragraphs in which the author notes that Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and the state legislature will have to come up with some form of permit process which meets the Supreme Court’s requirements, he continues:

But the governor and lawmakers could fail, and the Supreme Court’s ruling could stand. And then, California could be forced to confront a reality that has long made many self-proclaimed liberals uncomfortable: Black people — potentially a lot of us — legally carrying guns in public.

But that’s just it: a lot of black Americans, and white Americans, are already carrying guns in public, just not all of them legally. The various permit requirements didn’t deter the criminals; they only got in the way of law-abiding people, people who didn’t have the time to apply, or didn’t want to pay a fee, or, in some cases, such as in New York, knew that their reason for wanting a firearm just wasn’t special enough to get past the bureaucrats.

It’s simple: the black — and white — Americans who we don’t want carrying firearms in public are the one already carrying them, illegally, without bothering with any stinkin’ permits, because they are criminals, or punks looking to make a street name for themselves and become criminals. But if you’re a good guy, I don’t care if you carry a firearm; that’s your business.

And once more the author veers into the weeds:

Most who join say they bought a gun for self-defense, Choice and Jones agree. Many reach out after getting — forgive the phrase — triggered by high-profile racist incidents, including last month’s massacre of Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y.

Really? Maybe in the Pyrite State, I suppose, but the article I cited above, noting the great increase in permit applications in Philly was written on March 16, 2022, two months before the Buffalo killings. They were ‘triggered’ by 499 murders in the city in 2020, then 562 in 2021, and another 251 so far this year, more than half of 500 with less than half of the year elapsed. They were triggered by an even higher number of shootings in the city than on the same day last year, even though the homicide totals have decreased slightly, apparently because the gang-bangers are squeezing off more rounds, but seem to be worse shots. While it may be true that having a firearm makes it more probable that you will injure yourself, or a family member, than defend yourself from a bad guy, such statistics are of little comfort to people stuck in Strawberry Mansion or Kensington or West Philadelphia.

Much of the rest of the argument is that, even in “liberal California” white people are going to be suspicious of black Americans carrying firearms; it is an argument, at bottom, which says that white people will simply never trust blacks.

Well, I don’t buy it. There will always be some white people who will never trust blacks, but that can be minimized by black Americans not only being trustworthy but showing that they are trustworthy, and that includes exercising their Second Amendment rights responsibly. If black Americans are seen as fighting for safety in black neighborhoods, as not tolerating the gang-bangers who ruin things and shoot up mostly black neighborhoods, more white Americans will come to understand that black Americans are just like any other group, with some good people and some bad people.

Some of this comes from my personal experience. I spent much of my career — I’m retired now — working in an integrated working-class industry, ready-mixed concrete production and delivery. I worked with black drivers and white drivers, I worked with black plant managers and white plant managers, I worked with black quality control technicians and white quality control technicians, and they pretty much all alike: some good at their jobs and some bad, some who showed up and worked hard every day, and some who tried to make it through with as little work as possible. And I knew a couple who were packing heat every day.

And it just happened again in the City of Brotherly Love:

We don’t know that the residents of this house are black, but at least one of the home invaders was, and the address, 1606 South 10th Street is in a reasonably nice neighborhood, not far from Sts John Neuman, and Maria Goretti Catholic High School; the adjacent rowhouse, at 1604 South 10th Street is listed for sale at $750,000. This is not a particularly crime-ridden neighborhood.

While the Fox 29 tweet says that the invaders “forced (the) front door open,” The Philadelphia Inquirer’s story did not confirm that, saying only that:

Detectives on the scene declined to answer reporters’ questions about why the men were entering the home, who shot them, how many shooters opened fire, or what led to the bloodshed.

Both Fox 29 and WPVI 6 ABC News reported that the dead men were attempting to break into the house, but the Inky said that, as of 10:00 PM police were still saying that it was not clear exactly what happened.

From the 6ABC News story:

“This is surprising. This neighborhood is usually very safe. It’s a shock to see something like this happen. I live a block away,” said John Carrozza. “It’s sad. It’s a sign of the times, unfortunately.”

“I’ve been here for six years. I feel really safe. I just had my catalytic converter stolen, and I’m thinking maybe it’s time to move out – for something like this to happen in the middle of the afternoon…” said Mary Grace McHale.

As in maybe move out of Philadelphia entirely? South Philadelphia is supposed to be one of the safer areas in the City of Brotherly Love, and while a single break-in isn’t really indicative, the fact that Mrs McHale had her vehicle’s catalytic converter stolen shows that planned, not spontaneous, crime is moving into that area. Is it any wonder that people are seeking firearms to defend themselves. Whatever the story at the shooting, apparently the men inside the home had to take action before the police arrived.

Erika Smith’s column had the theme that even in her very liberal city, white Angelenos would fret that more black residents might be carrying firearms. That’s being forced on them, by their own neighbors. This white evil reich wing conservative has absolutely no qualms about law-abiding black Americans carrying firearms.

References

References
↑1 Erika Smith worked for the Sacramento Bee, but left before the Bee began that policy.