Tag Archives: #Crime

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right Aren't the left at least somewhat aware that they still depend upon a civilized society for their lives, property, safety, and professions?

I have previously mused that Philadelphia Inquirer main editorial writer Daniel Pearson could actually be a conservative, though ‘moderate Democrat’ would probably be far closer to the truth. Though Mr Pearson is not the Editorial Page Editor, I would guess that he has some influence. And I have noted how the newspaper has granted outside OpEd space to people who seem to share their general editorial positions.

That seems to have led to this:

Why Pa. should deploy the National Guard to SEPTA right now

Unless conditions improve, SEPTA’s survival is at stake. Deploying the National Guard can bring riders back and make SEPTA safe for everyone.

by Brian Pollitt, for the Inquirer | Wednesday, April 3, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

When a bus shows signs of a mechanical problem, you call a mechanic. The goal is to do preventive maintenance, rather than waiting for a complete failure. But if buses and stations are plagued by a breakdown of civil society, who do you call?

I’ll admit it: upon that last, the movie there, “Who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!” ran through my head. 🙂 Continue reading →

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Whenever there is a truth you cannot tell, that is a truth you must tell! "The truth is not always a pleasant thing." -- General "Buck" Turgidson in Dr Strangelove"

But, but, but, we are told that homosexuality has nothing, nothing at all, to do with pedophilia!

Well-known music activist, entrepreneur charged with child porn possession

by Kevin Shea | Tuesday, March 26, 2024 |4:51 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, March 27, 2024 | 7:06 AM EDT

A man active in several organizations related to Princeton University and its alumni has been charged with possessing child pornography, the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office confirmed.

Roy ‘Trey’ Farmer, 53, faces one count of possession of child sexual abuse material, a third-degree felony. Investigators arrested him Friday at a condo he owns Princeton, across from the university’s main entrance.

Farmer was in the Mercer County jail Monday, awaiting a detention hearing court Wednesday in Superior Court of Mercer County in Trenton. A prosecutor’s office spokesperson said the office will argue he be detained pending trial.

So, who is Roy “Trey” Farmer? The Princeon Alumni feted him in an article two years ago. He has been very financially successful, and an international traveler and philanthropist. Then there’s this: Continue reading →

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You in a heap o’ trouble, boy! Once again, The Philadelphia Inquirer censors part of the story.

Can someone tell me why I am paying $285.48 per year for a newspaper which censors the news?

When I first saw this photo in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday, I immediately asked myself, “Self, is that really a girl?” So, I read a story I might normally have skipped.

Bensalem teen faces 15 to 40 years in prison for killing a 12-year-old girl and showing her corpse on Instagram

Ash Cooper admitted her guilt Thursday and was sentenced to prison.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 3:41 PM EDT | Updated: 6:02 PM EDT

A Bensalem teen who shot and killed a 12-year-old girl, then displayed her corpse in an Instagram video call as she sought help in hiding her crime will spend 15 to 40 years in prison after admitting her guilt Thursday.

Ash Cooper, 18, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and related crimes in the shooting death of Morgan Connors in the trailer Cooper shared with her father in the Top of the Ridge Trailer Park in November 2022.

In accepting the guilty plea, Bucks County Court Judge Jeffrey L. Finley decried Cooper’s actions and lamented Morgan’s death.

“It’s a horrible tragedy,” he said. “A tragedy no family should ever have to undergo.”

It turns out that “Ash” Cooper is actually Joshua Cooper, as reported by London’s Daily Mail. The Inquirer did leave a clue, in that the hyperlinks in the newspaper’s story took us to stories noting that the killer was named Joshua Cooper at the time those stories were published, but if you read reporter Rodrigo Torrejón’s story, there isn’t the first indication that the murderer is actually a male.

The Daily Mail also told us things that the Inky decided to omit:

Cooper, who was 16 at the time of the murder, also allegedly told police she and Connors were in a sexual relationship. . . .

During the investigation, officials discovered Cooper was accused of sexual assault in a previous unrelated case. She was found guilty in juvenile court.

The victim was in court on Thursday as Cooper received his sentence.

So, not only was young Mr Cooper, 16 at the time, having sex with a 12-year-old, but he was previously convicted of a sexual assault on a different person. How is it that the Daily Mail, from 3,500 miles away had this, but the Inquirer couldn’t get that information from a bordering county?

Well, of course the reporters at the Inky knew. The first story on the murder appeared on November 26, 2022, and the second on March 6, 2023, at which point he was still identified as Joshua Cooper. Now, after that time, we find out that young Mr Cooper is ‘transitioning’, trying to become a girl, and no one asks, “Is he really transgendered and ‘transitioning,’ or is he just doing this to stay out of adult men’s prison?” As you can see from the Daily Mail’s photo, Mr Cooper is not exactly a big guy, and perhaps he had watched NCIS, and saw the scene in which Leroy Jethro Gibbs tells a couple of young college kids, “Believe me, son, you will not do well in prison.”

Were I to ask the editors of the newspaper why they concealed the fact that young Mr Cooper is ‘transgender,’ and referred to him in exclusively feminine terms, they might tell me that hey, that has nothing to do with the murder. I would reject that argument, since it’s obvious that the previously convicted sex criminal was also f(ornicating) young Miss Connors — the London newspaper noted that court records stated that the victim’s body “was found laying facedown with her pants around her ankles” — and that the victim’s state of undress indicated that something sexual had occurred. More, the fact that Mr Cooper is claiming to be a girl will have a huge impact on to which prison he will be sent for hopefully the full forty years. One of us wonders on how the newspaper will cover that story.

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Ok, OK, this was bad, but really, I’m sure that were about to turn their lives around, any day now!

We have previously noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to child activists Donna Cooper and Anton Moore, to tell us that people’s brains are not fully mature until their mid-20s, and how, rather than incarceration, we should provide those juveniles accused of non-violent offenses with more opportunities for reform. But, rather than being all sympathetic, I instead noted retired Sgt Marc Fusetti’s tweet, which pointed out that two of the three initially arrested for the Burholme shooting had been treated leniently, for non-violent offenses as juveniles, and then went out and, allegedly, of course, shot eight people at the SEPTA bus stop in a targeted hit. I also noted that the Philadelphia Police Department already had a mugshot of the fourth suspect, 17-year-old Asir Boone, which meant that he, too, had a previous ‘encounter’ with law enforcement.

Well, the Burholme shooting net gets wider and wider!

Police arrest 15-year-old they say staked out Northeast shooting victims, texting gunmen ‘go’ as targets walked by

Jeremiah Jefferson is the fifth person to be arrested and charged in a shooting that left eight teens injured in the Northeast.

by Ellie Rushing | Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 5:08 PM EDT | Updated: 7:14 PM EDT

Jeremiah Jefferson, mugshot via Philly Crime Update.

A 15-year-old who police say acted as a lookout for the gunmen in the Burholme shooting, standing inside a nearby Dunkin’ and texting “go” to the shooters as their targets walked by has been arrested, police said Thursday.

Jeremiah Jefferson is expected to be charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and related crimes for his alleged role in the shooting at a bus stop in Northeast Philadelphia earlier this month that left eight students injured. He is the fifth person to be charged in connection with the March 6 shooting.

Jefferson was inside the Dunkin’ next to the gas station, while his friends with guns were seated in a blue Hyundai parked outside, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

Young Mr Jefferson was allegedly on the lookout for the intended victim in the shooting, described his own clothes so the shooters wouldn’t aim at him, sent photos of the two intended targets, and then, in a final text, simply said, “Go”.

If young Mr Jefferson has a juvenile record, that information has not yet been released, or, more probably, leaked. About the only good thing about this is that, at 15-years-old, there’s at least a reasonable hope that he hasn’t knocked up some girl and further polluted the gene pool, because this fine young gentlemen, if he did that of which he is accused, is dumb as a box of rocks. The last thing Philly needs is more stupid babies born.

Police on Thursday also announced that they intended to charge (Anhile) Buggs, (18), with a separate homicide that occurred in mid-February on the 5800 block of Rising Sun Avenue. In that shooting, 20-year-old Kristopher Dowling was killed just before 9 p.m. while he was walking with a friend to get pizza.

Dowling’s mother, Ivory, said police told her Buggs, who is from Olney, had been driving around the Lawncrest area with others, searching for someone to shoot as part of a back-and-forth feud between groups from Lawncrest and Olney.

The retaliation had been ongoing for years, she said — it was one of the reasons why she moved her family from Lawncrest, their home of 19 years, to Abington two years ago.

That’s two planned and premeditated shootings for Mr Buggs. Let me be clear about this: there’s no reforming this gentleman, and he needs to never see another sunrise outside of prison. His accomplices in the Burholme shootings? They, too, are waste cases, completely lost souls who might, if they’re lucky, find the Lord while they’re in prison, but they, too, should never get out. They are too evil, and too stupid, to ever walk among free society again.

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Could Daniel Pearson be a conservative? Whether he realized it or not, he was pushing "broken windows" policing

I have said that my good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, I think he knows who I am, but we’ve never met other than in debates on Twitter — is an editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and that makes him a liberal, but he’s not a far left whacko, and conservatives can actually talk to him. And, other than the fact that he appears to be holding a disgusting Philly cheesesteak in his Twitter biography photo — a hot, freshly baked Philly pretzel would be more than acceptable, but cheesesteaks are vile — I pretty much like him.

But this morning, I had to consider that, Heaven forfend!, he might actually be a conservative! He tweeted:

The idea that people skip fares because they don’t have the cash isn’t supported by any evidence.

People skip fares because they are entitled jerks. Period. That’s why so many fare evaders are also smoking and assaulting people on transit.

Then:

And:

Honestly, Penn and Drexel should crack down on these students. There’s no excuse for disrespecting your host city.

I could have written that, and as both of our regular readers know, I’m as evil a reich-wing conservative as they come!

OK, OK, I know: Mr Pearson is no conservative, but if he’s a Democrat, he’s at least a moderate Democrat, the kind of people conservatives could respect, even if we disagreed with him on some issues. He, or at least the Editorial Board for which he does most of the writing, clearly despises former President Trump, and there’s the problem that even moderate Democrats supporting other Democrats enables the far-left of that party — Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema and perhaps even John Fetterman, I’m referring to you — but if we’ll never get the moderate Democrats to become Republicans, at least their existence within a party which sometimes seems to have gone completely off the rails of the sensibility train somewhat restrains the hard left impulses.

The Philadelphia Daily News article Mr Pearson linked:

SEPTA: Felonies down after crackdown on fare-evaders

New stats from SEPTA show that an increased focus on busting fare-jumpers has helped curb crime in the subways.

by Vinny Vella | February 5, 2015 | 3:01 AM EST

MICHAEL, a Frankford teen, is a poster boy for all the wrong reasons.

Last year, Michael – a pseudonym, because most of his offenses were committed as a juvenile – was cited 15 times in six months for hopping onto a SEPTA train without paying, law-enforcement sources said.

It got so bad, one SEPTA Transit Police officer told the Daily News, that the cashiers at his most frequently visited stations began to recognize him and would tip off police before he even approached their windows.

In November, six days after his 18th birthday, Michael was hit with his first fare-evasion citation as an adult. Three weeks later, he was cited again, this time with an added charge of resisting arrest, according to court records.

Did “Michael” do something really radical like go to jail for his (alleged) crimes? We know that District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions would almost certainly not do anything like that to him, but reporter Vinny Vella’s article was written in 2015, when Michael Nutter was Mayor, Charles Ramsey was Police Commissioner, and Seth Williams was District Attorney. Under those three gentlemen, Killadelphia’s homicide total in the previous year was 248, and if it spiked to 280 the next year, it had steadily come down during their tenure.

Now, he’s seemingly straightened up and flying right: He hasn’t been arrested since.

And to hear SEPTA tell it, cracking down on fare-evaders like Michael – who authorities say also has been involved in at least two cellphone thefts – has done wonders for reducing felonies committed on the city’s subways.

“People jumping turnstiles are not heading to the library or going to see grandmom,” said Chief Thomas Nestel, head of SEPTA’s Transit Police. “They’re getting on the system to engage in activity that is either criminal or disorderly.”

There’s more at the original, but this is just more evidence that “broken windows” policing works. We don’t know if “Michael” stopped using SEPTA, or just started paying the fare to keep the Transit Police away from him. But the crime numbers dropped overall, and that does follow the greater enforcement of fare evasion.

More, “Michael’s” fare evasion as a juvenile didn’t seem to do much to him, but once he became an adult, and got a resisting arrest charge added to his offenses, his behavior changed. And this shows just how badly Mr Krasner’s leniency has affected the City of Brotherly Love. We have previously noted the Burholme SEPTA bus stop shooting, and how at least three of the four (alleged) shooters — three did the shooting, while a fourth drove the stolen getaway car — had previous juvenile offenses which could and should have had them already behind bars, but did not. Harsher treatment might not have mentally and morally reformed them, but at least putting criminals behind bars means that they are not out on the streets committing crimes! Had Mr Krasner and his office treated the three Burholme (alleged) shooters more seriously, there might have been eight fewer people shot in Philly twelve days ago.

Who knows? Perhaps Dayemen Taylor, deliberately targeted and murdered at another SEPTA bus stop just two days previously, would still be with us. We don’t know that yet, there’s no public information on the Ogontz shootings perpetrators has been made public, and we don’t know if they were previous offenders, but I’d bet euros to eclairs — my version of dollars to doughnuts — that yup, they have previous records.

Mr Pearson? Whether he realized it or not, he, too, was advocating “broken windows” policing, going after the small-time, first time, ‘lower’ offense level malefactors, before they reached the level of shooting, and sometimes killing, other people. Murder, and attempted murder, are not normally entry-level crimes. It doesn’t always work, individually, because prison isn’t something which normally makes people better, but it can be something that at least encourages them not to do the stuff that would send them back to prison.

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A junior judge takes a stupid decision

Just in case I couldn’t thing of a good subject on which to write today, my good friend Robert Stacy McCain gave me some direction!

Judge dismisses gun charge against convicted felon; ruled as unconstitutional

by Natalia Martinez | The Ides of March, 2024 | 11:47 AM EDT

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Prohibiting a convicted felon from possessing a gun is unconstitutional, according to a Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge’s ruling.

Judge Melissa Logan Bellows filed the order this week, dismissing the possession charge against a convicted felon and persistent felony offender, Jecory Frazier.

The motion to dismiss was filed by Louisville Attorney Rob Eggert in October on behalf of his client. Eggert claimed the state’s law does not trump the Second Amendment. Bellows agreed, making the first ruling of its kind in Jefferson County.

Trisha Lister, an attorney at Eggert’s office, wrote the motion.

She believes Bellows’ opinion was well-written.

She told WAVE News Troubleshooters the Second Amendment does not single out convicted felons. She said the charge has been not been equally enforced and is used as a way to keep people of color from having guns. Lister stated over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities.

And there we have it: the attorneys for the defendant were concerned that “over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities,” so naturally, the lawyers assumed that such a statistic was generated by racism rather than the possibility that “over 70% of those prosecuted on that standalone charge are minorities” because over 70% of the violations of KRS §527.040 were committed by minorities. That statistic is not addressed in Judge Bellows decision.

The .pdf file of Judge Bellows decision is here, and it is fairly brief, only eight pages.

The Judge based her ruling on District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), which established that the Second Amendment’s guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right, not one restricted to the militia, and New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, 142 S. Ct. 2111 (2022), which set the standard that restrictions on our Second Amendment rights must have a significant history based on the original understandings of our rights, rather than something novel.

The Court held that “when the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct, the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct” and the Government must demonstrate that the regulation is consistent with this Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.

The Judge then launches into an argument I find strained:

In Heller, the Court stated that “nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons . . .” 554 U.S. at 627. The majority opinion in Bruen makes no mention of Heller’s reference to felon in possession laws. Instead, the admonition appeared in a concurring opinion. 142 S. Ct. 2162 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring).

A curious argument, given that Heller specifically stated that felons could be barred from owning weapons, and Bruen did not overturn that part, because Bruen made no mention of that particular part, the Court must not have meant for it to continue. This alone is a point of contention that I suspect the Commonwealth will appeal.

But, to me, the oddest part of the Judge’s argument is that, other than one sentence in which she noted that the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified in 1868, she ignores it completely. Perhaps the Commonwealth’s Attorney for Jefferson County did not bring it up, even though it is through the Fourteenth Amendment that the Court ‘incorporated’ the individual right to keep and bear arms to the states, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010). The Fourteenth Amendment specifically states, in part:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Emphasis mine.

It’s simple: the Fourteenth Amendment specifically allows the states to deprive a person of his constitutional rights if due process of law is followed, and the felony convictions of Jacory Frazier were obtained through the due process of law.

Let me state clearly here: I am not an attorney!

So, who is Judge Bellows? She was elected Judge of the Kentucky Circuit Court for Circuit 30, division 7, in 2022, in a non-partisan race, to an eight-year term. People unfamiliar with the Bluegrass State’s judicial system might jump to the conclusion that she was appointed by either Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) or the evil President Trump, but neither is the case.

Defense Attorneys make all kinds of outlandish arguments to try to get their clients off, and in most cases, those arguments don’t work, even though judges do have to take such arguments seriously. In this case, a junior judge took an outlandish argument very seriously, and actually agreed with it.

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This is what happens when you don’t lock up criminals! At least three of the Burholme shooters were previously treated leniently, and learned the lesson that they'll always get away with crime.

As we reported in this comment, the Philadelphia Police had identified the fourth suspect in the Five Points mass shooting, and gave that suspect, a 17-year-old juvenile, until Wednesday morning to surrender to police, or they would release his name and photo. He didn’t surrender, and federal marshals did what they said they’d do.

 

Marshals identify 4th suspect in Burholme bus stop shooting that wounded 8 teenagers

Asir Boone, 17, is wanted on attempted murder and related charges in the March 6 shooting at Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues.

by Jesse Bunch | Wednesday, March 13, 2024 | 2:12 PM EDT | Updated: 4:53 PM EDT

U.S. Marshals released information Wednesday about the fourth suspect in the Burholme shooting that left eight high school students injured last week, as law enforcement officials urged the teenager to turn himself in.

Asir Boone, 17, is wanted on attempted murder and related charges, according to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service.

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to Boone’s arrest. The Marshals Service said that Boone frequents the Olney neighborhood and that his last known address was in Germantown.

Shockingly enough, the tweet with the suspect’s name and photo was published on the newspaper’s online story.

I stated three days ago:

The two identified suspects are just 18 years old, and no one has exposed any adult criminal records on them, but no one would be surprised if there are sealed juvenile records.

It was hardly a difficult prediction to make!

The photo of Mr Boone is a police mugshot, dated last year, so this fine young gentlemen had been arrested at least once previously.

Well, my good friend, Sgt Mark Fusetti did some digging!

Note that Sgt Fusetti only identified two of the accused, and only as Suspects #1 and #2. That leads me to suspect that these juvenile records were not officially released, but leaked by someone. I don’t know that, but it’s a reasonable assumption. And now we know that the fourth suspect, young Mr Boone, was also, to use the euphemism, ‘known to the police.’

So, “Suspect #1” had a 2021 charge, for which he received a diversionary judgement, so no criminal conviction. The following year he was caught with a stolen car, and received probation. Then, at some later point, he was charged with receiving stolen property, for which he has not yet been tried.

“Suspect #2” was arrested for receiving stolen property and a firearms charge, and was put on probation just six days before the Burholme bus shooting. It would seem rather obvious that District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions’ lenient treatment of arrested juveniles hasn’t worked to, as he claims in his Twitter bio, “make us safer.”

We noted, about three weeks ago, that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to two activists, who claimed “Locking teens up won’t make our city safer. It will have the opposite effect, and here’s why.” Well, at least three of the four suspects were not locked up, after committing serious crimes, with two of them having possessed firearms illegally, and they (allegedly) worked together to shoot up a SEPTA bus stop, apparently targeting at least one person, and wounding eight, one very seriously. At least three of the four (alleged) Burholme shooters were not locked up when caught previously, and the police recovered at least one Glock with an extended magazine and a full auto switch modification.

And yet, too many people assume that the only solution to stop youth crime is to lock children up long term.

While there are times when detaining teenagers is warranted, it cannot be the first and only response if we really want to end violence, because it doesn’t address the reasons so many kids are committing crimes in the first place.

Actually, it can. The criminal who is incarcerated or not incarcerated is not the only one who is learning a lesson here. The criminal, teenaged or otherwise, who is not incarcerated, who is treated as leniently “suspects #1 and 2”, and Asir Boone, were, learns the lesson that he’ll always get cut a break; that’s not a lesson the article authors have contemplated.

It’s also the people around the malefactors who learn a lesson, the lesson being either that, hey, these guys got busted, but were let go, so I’ll get let off, too, or the lesson that, dang, my buddies got busted and drew ten years in the state pen. The teenaged delinquents the authors contemplate getting whatever services and education that they expect might get that, were they to get their way, but the kids around the leniently treated criminals won’t; they’ll only see that their buddies got away with it.

Mr Krasner and his liberal minions are responsible for the (alleged) shooters being out on the streets, but the District Attorney and his office are not the only ones responsible. The leftists like the two activists just cited, and thousands of other Philadelphians who excuse crimes — at least when those crimes don’t affect them! — and who voted for Mr Krasner are also responsible.
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Y’all in a heap o’ trouble, boys! These guys are as dumb as a box of rocks.

We have previously noted the two mass shootings at SEPTA bus stops being used by high school students to get home. It’s only taken the Philadelphia Police a few days to identify the (alleged) shooters in the second incident. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Two teens charged with Burholme shooting that injured 8 students at a bus stop

The arrests came as students from Northeast High School returned to class.

by Ellie Rushing and Ximena Conde | Saturday, March 11, 2024 | 1:09 PM EDT | Updated: 6:36 PM EDT

Two 18-year-olds have been charged with attempted murder and related crimes in connection with the shooting of eight Northeast High School students who were struck by bullets as they waited for a bus after school last week, police said Monday.

Ahnile Buggs (L) and Jamaal Tucker (R), mugshots via Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.

Jamaal Tucker and Ahnile Buggs were taken into custody over the weekend and have each been charged with seven counts of aggravated assault and related offenses. Buggs and Tucker were also charged with one count of attempted murder, conspiracy, and illegal gun possession after police said they jumped out of a car at Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues and started shooting into a group of kids Wednesday afternoon.

Eight students, ages 15 to 17, were injured in the gunfire. One 16-year-old was shot nine times.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Monday that detectives believe Tucker and Buggs were among four shooters. Two others involved in the crime remain at large — a third shooter and their getaway driver, he said.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t include the mugshots of the (alleged) malefactors. I got those from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.

Commissioner Bethel wasn’t forthcoming on the details of the investigation, but stated that it may have been related to the first shooting, the one which killed Dayemen Taylor. Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said that evidence was recovered from the stolen car the (alleged) shooters used, which had been dumped in Olney. He also stated that a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol with an extended magazine, laser pointer, and a “switch,” a small device that attaches to a semi-automatic gun and makes it capable of fully automatic fire, had been recovered.

Many of the kids shot were seriously injured — one 16-year-old who was shot nine times was intubated and only recently upgraded from critical condition and able to talk. Another 16-year-old was shot multiple times in the chest and was expected to recover, while a 15-year-old had a bullet lodged in his spine and faced a risky surgery and long recovery ahead, their families said.

So, what’s going to happen? The two mass shootings have outraged the Powers That Be in the City of Brotherly Love, and even the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, and softer-than-a-kitten-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, vowed that the perpetrators would be harshly prosecuted, though I believe that when I actually see it. The two identified suspects are just 18 years old, and no one has exposed any adult criminal records on them, but no one would be surprised if there are sealed juvenile records. It would be very interesting if we learn that one or more of the offenders could have been in juvie last week, but were given lenient treatment by the District Attorney’s Office.

If Messrs Tucker and Buggs were two of the shooters, then let’s tell the truth: they’re both idiots, just plain stupid, dumb as a box of rocks. We don’t yet know the motives for the shootings, but whatever Mr Tucker was taken into custody just two days after the shooting, and Mr Buggs the day after that. Both men are looking at possibly decades in prison, and for what? Just plain stupidity.

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This is what happens when you are soft on crime!

Italian soldiers on guard near the Arch of Constantine, Roma, June 19, 2016. Photo by D R Pico; may be freely used, with attribution.

In response to the huge surge in crime, and the extremely lax prosecution of it by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed, and Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, signed into law, Act 40, which created a special prosecutor to investigate and prosecute crimes “occurring within a public transportation authority that serves as the primary provider of public passenger transportation in the county of the first class.” Philadelphia is the only First-Class City/County in the Keystone State.

This was a clear and obvious attempt to bypass Let ’em Loose Larry, whose lenient prosecution has led to outrage, and we continually hear of violent crimes committed in the city by people who could and should have already been in prison, were it not for the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and softer-than-Charmin-on-crime Mr Krasner.

Act 40 required, in §1786(a), the state Attorney General to appoint said special prosecutor, “Within 30 days of the effective date of this section,” but that appointment has not yet been made, with the 30 day period long having elapsed. And SEPTA, “the primary provider of public passenger transportation” in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia, has seen an unfortunate surge in violent crime in recent weeks, including two mass shootings as public school students were at SEPTA bus stops for their rides home.

Governor Kathy Hochul (D-NY) was seeing a similar issue in the New York City subway system, and she took the radical action of deploying 750 National Guard troops to the subways to deter crime. From The Wall Street Journal:

Armed Troops on the New York City Subways

Gov. Hochul would do better by firing New York’s progressive DAs and restoring the successful anticrime policies of the 1990s and 2000s.

by The Editorial Board | Saturday, March 9, 2024 | 5:50 PM EST

Here’s a poser to consider for 2025: What if Donald Trump is elected again and decides to send the military to prevent crime or control riots in America’s streets? Wouldn’t half of America lose its collective mind about the supposed threat to democracy?

That’s a rhetorical question, of course, because President Trump did offer to send federal marshals to help cities provide order during the 2020 summer of hate following the unfortunate death-while-resisting-arrest of the methamphetamine-and-fentanyl-addled career criminal George Floyd, and the Democratic mayors of our major cities didn’t want anything to do with that.

Yet that’s essentially what New York Gov. Kathy Hochul did this week in dispatching the state National Guard to patrol New York City’s subways to reduce crime. The Democratic Governor is sending 750 troops and 250 state police officers to guard subway trains and platforms amid a spike in violence and robbery against passengers.

No doubt many New Yorkers will be relieved at the sight, even if it will be somewhat disconcerting to see men in military fatigues on the trains. We know from experience it’s reassuring to see NYPD blue in a subway car when a homeless man is harassing passengers for money or because he’s drugged up.

Ms. Hochul is also calling for judges to have more authority to ban people from the subways if they’ve assaulted commuters or subway workers. She wants to add security cameras, and Mayor Eric Adams said this week he’s asked New York police to expand bag searches on the subways.

Israeli police, near the fourth Station of the Cross, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, November 2022, photo by D R Pico, may be freely used, with attribution.

The editorial included a photo of two National Guardsmen, one of whom was holding a semi-automatic rifle, complete with the magazine in place. Rather than use that, I included a photo I took — no copyright problems there! — of armed Italian Carabinieri, outside of the Arch of Constantine, near the Coliseum. We were not somehow unnerved by the sight, but it was an uncomfortable reminder that Italy has seen more than its share of terrorism.

Less pleasant was the vista of three armed Israeli policemen by the fourth Station of the Cross, but Israel has far worse terrorism problems than anyplace else. As a civilized people, we don’t like the thought that there are uncivilized barbarians out there, barbarians who think nothing of theft, violence, and murder. The George Soros-sponsored far-left prosecutors, like Manhattan’s Alvin Bragg and Mr Krasner, are simply too stupid to recognize that there really are barbarians out there, and there are hard-left liberals like the late Jen Angel of Oakland who think that all the barbarians need is some love and hugs.

Back to the Journal:

This is progress after the denial that has prevailed for years among the city’s ruling Democrats. Former Mayor Bill de Blasio and progressives started the downhill slide when they waged political war on cops, on stop and frisk policing, and on the enforcement of offenses against civilized norms.

Yet sending in the military to protect mass transit is also in some sense a sign of societal and political surrender. It means that New York has concluded that it can’t protect its citizens with a normal police presence, or with the laws against vagrancy that once prevailed, or with prosecutors who used to put people in jail for crimes against public order. So send in the guys with assault rifles.

Governor Shapiro has stated that he has no intention of sending the National Guard to help defend SEPTA, so that’s not an issue in Philly yet. But New York City did show the way, in the 1990s, with Mayor Rudy Giuliani and a no-nonsense, “broken windows” policing program. The NYPD arrested, and the prosecutors charged, the wannabe goons who were just starting out in their lives of crime, meting out strict punishment for the little stuff with the idea that strict punishment for the ‘little’ stuff would educate the prospective criminals that crime does not pay.

And, even those wannabes who were too stupid to learn were off the streets, and no danger to the public. Then, when they went back on the streets, if they resumed breaking the laws, they already had criminal records, which meant longer sentences for subsequent crimes.

Governor Hochul took an action which, let’s be plain about this, reeks of desperation. She simply had to Do Something, because the criminal class and their families, along with the untouched liberals in Central Park West, are so f(ornicating) stupid to understand that treating criminals leniently simply leads to more criminals.