Tag Archives: #Crime

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A Killadelphia murder update!

Robert Stacy McCain updated a story on which we had previously reported. He let me know about his update via Twitter!

‘A Philadelphia Gentleman’s Club’

by Robert Stacy McCain | January 1, 2022

These two Philadelphia gentlemen are suspects.

Euphemism alert:

Authorities have identified two suspects wanted in a double homicide that happened outside a Philadelphia gentlemen’s club on Tuesday.

Investigators say a 32-year-old man and a 42-year-old man suffered fatal gunshot wounds when an argument turned deadly in the parking lot of Club Risqué on Tacony Street around 2:30 a.m.

(Because where else would a Philadelphia gentleman be at 2:30 a.m.?)

At least The Philadelphia Inquirer was direct enough to call it a “strip club”.

Surveillance footage shared by the Philadelphia Police Department shows the suspected shooter and a female person of interest arriving at the club in a black Nissan about an hour before the shooting.

(A “female person of interest” is what they call a “lady” in Philadelphia.)

The suspect, who police say walks with a distinct limp, was wearing a blue coat and denim pants with dark-colored boots at the time of the shooting. The woman passenger labeled by police as a person of interest was wearing a white shirt with tan pants and white shoes.

Security footage from inside the vestibule of the club shows a second suspect also wearing a blue winter coat over a blue hooded sweatshirt.

There’s more at Mr McCain’s original.

Weather records for Tuesday, December 28th, indicate that it was 45º F, with light winds, and no precipitation at the time, as recorded at the Philadelphia International Airport. Why would a hooded sweatshirt and a winter coat be needed in those conditions?

Mr McCain congratulated me on the new record, but I have to be honest: I started getting morbidly interested in this in 2020, as the city kept ever closer to the record of 500 set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990, and at one point, which I noted here, the police reported 502 for 2020, setting a new record.

Then it was ‘adjusted,’ to 499. It could have been that the killings happened after midnight on December 31, 2020, and were properly assigned to 2021, but that seemed pretty ‘convenient’ to me, as a way for Mayor Jim Kenney, George Soros-stooge District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw to say, well, it wasn’t the worst year. Since the appropriately named Miss Outlaw’s Police Department is the one which releases the official figures, she would have direct authority over that report, if she chose to exercise it. I have no evidence of that, and it’s pure speculation on my part, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable guess. I just regret that I didn’t do a screen capture of the 502 report when it came out. That was my mistake, and I won’t make it again.

Maybe they hoped that the killing would decrease, and three murders from 2020 would get lost in a 2021 with a decrease in homicide.

Good plan, huh?

__________________________

Update: 450 PM EST

I said that I wouldn’t make the mistake again. The Philadelphia Police Department are claiming 559 homicides, the same number as they listed on Friday morning, but before their ‘normal business hours’ update. The Philadelphia Inquirer stated that the 2021 homicide number is “at least 560“.

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Killadelphia starts out the New Year with a bang!

While the Philadelphia Police Department does not normally update its Current Crime Statistics page until ‘normal business hours’ Monday through Friday, we already know that the City of Brotherly Love is picking up where it (never) left off as the new year has turned:

    Deadly gun violence carries on as New Year begins

    It took less than two hours for eight people to get shot, three of them killed in two separate violent outbursts.

    by Barbara Laker | Saturday, January 1, 2022 | 11:00 AM EST

    On the streets of Philadelphia, 2022 began where 2021 left off. It took less than two hours for eight people to get shot, three of them killed in two separate violent outbursts.

    Police responded to calls for a person shot on Cecil B. Moore Avenue between Wellington and 17th Streets near Temple University at about 1:50 a.m. Saturday. Police found two people who had been shot multiple times. Both were rushed to Temple University Hospital where they died shortly after arrival. Police did not identify the victims.

    In addition, three women, also shot at the scene, either walked into Temple Hospital or were taken by car. All three were listed in stable condition, said Police Inspector D F Pace.

    All victims were part of a large group gathered to celebrate the new year.

Moore Avenue in that block, the 1600 block, is a commercial street, not residential.

Further down:

    Shortly before that shooting, at around 1:30 a.m., 25th District officers received multiple calls about gunshots in the 100 block of East Luray Street near North Front Street in Feltonville. Police found a 33-year-old man who had been shot multiple times in the chest. He was rushed to Temple Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The article noted that, in 2021, “at least 560 people in Philadelphia were murdered, a bigger tally than in more heavily populated cities including New York and Los Angeles.” I will work out the exact homicide rate when I get the final numbers.

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37 murders for Lexington this year, a new record

I noted, on December 10th, that Lexington, Kentucky, was on pace for 37 homicides for the year, 37.4633 the way the math worked out. Sadly, it looks like I was right, though there are still a few hours, and the New Year’s Eve parties, to top that number.

    14-year-old boy dead after shooting near Lexington Cemetery

    by Christopher Leach | Friday, December 31, 2021 | 1:14 PM EST

    A 14-year-old boy was shot and killed Thursday night on Betsy Lane near Lexington Cemetery, according to Lexington police.

    The shooting happened around 9 p.m. Thursday in the 300 block of Betsy Lane, which is near the cemetery, police said. When officers arrived on scene, they found a 14-year-old male juvenile, who was later identified by the Fayette County Coroner as Larry Morales, in a yard with life-threatening injuries.

    CPR was administered on Morales until the fire department arrived, according to police. He was transported to a hospital, where he later died at 9:53 p.m.

Further down:

Lexington set a new record of 30 homicides in 2019, but that didn’t last long, as 34 people were murdered in 2020. Then that record was broken with the killing of Ramon Pennie on December 7th.

With a population of 324,604, Lexington’s homicide rate is 11.40 per 100,000 population, far lower than smaller St Louis’s, but still way, way, way too high.

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Oдна смерть – трагедия, миллион смертей – статистика

Josef Stalin allegedly said, “One death is a tragedy, one million deaths are a statistic.”

My good friend Jeffery, who is now going by the pseudonym Elwood P Dowd, in the comments section in The Pirate’s Cove, complained about the accidental killing of a 3-year-old girl when she found a loaded 9 mm in the back seat of retired Henderson County Sheriff’s Captain Tim Gordon’s, her father’s, pickup truck.

Mr Dowd, a stone liberal, asked, “Who leaves an unsecured, loaded 9 mm in full view in an unlocked vehicle? Was a three year old able to take the safety off?”

He then said:

No one was forced to leave a loaded, unsecured weapon at the ready in the back seat where a 3 yr girl could blow her brains out.

But as we all know, dead kids are a small price to pay for freedom! Except for the family of the dead child.

Anyway, the violent crime rate peaked in the early 90s (7500/million) and then dropped precipitously until about 2015 (4000/million) and has been very slowly increasing since. The peak was in 1991 (G.H.W. Bush) and the nadir in 2014 (B.H. Obama). Violent crime is up in 2021 by anywhere from 5 to 25 percent compared to 2020.

You mean up by anywhere from 5 to 25 percent under Joe Biden from what it was under President Trump!

But, it can’t be under liberal policies which drastically reduce or eliminate bail, or police departments so afraid of being labeled raaaaacist that they look the other way when POCs (perpetrators of color) commit crimes, or governments so worried about ‘mass incarceration’ that they let violent criminals go, or George Soros-funded social justice prosecutors like Philadelphia’s Larry Krasner who is more interested in going after the police than the bad guys take office?

The spectacular failure of liberal policies has been written in blood, written in blood! With one day left in 2021, 559 people have been sent to an early grave in the City of Brotherly Love, completely destroying 1990’s record of 500, and last year’s 499. In Mr Dowd’s hometown of St Louis, 192 souls have been sent early to their eternal rewards, 176 of them black, 91.667% of the total, in a city that the 2020 census found to be 46.41% black.[1]The chart was made by me; the source was a .pdf file from the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department, of homicides as of December 29, 2021.

With a black population of 143,018, assuming that 49% are male, there are 70,079 black males living in the Gateway City. If St Louis finishes the year with ‘only’ 192 homicides, with 144 of them being of black males, that makes the homicide rate for black males in your hometown 205.48 per 100,000 population!

For white males in St Louis, 6 of whom have been murdered in 2021, the homicide rate is 8.54 per 100,000. But I’m sure that it’s raaaaacist to point out the numbers, because, after all, math itself is racist!

Mr Dowd was complaining about a 3-year-old who was tragically killed due to someone’s mistake, but when it comes to 144 black males in your hometown being murdered, well, it’s like Josef Stalin said, or “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic.”

Leftist policies, his policies, in his own hometown, have been a miserable failure. But the St Louis media are proclaiming it all a victory!

St. Louis homicides dropped 25% in 2021, back to pre-pandemic levels

The drop in violence brings the city back near pre-pandemic levels when 194 people were murdered.

by Rhyan Henson and Robert Townsend | Published: 7:38 PM CST December 30, 2021 | Updated: 10:59 PM CST December 30, 2021

ST. LOUIS — Homicides in St. Louis dropped roughly 25% in 2021, returning to pre-pandemic levels.

  • 2021: 192
  • 2020: 263
  • 2019: 194

Experts said the 2020 spike in violence was driven largely by the pandemic and high tensions following civil unrest. More lock downs, people losing jobs and strained relationships between communities and law enforcement all led to more murders University of Missouri – St. Louis Criminology Professor Richard Rosenfeld said.

“That means people are less likely to call the police when they would have in the past,” Rosenfeld said. “Less likely to cooperate with police when the police are investigating crimes. more likely to take matters into their own hands. I think we’ve seen the decline (in murders) in St. Louis by and large because the conditions that gave way to the increase have improved.”

Law enforcement officers often get credit for making the city safer, but Rosenfeld said fewer COVID restrictions and decreased tensions made a tough job a little easier.

I will admit it: seeing the homicide rate come down to 205.48 per 100,000 population for black males in the Gateway City doesn’t exactly strike me as somehow being a victory.

As crime took off in 2020, so did leaders’ passions to start community anti-violent movements. Atif Mahr has mentored countless youth at Wohl Recreational Center with their “Stop The Violence” program.

“As they grew up in the rec center, they learned things in life that changed variables in their thinking and actions,” Mahr said.

Tragically Mahr knows the sting of losing a loved one to violence. This fall his daughter was shot and killed. In December, he and teens from across the area led an anti-violence march through the streets of St. Louis. Mahr believes real bonds and face-to-face interactions change communities one person at a time.

Board of Alderman President Lewis Reed is also pleased with the progress. He’s helped usher in the Cure Violence program in three neighborhoods.

“I am so pleased to see our violent crime rates have gone down dramatically,” Reed said. “It really gives you hope for the city of St. Louis and the future of our youth. You see people working together. See people taking care of each other. The cure violence personnel engaging in the lives of these families and young kids and see them doing the right thing. See them turning their lives around.”

So, they’re blaming the 2020 surge on the pandemic, and congratulating themselves that the homicide numbers have returned to normal. I suppose that’s better than Philadelphia, where 2021 has seen 559 homicides as of December 30th, compared to ‘only’ 499 in 2020.

Of course, St Louis is smaller than Philadelphia, and even if we don’t consider race and sex, St Louis murder rate, if it ends the year at 192, and with a population of 294,890 according to the 2020 census,[2]I prefer to use the actual census numbers, since it was just a year ago, but will have to start using the guesstimates as the years move between 2020 and 2030. will be 65.11 per 100,000 population. Chicago, our nation’s murder capital as far as the gross numbers are concerned, with a projected 801 homicides for the year, but a population of 2,746,388, has a murder rate of ‘just’ 29.17 per 100,000, while the City of Brotherly Love, with 1,603,797 souls therein, will finish the year around 34.92 per 100,000.

References

References
↑1 The chart was made by me; the source was a .pdf file from the St Louis Metropolitan Police Department, of homicides as of December 29, 2021.
↑2 I prefer to use the actual census numbers, since it was just a year ago, but will have to start using the guesstimates as the years move between 2020 and 2030.
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A couple of updates

We have previously reported on the arrests of three men for the murder of Mykel Waide in Lexington. However, it seems that the Commonwealth’s Attorney was unable to present sufficient evidence to get the grand jury to indict any of the three men accused of the killing:

    Lexington men no longer face murder charges in death of former Tates Creek student

    by Jeremy Chisenhall | Monday, December 27, 2021 | 3:50 PM EST

    Three Lexington men are no longer facing murder charges in the death of a college student after a grand jury declined to indict two of them and prosecutors dropped the charge for the third.

    Antwone Davenport, Tayte Patton and Antonio Turner had all been charged with Mykel Waide’s death. Waide, who was 18 when he was shot and killed in August 2020, was set to start school at the University of Louisville the same week he died. He was also a former basketball player at Tates Creek High School.

    “A grand jury dismissal is without prejudice, meaning if new and or additional evidence is found the charges may be resubmitted to the grand jury for indictment,” Commonwealth’s Attorney Lou Anna Red Corn said. “Our office considers this to be an open case and those responsible for killing Mykel Waide will be held accountable.”

There’s more at the original.

We have also reported on the University of Pennsylvania’s Women’s Swimming and Diving Team’s Will Thomas, a male who believes he’s female, and has been allowed to compete on the women’s team after having taken testosterone suppressants for a year. It seems that the real women on the women’s team considered a boycott:

    Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas’ teammates considered boycotting final meet in protest

    By Yaron Steinbuch | Wednesday, December 29, 2021 | 1:49 PM EST | Updated: 3:42 PM EST

    UPenn Women’s Swim Team, via Instagram. It isn’t difficult to pick out the one man male in a women’s bikini top. Click to enlarge.

    A group of UPenn swimmers were so upset by transgender athlete Lia Thomas’ advantages that they mulled boycotting their final home meet — but decided not to for fear they’d be banned from the Ivy League championship, according to a report.

    Thomas, 22, who has smashed several records at the University of Pennsylvania this season, has sparked outrage for being eligible under NCAA rules to swim in women’s collegiate events after taking one year of testosterone suppressants.

    A source close to the team of 41 women who considered the boycott told the Daily Mail that “they’ve been ignored by both Penn and the NCAA.”

    The source told the outlet that “there is a feeling among some of the girls that they should make some sort of statement, seize the opportunity while they have a spotlight on them to make their feelings about the issue known.”

However, in the end, they athletes decided against the boycott, because they viewed it as likely to end their ability to participate in the Ivy League championships in February.

    Another source told the Daily Mail that Thomas will likely blow away the upcoming competition.

    “It’ll be like the last couple meets. Lia will finish and nobody will give a s—. Then when the first biological female finishes, there will be a huge eruption of applause,” the source said.

Of course, the women on the team all have to worry about their futures, and whether they’ll be blacklisted for being “transphobic.” They could get kicked off the team, or even kicked out of school, because even in an Ivy League school, where everybody is supposed to be oh-so-smart, they can’t tell the difference between males and females . . . or if they can, they aren’t allowed to tell the truth about it.

But while the real women on the team have to keep quiet, it seems as though the spectators have made their views known, with their silence as Mr Thomas wins his races. The common people, it seems, have some common sense.

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The tale of the Democrats’ failure in Philadelphia has been written in blood

As both of my regular readers know, I check the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page every weekday morning, to get the latest homicide numbers in the City of Brotherly Love. I was somewhat surprised that, after reporting 547 homicides through 11:59 PM on Thursday, December 23rd, the police reported ‘only’ 549 through Sunday, December 26th, and the same number as of Monday, December 27th.

Techish, 2640 Germantown Avenue, photo via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

But this morning? The police report six more dead, for a total of 555, through Tuesday, December 28th. Philadelphia Inquirer nighttime breaking news reporter Robert Moran had two stories late yesterday, Unidentified man fatally shot inside North Philly phone store, in which a masked man entered the Techish phone sales and repair shop at 2640 Germantown Avenue, and fired sixteen shots, killing an unidentified man, without any prior known provocation, and Two men killed outside Club Risque among nine shot in Philadelphia overnight, in which two men were gunned down outside the Wissinoming strip club at 5921 Tacony Street, a less than attractive area across from Interstate 95, early Tuesday morning.

Club Risque, photo via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

As usual, I had to dig for those stories; none were on the front page of the Inquirer’s website, because, as I have said many times before, black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Well, perhaps some of the six newly recorded dead had been shot the previous day, and simply didn’t expire in time to be included in the Monday stats:

    Seven are wounded, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate Philly shootings

    The shootings happened around the same time in Olney and Kensington, and later in South and North Philadelphia.

    by Robert Moran | Updated: Monday, December 27, 2021

    Seven people were injured, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate shootings Monday night in Philadelphia, police said.

    Shortly before 7:15 p.m., the teen was outside on the 200 block of Widener Street in Olney when he was shot in the face and back. He was taken by police to Einstein Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition.

    Police reported no arrests in that case.

    Around the same time, three people were shot on the 200 block of East Cambria Street in Kensington, police said.

Among the most seriously wounded:

    2300 block of South Bouvier Street, via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

    Just before 8:40 p.m., police responded to a reported double shooting inside a residence on the 2300 block of South Bouvier Street.

    A 52-year-old woman shot twice in the head was taken by police to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition. A 54-year-old man also had a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was reported in critical condition.

At least according to Google Maps, South Bouvier Street doesn’t look too bad! More modern row houses, at least from the front, than is frequently seen in the city, though the street is one of Philly’s narrowest.

So, how many people have been murdered in Philadelphia? I noted, on Monday, January 4, 2021, that the police had reported 502 murders for the previous year. It wasn’t my imagination; that was the number showing on the then-current crime statistics page. I guess that I should have taken a screen shot of it, because somehow, three people managed to recover from death, and the number was quickly reduced to 499.

I won’t make that mistake this year!

I have my suspicions, of course. It could have been that three people reported murdered didn’t expire until after 11:59 PM EST on New Year’s Eve, and were thus counted as having been killed this year. Or, were I a conspiracy theorist, it could have been that 502 people were murdered in 2020, but three were pushed off until 2021, so that Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a stooge of George Soros, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, wouldn’t have that ignominious gold medal on their records, leaving 1990’s 500 as still the record number of homicides, but, if that’s the case, it didn’t work, because the city hit the 500 mark just before Thanksgiving!

There are only three days left in 2021, but with the current 2021 homicide rate of 1.5331 per day, 560 is a distinct possibility; the actual projection is 559.5994. Looking at the homicide rate since the end of the Labor Day weekend, 192 people killed in 113 days, or 1.6991 per day, the city would see 560.0973 murders.

But even if the city finishes with ‘just’ 555 killings, and we take the 2021 guesstimated population of 1,607,667 — the 2020 census showed 1,603,797 people living in Philadelphia — that works out to a murder rate of 34.52 per 100,000 population, higher than New York, higher than Los Angeles, and higher than Chicago.

Philadelphia has been governed by Democrats since before I was born, since January of 1952, when George VI was still King of England, and Harry Truman President of the United States. And one thing has become blatantly clear: the policies of the Democrats have not worked in the City of Brotherly Love!

The tale of their failure has been written blood.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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36

A man’s life, reduced to four paragraphs. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

    Coroner releases name of man, 21, who died after shooting in Lexington

    by Karla Ward | Saturday, December 18, 2021 | 12:44 PM EST | Updated: 1:48 PM EST

    A 21-year-old man died after being shot in a neighborhood near downtown Lexington late Friday.

    Lexington police said they were called to the shooting on the 800 block of Oak Hill Drive, off Loudon Avenue, at 10:56 p.m. When they arrived, police found the man inside a residence, Lexington police said in a news release Saturday.

    The Fayette County coroner’s office said the man, Devon Sandusky, was pronounced dead at the scene at 11:25 p.m.

    They said the investigation is ongoing. No suspect information was released.

There was a fifth paragraph, but one which simply told readers where to report information to the police. A sixth paragraph noted that this was the city’s 36th homicide of the year, a new record. The previous record was 34, set in 2020. At the current pace, Lexington is projected to see one or two more killings before 2021 is over.

To me, this was sadly reminiscent of the stories I see in The Philadelphia Inquirer, where a murder victim’s life is reduced to a few short paragraphs, often without even the victim’s name being published. But, unlike the Inquirer, the Herald-Leader will print more about the murder as more information is released. With ‘only’ 36 homicides on which to report, the newspaper’s staff can put a little bit more time into reporting on it; the Inquirer’s staff are overwhelmed, with 535 homicides through Thursday, December 16th, and the City of Brotherly Love on pace to record another 23 killings, for a total of 558.

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Another (alleged) killer arrested in Lexington, but the Herald-Leader doesn’t want readers to know what he looks like

We noted, at the end of September, that two men, Tayte Patton, 22, and Antonio Turner, 19, were charged with the murder of Mykel Waide in 2020. What my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal naturally refused to print the mugshots of the two accused killers, but we did.

Now a third suspect has been charged:

    Antwone Davenport, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

    Third suspect charged with murder in killing of Mykel Waide in Lexington

    by Christopher Leach | Wednesday, December 15, 2021 | 2:44 PM EST

    A third suspect in connection to the killing of Mykel Waide, a former high school basketball player in Lexington, has been arrested and charged with murder, according to Lexington police.

    Antwone Davenport, 33, was arrested by US Marshals in Illinois, police said. He has been charged with murder and other charges, and he is being held at the Fayette County Detention Center on bond of over $1 million.

    Davenport is the third suspect to be charged with murder after Tayte Patton and Antonio Turner were arrested in late September.

    According to a criminal complaint, Davenport was involved in an altercation at the Residence Inn on Newtown Court in August 2020.

    An eyewitness told police they saw Davenport in a vehicle at the parking lot of the hotel, according to court records. During the altercation, Davenport allegedly got out of the vehicle and started shooting at a crowd of people.

There’s more at the original.

According to the story, four people were struck by bullets as Mr Davenport fired into the crowd, but Mr Waide was the only person killed.

The Fayette County Detention Center record for Mr Davenport states that three charges, murder, wanton endangerment in the first degree, and possession of a handgun by a convicted felon, were dismissed without prejudice, meaning that they can be reinstated, but it does tell us something. It tells us that Mr Davenport was a previous convicted felon, so we aren’t talking about a good guy here.

Neither Mr Patton nor Mr Turner show up in the Detention Center website, which means they have been bailed out. It seems that the Herald-Leader doesn’t want to inform its readership what two alleged murderers, now loose in the city, look like, so that readers can avoid the suspects if they see them.

What Mr Davenport looks like is hardly a big secret: WKYT-TV, Channel 27, broadcast his mugshot, as did Channel 56, the Fox affiliate.