Tag Archives: #Crime

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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.
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Two men sentenced for assault during a #BlackLivesMatter protest Unfortunately, the judge just might grant 'shock probation'

Dylan Dempster (Fayette County Detention Center)

In keeping with the McClatchy policy of not publishing mugshots, the Lexington Herald-Leader told us about two of the #BlackLivesMatter protesters going to jail:

Lexington men who pleaded guilty in summer protest altercation sentenced to jail time

By Morgan Eads | June 10, 2021 | 11:49 AM EDT

Two men were sentenced Thursday to a year in jail for charges related to an altercation last summer during racial justice protests in Lexington.

Kaulbert Wilson and Dylan Dempster, both 20, received their sentences Thursday morning after pleading guilty in April to the charges against them. Both were initially facing felony charges, but after their charges were amended in their pleas, the most serious charge against each was a class A misdemeanor.

Wilson pleaded guilty to second-degree riot, fourth-degree assault, second-degree disorderly conduct and two counts of third-degree criminal mischief. Dempster pleaded guilty to amended charges of second-degree riot and two counts of third-degree criminal mischief.

Kaulbert Wilson (Source: Fayette County Detention Center)

The incident is detailed in the rest of the story. The defendants claimed that the people they assaulted used “a racial slur,” as though that somehow excuses assault and battery. Sadly, prosecutors allowed the defendants to plead down; they should both have felonies on their records.

Judge Thomas Travis told the attorneys for the two criminals that there were post-sentencing remedies available, including, unfortunately, “shock probation,” which could have them released at any time. The judge said he would consider such motions if filed.

Translation: these guys are going to (mostly) get away with it.

Of course, while the Herald-Leader (sort of) subscribes to the McClatchy policy of not publishing mugshots, the newspaper’s ‘reporting partner,’ WKYT-TV, Channel 27, does not. Being a visual medium, television stations like mugshots, and the mugshot of Mr Wilson came from WKYT-s website. The First Street Journal definitely does not go along with the policy of hiding mugshots, especially when these two are not just criminal suspects but actually convicted criminals. Let the world see who they are!

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And another two bite the dust

Lexington, Kentucky, had gone 18 days without a homicide, but I suppose that it was too good to last. From the Lexington Herald-Leader:

2 men shot dead in Lexington: 1 was left in a vehicle, another killed outside a club

By Jeremy Chisenhall | June 9, 2021 | 7:05 AM EDT | Updated 4:33 PM EDT

Two men are dead after separate shootings Tuesday night and early Wednesday, according to Lexington police.

The fatal shootings were the 17th and 18th homicides in Lexington this year, according to Lexington crime data. The city set a record last year with 34. At this point in 2020, Lexington had reported 12 homicides for the year.

Sadly, this is incorrect; the victims are teh 18th and 19th murder victims in the city.

I can understand why Jeremy Chisenhall made the error: the Lexington Police Department has not updated its homicide investigation page in a long time, with the May 9th killing of Mar’Quevion Leach as the 16th and last victim listed, but the Herald-Leader reported on the murder of Demonte Washington, 28, on May 22nd. Since Mr Chisenhall was not the reporter on that story, he may have missed it completely.

Police found the first shooting victim around 11:35 p.m. Tuesday, according to Lt. Ronald Keaton. The victim was a 28-year-old man who had been shot and left in a vehicle in the 200 block of Hedgewood Court in the Woodhill area. . . . .

The city’s second overnight shooting occurred outside The Office, a gentleman’s club in the 900 block of Winchester Road.

Keaton said police were called to the location around 2:35 a.m. for a report of shots fired outside. The victim was already dead when officers arrived, Keaton said. He said it was unclear if the victim or anyone involved in the shooting was a patron at the club.

As of Mr Chisenhall’s most recent update, there was little information about the victims or any suspects available.

Nineteen homicides in 160 days. That doesn’t put Lexington in similarly-sized St Louis’ class, with the Gateway City having 82 homicides to date, or Louisville’s “more than 80,” but Louisville, with 617,790 people is twice Lexington’s size.[1]The Louisville metropolitan area has about 1,265,000, while Lexington, the borders of which extend to the Fayette County line, doesn’t really have a ‘metropolitan area.’ Still, Lexington is on pace for 43 murders in 2021, which would shatter last year’s record of 34, and the long, hot summer hasn’t really begun yet.
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Update: June 10, 2021, at 2:20 PM EDT:

While I didn’t get personal credit, Mr Chisenhall did update the homicide numbers:

CORRECTION: The total number of homicides in Lexington this year was incorrectly stated in a previous version of this story.

References

References
↑1 The Louisville metropolitan area has about 1,265,000, while Lexington, the borders of which extend to the Fayette County line, doesn’t really have a ‘metropolitan area.’
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That which you sow, so shall ye reap

I might not have bothered with this story had the dead criminal’s name not been Winston Smith. Winston Smith is the protagonist of George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984.

Winston Smith, apparently nicknamed “Boogie,” was a wanted felon in GeorgeFloydeapolis, and wound up on the wrong end of a gun. On Thursday, June 3rd, United States Marshals tried to arrest Mr Smith on a felony-arms charge. Mr Smith decided that no, he wasn’t going to go quietly, and “exchanged gunfire” with the marshals. He died of multiple gunshot wounds, the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office reported Saturday morning.

As always, Mr Smith’s family demanded answers from authorities.

“I want body camera footage … we want to see that footage of what actually happened,” Smith’s brother, Kidale Smith, told reporters Friday.

“And all other security surveillance as well,” chimed in Waylon Hughes, identified as a friend of the victim.

Of course, Mr Smith wasn’t really a bad guy!

His family claims the angry social media posts don’t reflect the man they knew.

Smith “was a comedian,” his sister Tiesnia Floyd told reporters Friday, adding, “So this doesn’t sound like him.”

She admitted he had a criminal record, but said her brother was trying to improve his circumstances.

Being a convicted felon, Mr Smith was legally barred from possessing a firearm, but it seems that that ‘common sense gun control law’ was not one which Mr Smith chose to obey:

Police officials in Minnesota say the U.S. Marshal’s Fugitive Task Force attempted to arrest 32-year-old Winston Boogie Smith on June 3 for a warrant for being a felon in possession of a firearm, the Associated Press reported. As sheriff’s office deputies assigned to the task force approached Smith’s vehicle, he reportedly refused to comply with orders and pulled a handgun. Officials confirmed Smith fired at least one shot from inside his car.

A statement from the Marshal’s Service said Smith was in a parked vehicle and “produced a handgun resulting in task force members firing upon the subject.” Smith died at the scene from wounds from two deputies’ shots.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reported that state investigators found a gun in Smith’s car along with a spent cartridge indicating Smith fired from inside his vehicle, the AP article states.

Robert Stacy McCain noted Mr Smith’s anger at the killing of another convicted felon, George Floyd:

In the aftermath of the shooting, Smith’s social media activity came under scrutiny after we found posts on his Facebook profile in which he bragged about shooting a police officer if he was shot at and would not surrender “like the rest.”

“Officer please don’t shoot at me cuz ima [I’m gonna] shoot back I ain’t so sucker like the rest I ain’t going with my hand up” Smith wrote in a Facebook post in September 2019.

In other posts, shared days after the death of George Floyd as the city of Minneapolis erupted in riots, Smith wrote about burning down police stations and starting a “war” against law enforcement. “justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice!,” he wrote in one of the posts.

Smith was sentenced to 48 months in prison in October 2018 for aggravated robbery in the first degree but the judge stayed his sentence and let him out on parole.

Wait a minute! If he was sentenced to four years in the clink in October of 2018, he should still be alive today, behind bars, but alive. Mr Smith is now stone-cold graveyard dead because a soft-hearted and soft-headed judge stayed his sentence and let him out on parole!

“We got guns and bullet proof vest too or should be able to get em … why not just rush these fucks and start this war they keep asking for!” he raged on Facebook.

“Fuck justice anyway bitch justice is an eye for eye u kill one of mine we need one of yours that’s justice! Right or wrong fuck being right cuz they keep doing us wrong.

“I’m down with the burn everything government not touch shit else I don’t even need to loot I’ll buy my shit just kill them dirty ass cops off we tired of being scared at the red light!” he wrote.

Those Facebook posts quoted were from September 12, 2019 — before George Floyd was killed — and May 28, 2020, both after he was treated very leniently by the criminal justice system. It would seem that being easy on Mr Smith didn’t teach him any lesson.

Mr McCain began his post on the subject with a seemingly rhetorical question:

What is the goal of the Black Lives Matter movement? To make it impossible to arrest and prosecute criminals? Because that would seem a logical inference from recent events in Minneapolis.

Those “recent events” are several nights of rioting, burning and looting Mostly Peaceful Protests™. But Mr McCain hit the nail on the head: to the American left, the victims of crime might as well be written off. They are already dead, or maimed, or robbed or raped, and bringing their killers or assailants or robbers to justice doesn’t make those victims any less victimized, it doesn’t bring the dead back to life. Pursuing ‘justice’ at this point simply contributes to ‘mass incarceration.’

But when the American left promote lawlessness, they may find that they get lawlessness. And when the mob take over, the left will find themselves among the first stood up against the wall.

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I knew it was too good to be true Another one bites the dust in Killadelphia, and The Philadelphia Inquirer has already lost interest in the story

I have noted the city’s, and The Philadelphia Inquirer’s, response to the murder of Christine Lugo, the Dunkin’ Donuts manager senselessly killed by a robber after she had given him the money he demanded. The Inquirer’s story about the city’s response remains up on the newspaper’s website main page, at least as of 7:15 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 8th.

What isn’t on the website main page? Another murder in the City of Brotherly Love, one that occurred a little after 5:30 yesterday afternoon. It was briefly up, yesterday, but this morning? You’ve got to hunt for it.

Man killed in double shooting at North Philly corner store

A woman was also wounded in the shooting.

by Justine McDaniel | June 7, 2021

A 28-year-old man was killed in a double shooting early Monday evening at a corner store in the Nicetown section of North Philadelphia.

The man, whose name was not released, and a 53-year-old woman were shot in an aisle inside Roman Grocery, 1735 W. Butler St., just after 5:30 p.m., Philadelphia police said.

The store’s security camera footage showed a gunman coming inside the store, walking up to the man, and shooting him, firing at least four shots at close range, said Police Chief Inspector Scott Small. The gunman then turned around, left the store, and ran east down Butler Street. The man, who was struck in the chest, was the target of the shooting. Medics at the scene pronounced him dead just before 6 p.m.

The woman was hit in the chest with “stray gunfire,” Small said, and was conscious when police arrived. The woman was standing behind the intended target, near a deli counter at the back of the store’s first aisle when the gunman opened fire.

There’s more at the original.

This was a targeted hit, which leads the mind to the idea it was gang-related, or a drug hit, but it could just as easily have been personal for some reason.

A caption on the included photo of the storefront noted that the shooting was recorded on “security footage,” but if the Philadelphia Police released that footage, or a photo of the gunman from the footage, it was not shown on the Inquirer’s story.

Unlike Miss Lugo’s murder, this one will almost certainly disappear down the rathole of most Philly shootings. If it turns out that the victim was just another bad guy, nobody other than his friends and family will care.

There have been 229 murders so far this year in Philadelphia, up from 174 on the same date last year, a 31.6% increase. 229 homicides in 158 days yields a homicide rate of 1.45 per day, a pace which would leave 529 dead bodies on the city’s mean streets for the year, smashing 1990’s record of 500.

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A senseless murder finally gets to the people of Philadelphia Requiescat in pace, Christine Lugo

I have said before that The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t really care about homicide in the City of Brotherly Love unless a child, a local child, a “somebody,” or a cute little white girl.

A photo taken during a block party last year of Dunkin’ Donuts manager Christine Lugo.

Well, Christine Lugo isn’t quite a cute little white girl; she was Hispanic, at least to judge from her photo. But the city and the Inquirer are making a pretty big deal over her murder.

Philly authorities ask for help identifying the man who shot and killed Dunkin’ manager

“The only way the police can get to an arrest and then our office can get to approve charges is for the community to come forward and help,” said Chesley Lightsey, the DA’s homicide chief.

by Chris Palmer | Monday, 7 June 2021 | 5:00 PM EDT

Philadelphia authorities on Monday urged potential witnesses to speak up and help identify the man who fatally shot a Dunkin’ store manager early Saturday in the city’s Fairhill section.

Chesley Lightsey, homicide chief in the District Attorney’s Office, asked the public to review the “very clear” surveillance video of the suspect from inside the store that police posted on YouTube and help them determine who shot Christine Lugo after robbing the store on the 500 block of Lehigh Avenue around 5:30 a.m. Saturday.

“We are begging you to come forward,” Lightsey said. “The only way the police can get to an arrest and then our office can get to approve charges is for the community to come forward and help.”

Mayor Jim Kenney, at an unrelated news conference, said the video showed Lugo trying to comply with the robber’s demand, “and he still killed her.”

Screen capture of Dunkin’ Donuts murder suspect. Click to enlarge.

The Inquirer would have done better to have included the photo of the suspect, but at least they linked to the Philadelphia Police Department’s YouTube video of the robbery, and were willing to print it previously.

Miss Lugo was not a criminal; she was a hard-working store manager, up at the crack of dawn to do her job, a job made more difficult by the fact that the night shift person had called off sick. She was alone on Saturday morning, in a neighborhood that Google streetview shows to be at least somewhat better kept than some others in Philadelphia.

In a city which doesn’t really care about homicide — 228 people have been murdered in the city so far, a 33.33% increase above last years 171 on the same date — some people are caring about this one.

And someone knows who this thug is. The question is: will that someone call the cops?

Of course, the odds are that his fellow thug friends have seen the reports in the media and told him, “Dude, get out of town, now!” He could be in Atlantic City or Charlotte or Miami[1]John ‘Jordan’ Lewis, who murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy in a Dunkin’ Donuts on West Oak Lane was apprehended in Miami. by now.

Me? 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.

References

References
↑1 John ‘Jordan’ Lewis, who murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy in a Dunkin’ Donuts on West Oak Lane was apprehended in Miami.
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The Philadelphia Inquirer does what the Lexington Herald-Leader will not Updated!

I have been generous, shall we say, in my criticism of The Philadelphia Inquirer, so when the paper does something right, it is incumbent on me to note that. The newspaper reported on yet another homicide of a victim in the city:

Dunkin’ Donuts manager shot to death during robbery in North Philly

Police released a video showing the gunman approaching the manager as she opened the store, and pointing a revolver at her as he forces her inside to an office where she hands over money.

by Diane Mastrull and Elizabeth Robertson | Updated June 5, 2021

A Dunkin’ Donuts manager was shot to death early Saturday after a gunman confronted her as she opened the store in North Philadelphia, forced her inside, and demanded she give him all the money, police said.

The victim, a 41-year-old woman, was shot in the head at 5:51 a.m. inside the Dunkin’ Donuts at Lehigh Avenue and Fairhill Street, and was pronounced dead there six minutes later by medics, police said.

Coworkers identified her as Christine Lugo, who lived in the neighborhood and, although she had her own children, was a mother to those she worked with.

“She was an angel, a mother to all of us,” said Larry Evans, one of a few employees who stopped by the restaurant Saturday afternoon to mourn their colleague. “No matter who you are, she give you the shirt off her back.”

Screen capture of Dunkin’ Donuts murder suspect. Click to enlarge.

There’s more at the original, but this killing was wholly senseless: the store manager gave the robber the cash, so he had that for which he came, but he shot her in the head anyway.

The actual video, which I could not link, is available on the Inquirer’s website. The victim is blurred out, for the sake of decency, and it doess not show the killer shooting her.

The Lexington Herald-Leader? If the paper followed McClatchy’s mugshot policy, it would be up to Executive Editor peter Baniak to decide whether or not to publish the photo of the suspect, but, considering how the paper refused to publish the mugshot of accused murderer Juanyah J Clay, who was then on the loose, quite possibly because Mr Clay is black, I have to wonder: would the paper have published the images the Inquirer did, given that the Dunkin’ Donuts killer is visibly black? The Inquirer is trying to help the police and the citizens of Philadelphia to catch this criminal; the Herald-Leader wouldn’t do that to help catch Mr Clay.

If the suspect is caught, what are the odds that he was treated leniently in a criminal past, by District Attorney Larry Krasner and his predecessors, and could have been behind bars on Saturday morning? If he is identified and caught, and it turns out that yes, he was on the loose when he shouldn’t have been, will the District Attorney of the judge involved be held accountable for Miss Lugo’s death?

Of course, in Killadelphia, Miss Lugo was not the only murder victim in the city. The article noted that:

  • A 16-year-old was shot 13 times, killing him, shortly before 8:30 PM Friday at 55th and Market Streets in West Philadelphia;
  • A 25-year-old man was shot once in the chest at 10th and Cumberland Streets in North Philly, and taken to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 7 PM; and
  • Later that night, a man in his late 20s was shot multiple times, and killed, while he was sitting in a vehicle at Broad and Belfield Streets in the Logan section.

That was all on Friday night. How many more murders happened in the City of Brotherly Love on the rest of the weekend?

__________________________________

Updated: Monday, 7 June 2016 | 8:25 AM EDT

A photo taken during a block party last year of Dunkin’ Donuts manager Christine Lugo.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Miss Lugo was not scheduled to be working alone on Saturday morning.

The store is usually open 24 hours, offering only drive-through service overnight. But the person who was supposed to work Friday night into Saturday morning called out, assistant manager Terrell Johnson said, which meant Lugo showed up to an empty store, left to open it alone.

Johnson, 38, said he often worked the overnight shift and would meet Lugo in the morning when she came to start her day about 5 a.m. She’d text him when she was 15 minutes away, he said, and he’d meet her outside. Johnson didn’t work the overnight shift this weekend because he had been suspended from work due to a “no-call, no-show,” which he said was a misunderstanding.

Dunkin’ Donuts corporate office wanted to make sure that they got no blame:

In a statement Sunday, Dunkin’s spokesperson Michelle King said store franchisees ”are solely responsible for the day-to-day operations of their restaurants, including staffing decisions.”

That may be true, but what a poor time to be saying so.

The newspaper reported that there was less than $300 in the store when Miss Lugo opened it. She was senselessly murdered, after giving the robber the money, and it was for under $300.

For less than $300! Had he just robbed the store, and not killed Miss Lugo, he’d have been facing what, five years in the slammer? Now, if he gets caught, even with the miserable Larry Krasner as District Attorney, he’s looking at spending the rest of his miserable life in jail.