Tag Archives: #Crime

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Amanda Marcotte doesn’t want you to exercise a right she chooses not to use Today's left support freedom of choice on exactly one thing

Salon senior politics writer Amanda Marcotte moved to South Philadelphia sometime in early 2019, but unless she never listens to the local news — always a possibility, given that she never writes on it — she has to have noticed the tremendous homicide rate in the City of Brotherly Love.[1]One wonders: does the uber-feminist in Miss Marcotte object to the appellation “City of Brotherly Love” as leaving out sisterly love? As of the end of Wednesday, June 23rd, the Philadelphia Police Department reported 262 homicides. 262 murders in 174 days so far is 1.506 homicides per day in Philly, which works out to, if that average is maintained, 550 for the year.[2]With only one homicide each day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the rate has come down slightly this week, but the weekend’s coming. Philadelphia’s record is 500, during the crack cocaine drug gang wars of 1990, with last year coming in in second place with 499.

At the end of June 23rd last year, there had been ‘only’ 190 homicides in the city, so this year’s number is 37.37% higher than 2020.

How Democratic is Philadelphia? Joe Biden carried Philadelphia County 603,790 (81.44%) to 132,740 (17.90%)

Unless something changes pretty drastically, 2021 isn’t just going to set the record, but blow it out of the water. And remember: the long, hot summer has just begun.

So, what is leading to all of this mayhem? According to Miss Marcotte, it ain’t the bad guys, but those inanimate guns!

oe Biden is right about the rise in crime: Blame guns — not police or protesters — for the violence

Conservatives are using crime as cover for ugly race-baiting, but their own lax gun policies are the real culprit

By Amanda Marcotte | June 23, 2021 | 1:11PM (EDT)

Violent crime is on the rise and it’s making Republicans happier than a fire sale on wraparound sunglasses.

Conservatives will find any excuse to indulge in their favorite sport: racist fear-mongering. The current uptick in violent crime fulfills their desire to use police to terrorize and stigmatize people of color while spinning it as merely in the interest of “public safety.” (Which is especially rich coming from the same people who left hundreds of thousands of Americans to die of COVID-19 rather than accept emergency pandemic measures.) And boy, they’re throwing themselves into the scare tactics with a relish usually reserved for sharing grammatically confusing memes on Facebook.

As the AP reported earlier this month, Republican politicians across the country are using rising crime rates as an excuse to pass laws aimed at suppressing Black Lives Matter protests and at protecting police budgets from re-evaluation. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on June 11 blaming crime on “radical and reckless decisions by some jurisdictions to defund their police forces,” which is, at best, a wild exaggeration of what have largely been efforts to redirect funds to crime prevention. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the head of the National Republican Congressional Committee, falsely accused Democrats of supporting “the dangerous idea of defunding the police.”

Now, we noted, just yesterday morning, that very white, very liberal Portland, Oregon, had cut its police budget enough that the department was 150 officers under strength, and according to Portland Police Department numbers, the city is on pace for 92 murders this year, shattering 1987’s record of 70. With a city population of 662,549, that would give the city a murder rate of 13.89 per 100,000 population. How liberal is Portland? Joe Biden carried Multnomah County 367,249 (79.21%) to 82,995 (17.90%).

Just two days prior to that, we noted that Austin, Texas, where Miss Marcotte lived before her boyfriend and she moved to Brooklyn, had slashed its police budget by 1/3. Austin is the most liberal city in Texas; Joe Biden carried Travis County, where Austin is located, 435,860 (71.62%) to 161,337 (26.51%).

Our deadliest city, St Louis? As of June 22nd, there had been 88 murders in the Gateway City, and 82 of the victims, 93.18%, were black. Of the 36 known killers of those 88 dead black people, all were black. Joe Biden carried the city by 110,089 (80.85%) to 21,474 (15.77%).

So, unless those inanimate guns are just leaping into the air by themselves and shooting people, those guns are seemingly leaping into the hands of Democrats.

Miss Marcotte claims that, since the rise in the homicide rate is seemingly everywhere, with no distinct differences between places like Austin, where the police have lost a third of their funding, and other big cities, where the funding drops have been significantly less, the increase in the homicide rate cannot be attributed to defunding. But then she goes on:

The sociological reasons for the rise are still ambiguous, though there is little doubt that the pandemic contributed by adding economic and social stress, while also depriving young people of jobs and school opportunities that keep them out of trouble. Pfaff also suggests there may be a reason to believe that rising tensions between police and communities contribute, if only because people are unwilling to cooperate with law enforcement they see, for good reason, as oppressive. If that relationship “deteriorates significantly,” Richard Rosenfeld, a criminologist at the University of St. Louis-Missouri, told Salon’s Igor Derysh in February, “that simply widens the space for street justice to take hold.”

Well, yes, that’s true enough, but it undermines her other points. She claimed that crime, overall, had dropped, and the violent crime rate had spiked only modestly. As I have previously noted, there are two kinds of crimes: 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.

But murder is different: it is a crime of evidence. It isn’t easy to dispose of a dead body in a way that it won’t be found, especially if you haven’t carefully planned things. You’re looking at 100 to 300 pounds of dead meat, bone and fat, and something which will put off a strong and nasty odor after very little time. The vast majority of dead bodies get found.

So when I read that other crime has decreased, I just don’t believe it. Murder is not normally an entry-level crime; it’s a crime committed primarily by people who have committed other crimes. When you read about a murder who was caught — and the police actually catching killers is getting progressively worse — you almost always read that the killer was legally barred from owning a firearm, or that he was carrying it illegally. Noting Miss Marcotte’s own statement that people are less willing to cooperate with the police, it stands to reason that crimes of reporting would be reported less.

After a few paragraphs in which the author ties the existence of illegally purchased or possessed guns to the existence of legally owned firearms, she gives us her solution:

The surest way to reduce murder rates is to get guns out of people’s hands.

Miss Marcotte’s biggest issue has always been abortion, but it’s certainly not the only right she cherishes. She frequently and loudly exercises the rights she believes she should have. She exercises her freedom of speech and of the press in her tweets, her articles in Salon, and other places. She exercises her right to use contraception. She has exercised her right of peaceable assembly to join the #BlackLivesMatter protests in Philadelphia. An avowed atheist, she exercises her right not to go to church. She will defend those rights to, well, to the death is the common phrase, but I can’t say that she’d go that far.

But the right she has and chooses not to exercise — and, to me, it is actually choosing to exercise the right in the negative[3]Just as choosing not to speak or publish something is still an exercise in your freedom of speech and of the press. — is her right to keep and bear arms. Because it is a right she chooses not to keep and bear arms, she doesn’t think that anyone else should have that right. Her solution to the illegal use of firearms is to take guns away from people who have not used their weapons illegally.

Miss Marcotte is but a small, if vocal, part of the left in America. Very much proclaiming her own views, she, like The New York Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Washington Post, doesn’t like hearing other people expressing their own. The left just plain don’t like anyone exercising their constitutional rights in a way of which they don’t approve.

Me? I support Miss Marcotte’s right to choose to buy, or not buy, a firearm. I support her right to write, or not write, whatever she chooses. I support her right not to go to church, and I even support her right not to read what I happen to write. Our freedoms are both positive and negative; we may choose to do or not do something as we please.

The left used to support that, but that was a long, long time ago.

 

References

References
↑1 One wonders: does the uber-feminist in Miss Marcotte object to the appellation “City of Brotherly Love” as leaving out sisterly love?
↑2 With only one homicide each day on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, the rate has come down slightly this week, but the weekend’s coming.
↑3 Just as choosing not to speak or publish something is still an exercise in your freedom of speech and of the press.
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The Herald-Leader sticks to policy UPDATED!

This website has spent a good deal of bandwidth noting the Lexington Herald-Leader and the McClatchy Company’s mugshot policy. In particular, we have noted the Herald-Leader’s odd habit of violating that policy when it comes to white criminal suspects, but adhering closely to it when the suspects are black.

Well, in this case, the suspect is white, and the paper did not publish his mugshot. Given my disagreement with that policy, I will.

Jason Lee Sharp (Fayette County Detention Center)

Central Kentucky teacher arrested on rape, sexual abuse charges

By Karla Ward | June 19, 2021 | 4:55 PM EDT | Updated: June 20, 2021 | 1:06 PM EDT

Lexington police have arrested a Central Kentucky teacher, charging him with rape, sodomy and sex abuse.

Jason L. Sharp, 32, of Lexington, was arrested Thursday on charges of third-degree rape, third-degree sodomy and first-degree sexual abuse, court records show.

Sharp teaches math at East Jessamine High School, according to the school’s website.

There’s a little more at the link.

A couple of points:

  • While Mr Sharp was arrested on Thursday, reporter Karla Ward’s story did not initially appear until Saturday. Since the McClatchy policy is that an editor must approve the publication of a mugshot, and the Herald-leader does not even publish a Saturday edition, it is possible that no editor was available to approve the publication of the mugshot.
  • Miss Ward noted that, “The circumstances surrounding the charges were not immediately clear.” When one reads a story about a teacher being accused of a sex crime, the automatic assumption is that the victim or victims were students. The Herald-Leader article does not state that such is the case, and it is very possible that any victims of Mr Sharp’s might be adults and not students at East Jessamine or any other school.

The article notes that Jessamine County Schools Superintendent Matt Moore was informed of the arrest on Friday, and stated that the school and he would cooperate fully with any police investigation, “if requested,” a statement which would seem to state that the police had not made any such request at the time. The charges listed in his arrest record do not make any statement that his (alleged) victim was a minor.

One of the points in the McClatchy mugshot policy that editors are supposed to consider in their decision-taking is whether the suspect is a “public official.” That raises the obvious question: what is a “public official.” East Jessamine High School is a public school, making Mr Sharp a public employee. Does simply being a public employee make someone a public official? Since public education in Kentucky is primarily funded by the state, I am one of the Kentucky taxpayers who furnished his salary and benefits! Yes, I would define him as a public official.

But, given my criticisms of the newspaper for publishing the mugshots of white suspects while concealing those of black suspects, it behooves me to note when the paper follows McClatchy policies when it comes to white suspects.
_______________________________________________
Updated!: June 21, 2021

The Herald-Leader is now reporting that Mr Sharp’s alleged victim was a minor:

A Central Kentucky teacher charged with rape, sexual abuse and sodomy allegedly committed the offenses against someone who was under 16 years old, according to arrest records.

Jason L. Sharp’s alleged victim was under 16 years old when the sexual abuse happened in July 2018, police wrote in an arrest citation obtained by the Herald-Leader. Sharp teaches math at East Jessamine High School, according to the school’s website. Police wrote in Sharp’s citation that he made sexual contact with a minor while being “a person in a position of special trust.”

I added a link to this article to the comments section in the original article, in response to a commenter who asked the Herald-Leader for a mugshot of the alleged offender. Though the paper left in place three spam comments hawking online income jobs, it deleted my comments with links. Can’t let anyone see that mugshot!

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Why are police looking the other way until such situations lead to murder? That's kind of what happens under 'defunded' budgets and liberal city restrictions

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain noted that new national holiday Juneteenth “was celebrated in many communities with gunfire and mayhem”. He described several of those events, though he missed the one we noted previously in Lexington, and the three homicides on Saturday in the City of Brotherly Love.

This was the longest incident he documented:

AUSTIN, Tex. – A deadly weekend mass shooting in Austin’s famed entertainment district arose from a feud between two groups of Central Texas teenagers, according to a police affidavit filed Wednesday.

Harker Heights High School student Jeremiah Tabb, 17, was arrested at school Monday and remained in Travis County Jail on Wednesday. He is charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison. . . .

In the arrest affidavit filed by Austin police filed in a Travis County district court Wednesday, a wounded male juvenile is quoted as telling detectives at an Austin hospital that he was with friends on East Sixth Street, a famous entertainment strip, when they began exchanging stares with a youth he identified as JT and JT’s friends.

“Exchanging stares”? Yeah, that’s reason enough, right?

The male juvenile, who was not identified by name, said he had attended the same Killeen middle school as JT, who said to the juvenile’s group, “What y’all wanna do? Y’all wanna fight?” The juvenile said he answered, “It’s whatever,” at which point JT pulled a handgun from his waistband and opened fire. A companion of the juvenile, also a juvenile, drew his own gun and returned fire. One person was killed and more than a dozen others were wounded.

Of course, the “wounded male juvenile” broke gang discipline, and ratted out Mr Tabb when shown a photo of Mr Tabb, claiming that Mr Tabb had already shot him in the leg a few days earlier.

Mr McCain then ended his post with three rhetorical questions:

  1. Why are groups of minors walking around downtown Austin after midnight?
  2. Why are these minors carrying pistols?
  3. Why are police looking the other way until such situations lead to murder?

I, of course, am the type to answer rhetorical questions! The answer to the first two is simple: their parents — assuming that there actually were parents who were supposedly responsible for these teenagers — didn’t rear them right, and didn’t care about what their ‘children’ were doing. I’ve said it before: you show me a bad kid, and I’ll show you some rotten parents.

What kind of parents don’t bring up their children to understand that it’s just plain wrong to shoot people? What kind of parents have failed to educate their children that murder — and if you shoot at someone, you must intend to kill him — is wrong? What kind of parents don’t tell their children that, if you kill someone, you might just spend the rest of your miserable life in jail?

Those teenagers were walking around Austin after midnight, and were walking around carrying pistols, because the same kind of ‘parents’ who failed on the three questions in the paragraph above are the ones who don’t give a f(ornicate) about where their kids are or what they are doing.

But the third question?

Austin cuts police budget by 1/3 amid national ‘defund’ push

The Austin City Council has voted to cut one-third of the city’s $434 million police budget amid national calls for “defunding” law enforcement in favor of spending more money on social services

By Acacia Coronado | Report for America/ Associated Press | August 13, 2020 | 6:52 PM

AUSTIN, Texas — In a unanimous vote, the Austin City Council moved Thursday to cut about one-third of next year’s $434 million police budget amid national calls for “defunding” law enforcement agencies in favor of spending more money on social services.

That will come to just over $150 million that will be redirected to social services in the 2021 fiscal budget, which starts Oct 1.

Further down came this gem:

Austin Councilman Gregorio Casar, one of the main proponents of cutting the police budget, called the move “unprecedented in Texas” and praised the decision following the vote.

“Extreme, anti-civil rights voices will try to send us backward and are already working (to) mislead people about this vote,” Casar said on Twitter. “But today, we should celebrate what the movement has achieved for safety, racial justice, and democracy.”

Really? “Safety, racial justice, and democracy”? I’m not certain just what the esteemed Mr Casar thinks is an achievement for safety. According to monthly reports posted by the Austin Police Department, there were 33 murders from January through the end of May; in 2020, the city recorded 19 murders in the same time frame. That’s a 73.68% increase; just how much “safety” has the defunding of the police department achieved?

Jeremiah Tabb (Austin Police Department photo).

“Racial Justice”? Young Mr Tabb, who is black, if he is convicted, could see “racial justice” meted out to him in the form of perhaps two decades behind bars. If the bullets which killed 25-year-old Douglas John Kantor during this gang shooting came from Mr Tabb’s gun, he could spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars.

All because two hostile groups were “exchanging stares”.

Mr Kantor wasn’t even a target; he was an innocent bystander, a visitor from Michigan.

So, why are police looking the other way until such situations lead to murder? Perhaps it is because dumbasses like Mr Casar cut the police department’s budget by a third!

So, where is the money cut from the police department going to go?

Beginning in October, about $21 million will fund social services, community resources including response to the coronavirus, mental health aid programs, violence prevention, victim services and food, housing and abortion access. Another $80 million will be redistributed to similar city services throughout the year, and $49 million will be spent on city’s Reimagine Safety Fund, which aims to provide alternative forms of public safety and community support besides policing.

Somehow the city’s “Reimagine Safety Fund” has managed to mean “you’re on your own.” Whatever “alternative forms of public safety and community support besides policing” don’t seem to have worked.

Austin, the state capital and home of the University of Texas, is the most liberal city in a conservative state. Joe Biden carried Travis County, where Austin is located, 435,860 (71.62%) to 161,337 (26.51%), and has been governed exclusively by Democrats. If all of the feel-good liberalism and racial and social justice ideas actually worked, Austin should be one of the safest places around.

Do you think that maybe, just maybe, reducing law enforcement doesn’t really work when it comes to keeping the public safe?

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Two more murders in Lexington

Lexington isn’t Philadelphia, at least not yet, but it’s not for lack of trying!

The Lexington Herald-Leader’s Jeremy Chisenhall reported that on the afternoon of Thursday, June 17th, 38-year-old Jocko Dianti Green was shot in the parking lot of an apartment complex near the University of Kentucky Hospital; he dies a few hours later.

Mr Chisenhall’s final paragraph:

Lexington has had at least 55 non-fatal shootings this year. There have also been 20 homicides committed by shooting. Lexington reported 14 homicides and 49 non-fatal shootings at this time last year.

Sadly, that information became obsolete just two days later.

Lexington man killed in overnight shooting downtown

By Karla Ward | June 19, 2021 | 12:16 PM

A 30-year-old man died after a shooting in downtown Lexington early Saturday.

Lexington police Lt. Dan Truex said police found the man suffering from a gunshot wound in a parking lot near North Mill and West Short streets at about 1:40 a.m. Truex said “a large crowd” had gathered in the area.

The man, identified as Raymar Alvester Webb by the Fayette County coroner’s office, was taken to University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 2:07 a.m.

Lt Truex said that the LPD didn’t have any information on suspects.

That’s 21 homicides on the 170th day of the year. If the current rate of one murder every 8.111 days continues for the rest of the year, that figures out to 45 murders in the city for 2021. It was just June 9th that I noted, following another two homicides, that Lexington was on track for 43 homicides. The city’s record was 34 murders, set just last year. If Lexington sees 45 this year, it would not just break the old record, but blow it out of the water, with a 32.35% increase.

Of course, in the city’s tremendous battle against crime and violence, the Urban County Council wants to take no-knock warrants out of the hands of law enforcement!

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Killadelphia The not-so-subtle racism of an "anti-racist news organization"

As of 11:59 PM on Sunday, May 16th, there had been 196 homicides in Philadelphia. That having been the 136th day of the year, that worked out to 1.441 murders per day in the City of Brotherly Love, putting Philly on pace for 526 killings for 2021, if the average held.

That was a month ago. According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, as of the end of Tuesday, June 15th, the city hit what could wryly be called a milestone, it’s 250th murder. The math is pretty bad: 250 homicides ÷ 166 days = 1.506 per day, × 365 = 549.70 murders for the year. The evil, reich-wing Donald Trump has been out of office for just five days short of five months now, the very liberal, opposed to mass incarceration District Attorney Larry Krasner has been renominated, the pandemic restrictions have (mostly) been lifted, and Philly’s murder rate is increasing.

The city’s homicide record was 500, set in the crack cocaine wars of 1990; 2020 saw Philly win the silver medal, with 499. But if the current rate continues, and there’s no sign that it won’t, 550 bodies in the city’s mean streets will break the record by a solid ten percent. Yet, at least as of 3:15 PM, there wasn’t a single story on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page about the three killings overnight, or the ‘milestone’ having been reached, though there was an important story on how the strategic use of wallpaper remains popular in area homes.

Another statistic: 250 homicides thus far in 2021 have eclipsed the entire year’s totals of 246 in 2013 and 248 in 2014, when Michael Nutter was Mayor, Charles Ramsey Police Commissioner and Seth Williams was District Attorney.[1]Seth Williams was convicted on one count of receiving bribes, so he isn’t exactly spotless, but his record as District Attorney was sound. Last year’s 499 homicides exceeded those two years’ total killings. Whatever Jim Kenney, Danielle Outlaw and Larry Krasner, whom the Inquirer actually endorsed for renomination, have been doing has not worked.

#BlackLivesMatter, we are told, and Elizabeth Hughes, the publisher of the Inquirer, has said that her goal is to make the newspaper “an anti-racist news organization,” but, as far as I can tell, black lives don’t matter to the Inquirer. It seems that the only stories the paper publishes are small police blotter reports, usually not on the website main page, unless the victim is an innocent, like Christine Lupo, a “somebody,” like a local high school basketball player, or a cute little white girl, like the 2,782 site search results for Rian Thal.

The vast majority of homicide victims in Philadelphia are black, but when one black gang banger kills another black gang banger, it isn’t really news anymore, not to the Inquirer. Instead, the paper paid more attention to the accidental killing of Jason Kutt, a white teenager shot at Nockamixon State Park, an hour outside of the city. That’s four separate stories; how many do the mostly black victims get?

It does not matter what Miss Hughes says about her goals, and it does not matter that the newspaper has its first Hispanic Executive Editor in Gabriel Escobar; the paper’s coverage shows us what they consider newsworthy. And black lives wasted are simply not newsworthy.

References

References
↑1 Seth Williams was convicted on one count of receiving bribes, so he isn’t exactly spotless, but his record as District Attorney was sound.
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Journolism: The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer, with full evidence that too lenient law enforcement has led to more killings, wants to make probation more lenient!

It was less than a month ago that we noted the inherent racism of The Philadelphia Inquirer and it’s oh so #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 publisher Elizabeth Hughes. Miss Hughes’ call was for the Inquirer to become “an anti-racist news organization,” but in the process of doing so, she and her editorial team have instead converted a once-great newspaper into one in which virtually every story is run through the lens of racial consideration. There’s a reason I sometimes refer to it as The Philadelphia Enquirer![2]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.

There were two more homicides in the City of Brotherly Love yesterday, bringing the total to 247, in 165 days. That works out to 1.497 per day, putting Philly on pace for 546 murders in 2021, a number which would shatter, destroy, stomp into the mud the record of 500 set in 1990, and last year’s second place 499.

While the Inquirer continues to pay scant attention to homicides in Philadelphia, unless the victim is an innocent, a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl, it did pay attention to the senseless murder of Christine Lugo. I noted my guess that, when Miss Lugo’s killer was finally identified, we’d find out that he has a long rap sheet, and that, had he been treated seriously by the law enforcement in the past, could and should have been behind bars at 5:51 AM last Saturday morning. Well, we did find out, and, if the suspect in the case, Keith Gibbson, actually is Miss Lugo’s killer, he was allowed to plead down from a murder charge, one which, if convicted of it, would have had him behind bars in Delaware on the morning he (allegedly) shot Miss Lugo in the head. Several other people would be alive today had he not been treated so leniently.

And so we come to this, the lead editorial in the Inquirer on Flag day, and Donald Trump’s 75th birthday:

Is probation the key to gun violence prevention? Not the way Philly is trying.

For many, probation is a trap — not a path out of violence.

By The Editorial Board | June 14, 2021

In April, Philadelphia’s Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) released an update to the “Roadmap to Safer Communities,” the city’s anti-violence framework. One word was missing from the update: probation. The omission is peculiar because, in the mayor’s proposed budget, nearly a quarter of the OVP’s $12.5 million is earmarked for probation.

For decades, studies have shown that many of the people who are most likely to kill or be killed are already involved in the criminal justice system. If some of the people most at risk already check in with a probation officer, why not leverage that opportunity to also offer services in the hope of reducing gun violence?

You can see where this is going, right? The Editorial Board want to make probation easier, to make it softer, to replace law enforcement with social workers!

That was the logic behind the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership (YVRP).

Philadelphia launched YVRP in 1999. Almost exclusively Black teens and young men, who have been identified by either juvenile or adult probation officers or algorithms, would receive both closer supervision (such as home visits) and first dibs on services (such as help finding a job) with the goal of keeping them alive. A key element of the program was the utilization of street workers — not probation officers — to engage youth.

Between 1999 to 2020, YVRP served more than 9,000 individuals ages 14 to 26. Fewer than 2% were involved in gun violence. If those are the individuals most at risk, that seems like a success.

Somehow, the Editorial Board never gives consideration to the opposite solution: instead of letting the bad guys stay out on the streets, how about locking them up, where they can’t hurt the public? Had Miss Lugo’s (alleged) killer been locked up for the fifteen year minimum a murder charge in Delaware would have gotten him, he was instead allowed to plead down, spent just eight years in the slammer, and had continual probation violations after he was released. The Editorial Board know that, or at least they should if they read their own newspaper, but they are suggesting easier, not harsher treatment of criminals.

For many people, probation becomes a trap. What was supposed to be a lenient alternative to incarceration can become a life sentence due to technical violations and unreasonable expectations.

Unreasonable expectations, such as obeying the law? The linked story complains that people on probation are remaining “under court control for years after being convicted of low-level crimes, resentenced two, three, four, or five times over for infractions including missing appointments, falling behind on payments, or testing positive for marijuana.” Uhhh, missing appointments with a probation officer? Keeping those appointments is far less onerous than being in jail, but is a condition for not being locked up. Making payments? These things are required, as part of the probationary sentence? And testing positive for marijuana? That means those people have broken the law in buying and possessing and using pot. Should we somehow excuse people already being treated leniently for past violations of the law for breaking the law again?

As we noted in the beginning, the Inquirer under Miss Hughes now views everything through the prism of race. “Almost exclusively Black teens and young men, who have been identified by either juvenile or adult probation officers or algorithms,” the Editorial Board noted, as though the vast majority of the 247 dead bodies on the city’s streets this year were not black, and their killers, when known, were also black, is somehow a meaningless statistic.

This is what real journalists, rather than the journolists[3]The spelling ‘journolist’ 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 … Continue reading on the Inquirer’s staff, ought to investigate: just how many murders in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia[4]The formulation “foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia” comes from the song Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve from the musical 1776. would have been prevented had the killers been sentenced harshly for previous crimes and still been in jail when they committed the murder?

That would be reporting, that would be investigative journalism, but that would also be far, far, far outside of the mission Miss Hughes has set for 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.

↑2 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.
↑3 The spelling ‘journolist’ 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.
↑4 The formulation “foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia” comes from the song Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve from the musical 1776.
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Journolism: We publish what the Lexington Herald-Leader will not.

It has become somewhat of a passion with me to provide the information the Lexington Herald-Leader will not. We have noted the McClatchy Company’s Mugshot Policy and how the local newspaper has honored it by declining to publish mugshots of non-white criminal suspects but doing so when the accused are white. And we noted Robert Stacy McCain’s point that journalists used to refer to the “public’s right to know,” but that such has been subjugated to political correctness, and to what the Sacramento Bee called “perpetuating stereotypes about who commits crime in our community.”

Mr McCain noted last Saturday that the media were, once again, seeking to avoid perpetuating stereotypes.

You might think that when 13 people are shot in downtown Austin, and the gunman is still at large, that it would be a public service to describe this murderous maniac. But you’re not “woke” enough:

Police have only released a vague description of the suspected shooter as of Saturday morning. The Austin American-Statesman is not including the description as it is too vague at this time to be useful in identifying the shooter and such publication could be harmful in perpetuating stereotypes and potentially put innocent individuals at risk.

Oh, if it was a right-wing white supremacist Trump voter who had committed this atrocity, you bet the media would have no qualms identifying the suspect, “perpetuating stereotypes” or not. Because the “woke” media have made themselves utterly useless as a source of facts, we must turn to Breitbart for the relevant information:

A statement from the Austin Police Department states . . . “It is unknown if there is one, or multiple suspects involved. There is one suspect described as a black male, with dread locks, wearing a black shirt and a skinny build.” . . . The shooting follows massive cuts in police funding by the Austin City Council. The council cut $150 million from the police budget . . .

Is it any wonder why people hate the “fake news” media?

The Austin American-Statesman is not a McClatchy newspaper. The Herald-Leader is:

2 more suspects arrested after death of Lexington man who was shot, set on fire

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 14, 2021 | 11:55 AM EDT | Updated 4:11 PM EDT

Two more people have been charged in connection with a Lexington homicide after the victim’s body was set on fire in a barn, according to court records.

Martae Laron Shanks and Autumn Owens, both residents in the building where 38-year-old Lazarus Parker was allegedly shot and killed, have been charged with arson, abusing a corpse and criminal mischief, according to an indictment from a Fayette County grand jury.

The grand jury alleged that Shanks and Owens either intentionally started the fire or tried to help with the fire by purchasing gasoline in Fayette County and taking it to Bourbon County to burn Parker’s body.

Shanks and Owens were both arrested in Scott County and then transferred to the Lexington-Fayette County Detention Center last week, according to jail records.

Cecil T Russell (Fayette County Detention Center)

Cecil T. Russell, a co-defendant with Shanks and Owens in the case, was previously charged with murder. Russell was charged with killing Parker after a “cooperating witness” told investigators she heard Russell and Parker get into an argument before multiple gunshots rang out and someone screamed, according to an arrest warrant.

Cecil Russell’s mugshot was not published in the Herald-Leader, but I was able to find it in an Associated Press story published by WVLT-TV. The First Street Journal is dedicated to your right to know, and thus we reproduce it here.

Martae Shanks (Fayette County Detention Center)

More, I was able to open account with the Fayette County Detention Center, and get access to mugshots there, thus getting the mugshot of Mr Shanks. There are actually three mugshots of Mr Shanks in the records, dated October 16, 2015, March 4, 2021, and June 9, 2021, so it would seem that he is not unfamiliar with the jail. The record lists only the current offenses with which he is charged.

There were two mugshots for Autumn Owens, one dated March 4, 2021, and the current one June 10, 2021. It’s interesting that both of her bookings came concomitantly with Mr Shanks. As with Mr Shanks, only her current charges are listed on the jail website.

Autumn Owens

Is there something wrong with a mid-sized newspaper, part of a national newspaper chain, subjugating the public’s right to know to political correctness? I think that there is, and that’s why this website goes ahead and finds and published these mugshots. As for the claim that this “perpetuates stereotypes,” please note that one of the three suspects here is white, and that, in my previous post with mugshots, one of the convicted criminals was white, and one was black.[1]I confess: I had originally written that post with the black offender’s mugshot first, and the white offender’s second. Since Twitter tends to pick up the first photo in an article, I … Continue reading

A further note: the Lexington homicide investigations page has not, as of this publication, been updated since May 9th. We had previously noted this, and there have been three additional homicides in the city since that date. Someone needs to start doing his job.

Mr McCain was correct, and the credentialed media, decades ago, were correct: the public does have a right to know these things. The question is: why so small, private websites like Mr McCain’s or mine have to be the ones to

References

References
↑1 I confess: I had originally written that post with the black offender’s mugshot first, and the white offender’s second. Since Twitter tends to pick up the first photo in an article, I switched the order, so that the tweet of the article would show the white offender.
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Lexington wants to ban no-knock warrants As the crime rate in Lexington is rising rapidly, the Urban-County Council wants to further hamstring the police

The black communities around the country have been really eager in their attempts to ban no-knock warrants. Louisville’s Breonna Taylor was killed when plainclothes police officers returned fire — not opened fire but returned fire — after Miss Taylor’s boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, claiming that he thought the police were armed intruders, and fired, hitting Officer Jonathan Mattingly in the leg. The officers then fired 32 shots, entirely missing Mr Walker, but hitting Miss Taylor six times. From Wikipedia:

The Louisville Metropolitan Police Department investigation’s primary targets were Jamarcus Glover and Adrian Walker (not related to Kenneth Walker), who were suspected of selling controlled substances from a drug house approximately 10 miles away. Glover had cohabited with Taylor and said the police had pressured him to move out of Taylor’s residence for unspecified reasons.[37] Glover and Taylor had been in an on-off relationship that started in 2016 and lasted until February 2020, when Taylor committed to Kenneth Walker.

In December 2016, Fernandez Bowman was found dead in a car rented by Taylor and used by Glover. He had been shot eight times. Glover had used Taylor’s address and phone number for various purposes, including bank statements.

In a variety of statements, Glover said that Taylor had no involvement in the drug operations, that as a favor she held money from the proceeds for him, and that she handled money for him for other purposes. In different recorded jailhouse conversations Glover said that Taylor had been handling his money and that she was holding $8,000 of it, that he had given Taylor money to pay phone bills, and that he had told his sister that another woman had been keeping the group’s money.

In the recorded conversations and in an interview with The Courier-Journal of Louisville, Glover repeatedly said that Taylor was not involved in any drug operations and that police had “no business” looking for him at her residence, and denied that he had said in the recorded conversations that he kept money at her residence. Taylor was never a co-defendant in Glover’s case.

A no-knock warrant was reasonable, in that the LMPD believed that Miss Taylor was holding drugs and money for Mr Glover. While the evidence sought through the warrant never appeared, Miss Taylor was, at the very least, closely involved with Mr Glover, a notorious drug dealer. That part never penetrated the consciousness of the black community.

And so we come to Lexington, where the Urban-County Council has advanced, on a 9-6 vote, a proposed ordinance to ban no-knock warrants.

Vice Mayor Steve Kay said of the four no-knock warrants Lexington police have served in the past five years, all were executed to preserve evidence in drug cases, despite Lexington police previously saying that they have been not used to preserve evidence.

Translation: we’ve got to give the drug dealers time to flush their stashes down the toilet!

In a city of 308,000 people, four no-knock warrants used over five years does not exactly seem like overuse or some sort of blanket policy.

“I believe strongly that we have a great police force and it’s lead by a great chief,” Kay said. Yet, the Black community has repeatedly said it does not want the police to use no-knock warrants.

“My sense is that the no-knock represents a threat … a continuation of the way that they have been at the wrong end of police enforcement. I want them to have faith in the department,” Kay said. “What I don’t want to read is that there has been a shooting and no one will come forward and provide evidence to the police.”

If the black community in Lexington “have been at the wrong end of police enforcement,” might that not indicate that too many members of their community have been on the wrong end of the law?

Lexington police union blasts nine council members who voted for no-knock warrant ban

By Beth Musgrave | June 10, 2021 | 1:04 PM EDT | Updated: June 10, 2021 | 3:34 PM EDT

The union that represents Lexington police officers blasted nine members of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council who voted Tuesday to ban no-knock warrants, saying they were pandering to “radically anti-police protesters.”

In Facebook posts, the Fraternal Order of Police Bluegrass Lodge #4 tied a rise in the number of shootings and murders this year to the vote to ban no-knock warrants. “City leaders are less concerned with your safety than they are with pandering to a small group of radically anti-police protestors,” one post read. . . .

In another Facebook post, the FOP tied two Wednesday murders to the vote on the no-knock ban.

“These shooting deaths came just hours after the Lexington City Council irresponsibly voted to ban no-knock warrants in Lexington. When it comes time for officers to arrest these murderers, do we really want to restrict the tools they have to apprehend the suspects safely?”

The Lexington Police Department is like major police departments everywhere: the officers have a hard, dangerous job to do, and they are doing it during a time of increased lawlessness. Lexington has seen 19 homicides in 160 days, which puts the city on pace for 43 murders this year, which would blow 2020’s record of 34 out of the water. At a time in which the city is less safe than it has ever been, the black community want to hobble law enforcement even more.

“There is a concerted effort underway by the Fraternal Order of Police, as we speak, to paint council members who voted for this police reform, our group and others as supporting both criminals and the endangerment of our fellow citizens and police officers,” said Rev. Clark Williams, a member of the group (of black religious leaders).

“We are not the enemies of the Lexington police, and for the record, nobody wants Lexington to be safe for everybody more than we do,” Williams said. “But this form of misinformation and divisive rhetoric has no place in the legislative process, and it further demonstrates why we need a permanent ban on no-knock warrants.”

Really? If “nobody wants Lexington to be safe for everybody more than (they) do,” why are they trying to aid the criminal element in town?

No-knock warrants have hardly been abused in Lexington; there’s no need for an absolute ban. It would be an easy check to keep the current policy, of having the Mayor, someone who isn’t part of the Police Department, review and approve or disapprove of the applications before they are presented to a judge.

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Hold them accountable! Why was Keith Gibbson treated leniently by authorities in Delaware?

After all of the stories about the murder of Christine Lupo, you’d think that The Philadelphia Inquirer would make a bigger deal about the capture of Keith Gibbson,[1]According to the Delaware News-Journal, his name is spelled with two Gibbson, but the Inquirer has it as Gibson, which is the more common spelling. her suspected killer.

Suspect in Dunkin’ killing is also being investigated in at least five other homicides in Philly and Delaware, police say

Keith Gibson, 39, was expected to be charged in the murder of Christine Lugo, 40, and was being investigated for several other similar killings in recent months.

by Chris Palmer | June 9, 2021

The man suspected of fatally shooting the manager of a Dunkin’ doughnuts store during a robbery in Fairhill on Saturday is also a person of interest in at least five other homicides in Pennsylvania and Delaware, police said Wednesday.

Keith Gibson, 39 — who was arrested in Wilmington on Tuesday — was expected to be charged in the murder of Christine Lugo, 40, Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said Wednesday at a virtual news conference. Police said Lugo was shot in the head inside the Dunkin’ she managed on the 500 block of Lehigh Avenue after she gave Gibson $300 while being threatened at gunpoint.

In addition to that crime, Vanore said, detectives in Philadelphia and Delaware were investigating Gibson’s possible links to several other killings: Two men found shot to death in a North Philadelphia store in January, the slaying of Gibson’s mother at her East Falls workplace in February, the robbery and fatal shooting of an employee at a cellphone store in Elsmere, Del., last month, and the killing of a man during a street robbery in Delaware early Sunday.

Vanore said Gibson — who was paroled in 2020 after being imprisoned for a previous killing in Delaware — was also suspected of committing two robberies there before he was arrested Tuesday.

There’s more at the original.

I wrote, four days ago:

I’m still betting a case of Mountain Dew that, when we find out who the (alleged) killer is, we’ll find out that he has a long rap sheet, and that, had he been treated seriously by the District Attorney, could and should have been behind bars at 5:51 AM last Saturday morning. That’s hardly a risky bet: that’s what we always seem to find out about these killers.

From the Delaware News-Journal:

This is not the first time Gibbson has been arrested for violent crimes.

In 2008, Gibbson was one of three men charged in the robbery and fatal shooting of Stanley “Savon” Jones.

According to Delaware Online/The News Journal archives, Gibbson, along with Wilmington residents James Hinson and Kelly Gibbs, robbed Jones in the early hours of July 6, 2008.

Gibbson then shot Jones and the three fled the scene.

Jones’ body was found on North Rodney Drive in Edgemoor Gardens with an apparent gunshot wound to the upper body.

The three were charged with murder, but the charge was changed to manslaughter after the men took a plea.

Gibbson was sentenced to eight years in prison, followed by two years of probation.

Superior Court documents show that Gibson has violated his probation repeatedly.

So, after murdering a man in 2008, why was Mr Gibbson allowed to plead down to manslaughter in Delaware? Was the evidence against him shaky enough that prosecutors were afraid that he might be acquitted at trial? Or is it that accepting a reduced charge plea bargain was the quick, easy and less expensive path to follow.

In Delaware, second degree murder is a Class A felony, the punishment for which is, “not less than 15 years up to life imprisonment to be served at Level V except for conviction of first degree murder in which event § 4209 of this title shall apply.”[2]Delaware code, §4205(b)(1). Had Mr Gibbson been charged with, tried for, and convicted of second-degree murder in 2008, with a 15 year minimum sentence, none of which could be suspended,[3]Delaware Code, §4205(d), “Where a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section, such sentence shall not be subject to … Continue reading Mr Gibbson would still have been behind bars on Saturday, June 5th, and Christine Lugo, and all of the others Mr Gibbson is suspected of killing would still be alive today, assuming, of course, that Mr Gibbson was their killer.

Will anyone in Delaware be held responsible for the decisions to allow him to plead down? Nope, sure won’t! But I can at least hope that every one of the people responsible for the decisions to treat Mr Gibbson so leniently will realize that he is partially responsible for the murders Mr Gibbson (allegedly) subsequently committed. Perhaps if we started holding such people accountable for the consequences of their decisions, prosecutors, judges and parole officials would start doing their duty and keep these miscreants behind bars for as long as legally possible.

Assuming that Mr Gibbson is indeed the killer, at least we have an answer as to why he murdered Miss Lupo after she had complied and given him the cash: he just plain enjoyed killing people! No sentence, no threat of prison, is a deterrent to someone like that.

Delaware has no death penalty, and while capital punishment is legally possible in Pennsylvania, District Attorney Larry Krasner never seeks it. Even if Mr Krasner sought a capital sentence, no prisoner in the Keystone State has been executed since the reimposition of capital punishment unless he ‘volunteered’ for it by voluntarily dropping his appeals. Assuming that he is convicted of these killings, Mr Gibbson will spend the rest of his miserable life behind bars.[4]Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment. This past was informational only, and should not be read as a desire that he be sentenced to death. It’s just too bad he wasn’t sentenced to that in Delaware, when the First State had that chance; several innocent people who are in their graves today would still be alive.
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Also published on American Free News Network.

References

References
↑1 According to the Delaware News-Journal, his name is spelled with two Gibbson, but the Inquirer has it as Gibson, which is the more common spelling.
↑2 Delaware code, §4205(b)(1).
↑3 Delaware Code, §4205(d), “Where a minimum, mandatory, mandatory minimum or minimum mandatory sentence is required by subsection (b) of this section, such sentence shall not be subject to suspension by the court.”.
↑4 Regular readers of The First Street Journal know that I am opposed to capital punishment. This past was informational only, and should not be read as a desire that he be sentenced to death.