We have had 37 previous posts entitled Hold Them Accountable, in which I have called for prosecutors, judges, and parole officials to be held accountable for crimes committed by people who could and should have already been behind bars. Well, at least one parole official has had at least the grace to resign for her actions, though it is my belief that she should be behind bars herself. Continue reading
Tag Archives: #HoldThemAccountable
Hold them accountable! Larry Krasner is at least indirectly responsible for Dayemen Taylor's murder. The only question is: is he directly responsible?
Shootings and homicides have decreased in the City of Brotherly Love over the past two years, with 55 murders as of the end of March 5, as compared to 79 on the same date last year. But, as the aggregate numbers decrease, more attention gets paid to some of the individual cases. No one really cares all that much when one gang-banger kills another gang-banger, but when a seemingly innocent kid gets targeted and murdered, even The Philadelphia Inquirer takes notice.
The newspaper had a fairly long story, by reporters Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham, on the apparently deliberately targeted Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old student at Imhotep Charter, an African-centered school with a science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus.
About 3:45 p.m. Monday, as a group of students boarded SEPTA’s No. 6 bus to head home, police say, two young men in hoodies and masks ran up from behind, guns in hand.
They fired indiscriminately at close range at least 40 times, police said, spraying bullets among the crowd of kids and through the bus windows. In total, five people were shot, including a 14-year-old boy and a 71-year-old woman.
As the shooters closed in on the group in Ogontz, in North Philadelphia, police said, they strode toward Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old Imhotep student, and shot him multiple times. He died minutes later — targeted, police said, for reasons detectives don’t yet understand. Taylor, they said, was a respected student with no prior contact with law enforcement. And while investigators are looking into whether a fight at Imhotep earlier in the day may have led to the shooting, the motive remained unclear and no arrests had been made, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.
There’s plenty more in the story, much of it telling readers what a good kid young Mr Taylor was, which sadly reminded me of past Inquirer stories in which the innocent victims was, in the end, not quite as innocent as depicted. But I’ve grown cynical in my elder years, and I’ve heard no evidence that Mr Taylor was anything other than the innocent victim portrayed.
But what struck me the most were these two paragraphs:
The case brought District Attorney Larry Krasner to tears on Tuesday, and he vowed swift justice.
“This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted,” he said.
Oh, Mr Krasner was crying, was he? He was outraged, and he vowed swift justice, did he? That stupid piece of [insert vulgar term for feces here] is responsible for much of the killing on Philadelphia’s mean streets, because he has refused to take ‘lesser’ crimes seriously. He doesn’t like to prosecute crimes involving firearm possession, his minions and he allow very lenient plea deals, especially to juveniles, and he’s proud that the incarcerated population has dramatically declined on his watch. He delights on getting previously convicted criminals released, and on charging Philadelphia Police Officers whenever he can. He is at least indirectly responsible for this homicide, because he has done more than anyone else in Philadelphia to enable a culture and climate in which crime has been enabled.
Is he directly responsible? We don’t know yet, because the killers have not yet been identified. But it would surprise no one if, when the murderers are identified, they are individuals ‘known to the police,’ guys who have been arrested before and given lenient treatment by the city’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney. It would surprise no one if it turned out that the two gunmen both could and should have been behind bars on Monday afternoon.
And if it turns out that they could and should have been locked up on Monday, then Mr Krasner is directly responsible for young Mr Taylor’s murder. When will he be held accountable?
Hold them accountable!
We have mentioned many times before the ‘reluctance’ of the credentialed media to report on crime these days, because, in the words of Philadelphia Inquirer publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes, who has basically told readers that the newspaper she runs will not report on things which could lead to a negative image of minority populations, that the newspaper she runs will self-censor the truth in favor of “anti-racism” and social justice. We have also said, that black lives don’t matter, at least not to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which only reports on homicides in the City of Brotherly Love in which the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl is the victim.
Well, the following killing, not in Philly, but Baltimore, made the national news, because the victim was someone of note! Continue reading
Hold them accountable! The good old boys’ network strikes again
I have frequently called out The Philadelphia Inquirer for poor reporting, so it is only fair when I note when they do good journalism.
The quiet handling of rape allegations at two Philly health institutions
How Jefferson and Rothman dealt with an alleged sexual assault involving an orthopedic surgeon and a medical resident.
by Wendy Ruderman | Monday, May 8, 2023
It was almost midnight and Jessica Phillips, a doctor training in orthopedic surgery, was one of the few guests remaining at a pool party that surgeon John Abraham hosted each summer for Thomas Jefferson University medical residents at his nine-bedroom Main Line home.
Phillips sat in an Adirondack-style chair by a stone fire pit with Abraham, a (Thomas) Jefferson (University) professor and division chief at the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, a private practice whose physicians work at the university’s hospitals.
The band had packed up, and caterers had cleared the wine glasses and plates smeared with cocktail sauce. Abraham handed her a lit Cuban cigar. She later remembered being so drunk she dropped it on her pants.
The medical resident remembered little else afterward. In flashes, while in and out of consciousness, she recalled Abraham on top of her on the ornate rug in his library. She awoke in his bedroom naked and bruised, she later told multiple investigators.
In Abraham’s recollection, Phillips pulled him on top of her on the library floor, court records show, while his judgment was impaired by alcohol. Nonetheless, in a text message sent to his boss after the party, Abraham acknowledged it was “unethical” to have sex with a medical resident.
It’s a very long story, and there’s a lot of he said/she said in it. Both physicians were intoxicated, both married, though Dr Abraham, then 43-years-old, was going through a divorce, and neither was really capable of consent. As her supervisor, Dr Abraham was contractually barred from a sexual relationship with a subordinate. An investigation resulted in no criminal charges. This is being made public because both Dr Abraham and Dr Phillips are suing.
The events of the June 2018 party spurred three separate investigations and three lawsuits – all now rolling back the confidentiality that usually cloaks how major institutions handle sexual misconduct claims. The cases chronicle sex, power and money in the male-dominated world of orthopedic surgery.
Both Phillips and Abraham say they were victims. They blame Jefferson and Rothman for protecting their institutional interests despite federal regulations that are supposed to ensure sexual assault cases are dealt with fairly.
Ahhh, yes, “protecting their institutional interests”. That’s what “institutions” do!
Jefferson used the threat of federal reporting requirements to force Abraham out of its hospitals while evading formal reports that would let other institutions know what happened.
Then Jefferson’s and Rothman’s leadership brokered a deal that avoided a sexual misconduct hearing and ultimately closed an investigation opened under the federal Title IX law prohibiting sex-based discrimination.
Rothman’s all-male board of directors decided not to fire Abraham. Instead, they restricted him from working in Jefferson’s hospitals or interacting with Jefferson residents. Eventually, they moved him to a hospital network not affiliated with Jefferson in New Jersey.
I remember when then-District Attorney Seth Williams went hard after Monsignor William Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s supervisor of priest assignments, who was convicted on one of two counts of child endangerment for “knowingly placing minors in danger when he reassigned troubled priests to parishes where they would have access to children.” Msgr Lynn wound up serving almost three years of his three-to-six year sentence, when his conviction was overturned, twice actually, for Mr Williams and Judge Teresa Sarmina misapplying the law.
So, with all of this, why isn’t current Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner going after Thomas Jefferson University and the Rothman Orthopaedic Institute for doing what is a very similar thing? According to the Inquirer, Rothman basically moved Dr Abraham to someplace where his conduct wasn’t widely known, and to a hospital network outside of their control . . . and their liability.
Amid investigations by the university and Rothman, Abraham said, a Jefferson top doctor offered him a deal in a private conversation: Take a voluntary leave, and we won’t report the alleged sexual misconduct.
Congress generally expects health institutions employing doctors accused of wrongdoing to file a report into the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPDB), a federal tracking system.
Hospitals must query the data bank before credentialing a newly hired doctor to ensure that the person hasn’t gotten into trouble elsewhere. Data bank reports also go to state licensing boards.
In court depositions, Abraham recalled getting a phone call from Edmund Pribitkin, chief physician and executive vice president of Jefferson Health, telling him that he had to take an immediate leave of absence from Jefferson.
If he didn’t do as told, Pribitkin said, the sexual assault allegations would go before the hospital’s medical executive committee and they’d likely have to report him to the NPDB, according to Abraham.
So, Rothman essentially blackmailed Dr Abraham into taking an immediate leave, by saying that the Institute would commit a crime by not reporting the sexual assault allegations. Perhaps it’s not just the District Attorney who needs to look into this, but the United States Attorney as well, given that this is an allegation of violation of federal law.
There’s a lot more information at the Inky’s original, and it’s not limited to subscribers, though if you access more than a few articles a month, the paywall does come down.
As a Mass-every-Sunday Catholic, I was very disappointed with the allegations against Msgr Lynn. At most, I saw what he was alleged to have done as a crime by Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, but when this became a criminal case, the Cardinal, by then retired, 88-years-old, and suffering from cancer and dementia, couldn’t be tried. Early in the trial, Judge Sarmina ruled that Cardinal Bevilacqua was able and competent to give testimony as a witness in the case, but just two days after her ruling, the Cardinal died in his sleep. But while Mr Williams and Judge Sarmina misapplied the law as it stood, which resulted in an unfair, and eventually reversed, conviction, the point that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia shuffled around offending priests to keep them from being defrocked or, worse, charged, tried, and convicted in sexual abuse cases was a valid one. Supervisory officials such as then Pennsylvania State University President Graham Spanier, Athletic Director Tim Curley, and Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Gary Schultz, who was responsible for oversight of the campus police department, were all held accountable for covering up former Assistant Football Coach Jerry Sandusky’s rape of a young boy, though they were incarcerated for just a couple of months each.
The Inquirer’s story is the first step, and now law enforcement needs to look into this case. Yeah, there are some wealthy and powerful interests involved here, people able to pay for major league legal help, but the potential prosecution has plenty of money as well. Hold them accountable, and maybe some other good old boys network will think twice before covering up things.
Killadelphia Dear Philadelphia Inquirer: Don't tell us a story, just tell us the truth!
We previously noted the killing of three Philadelphia teenagers in a quadruple shooting in the 5900 block of Palmetto Street, and how The Philadelphia Inquirer gave us several paragraphs telling us what good kids the victims were. I expressed some doubt about that, given an odd line noting the belief of the Philadelphia Police Department that the alleged shooters then took the surviving victim to the hospital.
We then pointed out, the following day, the seeming editorial slant of the Inquirer to tell us that some juvenile victims of homicide are as pure as the wind-driven snow, even if the early evidence seems to cast doubt on that.
Well, here we go!
‘Transaction’ gone wrong led to the shooting of four teens in Northeast Philly on Friday, police say
The victims’ families, meanwhile, are grieving and preparing to bury their children.
by Ellie Rushing | Monday, May 1, 2023
Police say they have identified two people who are wanted in connection with a quadruple shooting in Northeast Philadelphia on Friday that left three juveniles dead and another seriously injured, and investigators believe the violence was the result of a “transaction” gone wrong.
Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Homicide Unit, said that around 2:15 p.m., two groups of young men arrived in separate cars on the 5900 block of Palmetto Street, and went inside a rowhouse “for some sort of transaction.”
But at some point during the meeting, shortly after 3:15 p.m., something went wrong and gunfire erupted, Ransom said.
“Some sort of transaction,” huh? Just what sort of “transaction” in a private residence can result in gunfire?
Ransom declined to say what the transaction involved, citing the ongoing investigation.
Drugs? Perhaps selling guns? The police haven’t told us, but my imagination isn’t quite good enough to guess what sorts of legal “transaction” could have been involved, despite the characterization in the previous Inky story telling us what great kids the victims were.
Ransom said two cousins are wanted in connection with the shooting: Tyree Lennon, 22, and Taj Lennon, 15.
No, of course the Inquirer didn’t provide us with Tyree Lennon’s mugshot; that came from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News. Mr Keeley continued, in the series of tweets, to tell us something about the older Mr Lennon:
22yr old WANTED by @PhillyPolice in TRIPLE MURDER of 14, 17 & 18 yr olds on Palmetto St. had just been released by a judge & put on house arrest just 15 days before the three teens shot & killed at the home. He had already (violated) the house arrest in the days before murders.
2/3 Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office requested $1 Million bail. Judge then reduced that to 10% of $400k & put him on house arrest. He had three bench warrants. One for violent attack on 11 month old baby in the SAME Palmetto Street house where murders happened Friday.
3/3 Law Enforcement sources say on October 24, 2020, Tyree Lennon bit 11 month old baby on face, leg & arm drawing blood. Sources say he then beat & strangled baby’s mother. @phillypolice had “violent struggle with Lennon” when they arrested him that day & he had ghost gun on him.”
4/ on April 13th, just 15 days before the triple murder, @philadao (Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office — DRP) asked for over $1 Million bail on all of (Lennon’s) prior gun & aggravated assault charges. Bench warrant court Judge reduced it & permitted house arrest release.
5/ He had already violated the house arrest before the murders in Palmetto Street house. Another bench warrant for that house arrest violation was issued the day after the triple murder April 29th.
Tweets slightly edited by The First Street Journal for spacing and clarity.
As we have previously noted, the rest of the professional media in Philly don’t much like Mr Keeley reporting the facts when it comes to crime, but the Inquirer story had no details on Tyree Lennon other than his name, and a site search of inquirer.com for “Tyree Lennon”, at 12:42 on Tuesday, May 2nd, returned no other stories mentioning him.
Some have stated on Twitter that it was Judge Jacki Lyde-Frazier who reduced Mr Lennon’s bail. If this is true, how do we hole Judge Frazier-Lyde accountable for reducing the bail to a level that Mr Lennon could manage, to let him out of jail, to (allegedly) shoot four people? When even the notoriously police-hating, soft-on-crime District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office are requesting a million-dollar bail amount, you know that they believed that Mr Lennon was a real threat and flight risk.
Back to the Inky:
Two others, ages 15 and 16, have also been charged with illegal gun possession in connection with the incident. Police believe the teens dropped off a 16-year-old, who had been shot in the stomach at the Palmetto Street shooting, at Jefferson Frankford Hospital on Friday afternoon. Police recovered their vehicle, a Ford Edge, crashed nearby shortly after and arrested the teens.
There’s a lot of information we haven’t been given. Were the two teens arrested with the Lennons, or were they with the victims? Whichever it was, they were carrying firearms illegally.
“My son was a good kid,” said Khalif Frezghi’s mother, who asked not to be named for privacy reasons. “He was caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
We really can’t expect a murder victim’s mother to say anything other than something good about him, but if he was at the Lennons’ for an unspecified but very probably illegal “transaction,” he was more than at “the wrong place, at the wrong time,” but also there for the wrong thing, with the wrong people, as well.
After the previous quoted paragraph were more, telling us what good kids the deceased were, and the Inquirer published them uncritically. The Inky is still trying to push the image that the deceased were just innocent little angels, trying to tell us a story rather than simply telling us the truth.
Hold them accountable!
Edwin Vargas, via Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.
Meet Edwin Vargas. If you were expecting to see Mr Vargas’ mugshot in The Philadelphia Inquirer, your expectations would have been dashed, but at least the Inky covered his arrest:
Man arrested for quadruple shooting that killed 3 in Mayfair
Edwin Vargas also is charged with murder that occurred on Jan. 3. Vargas has been in custody since Jan. 18 for an earlier gun incident.
by Robert Moran | Tuesday, January 24, 2023
A 24-year-old man is facing murder charges for the deaths of three young men in a quadruple shooting on Jan. 9 in the city’s Mayfair section, police said.
We had previously noted the killings in Mayfair. We said then:
According to the city’s shooting victims database, which records only three victims, not four, and only two fatally shot, not three, as of 12:22 PM EST on Tuesday, January 10th, the victims were all Hispanic white males; what I have often called The Philadelphia Enquirer[1]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. doesn’t want to tell you that part. As of this writing, the 18-year-old victim does not appear on the database.
A check of the city’s shooting victims database, which now lists 124 shooting victims since the beginning of the year, now lists all four victims.
Mr Vargas was already behind bars, and has been charged with another murder that occurred on January 3rd, but had been locked up since January 18th for a December 30th “gun incident”. The police finally connected him with the January 3rd killing after he had been jailed, and then detectives sought a warrant for him for the triple murders.
But here comes the money line:
Court records show Vargas has been in and out of jail as an adult since late 2016, when he pleaded guilty for firearms violations.
Last July, Vargas pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a telecom device by an inmate.
On Aug. 30, he was released from prison.
Under Pennsylvania Title 18 §5123(c)(2), illegal possession of a telecom device by an inmate is a first degree misdemeanor. Under Title 30 §923(a)(7), the sentence for a first degree misdemeanor is “a fine of not less than $1,500 nor more than $10,000, or imprisonment not exceeding five years, or both.”
Yet, according to the Inquirer, Mr Vargas was locked up for less than two months for this crime.
So, Mr Vargas, “in and out of jail as an adult since late 2016”, and with who knows how many juvenile offenses under his belt, could have been locked up until 2027, but someone, somewhere, decided that nahhh, they could let him back out on the streets.
And now four people are stone-cold graveyard dead.
Mr Vargas is, of course, innocent of those four murders until proven guilty, but if he is guilty of even one of them, whoever decided to turn this fine gentleman loose has the victim’s, or victims’ blood on his hands. Will that person, or persons, ever be held accountable?
That, of course, is a rhetorical question: no, nobody will be held accountable. But if we did hold prosecutors, judges, and parole boards accountable for the crimes committed by previously convicted criminals who could have still been behind bars but were treated leniently and released before the maximum possible sentence, we would see crime rates go down dramatically, if for no other reason than the bad guys would spend more time in prison and less out on the streets. Had Mr Vargas been behind bars when he could have been, when the state already had him in custody, four more men — assuming the charges are correct — could still be alive today.
References
| ↑1 | RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but, reminiscent of the National Enquirer as it is, I thought it very apt. |
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Hold her accountable! Judge Traci Brislin's decisions and lack of action contributed to the murder of a Lexington woman
We reported, on Saturday, on the murder of Talina Henderson, allegedly by her husband Stephon Henderson. Today, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s Taylor Six told us more:
‘No imminent threat.’ Lexington woman was killed days after requesting EPO against husband
by Taylor Six | Monday, November 28, 2022 | 1:44 PM EST | Updated: 5:51 PM EST
Just three days before 47-year-old Talina Henderson was allegedly shot and killed by her husband, she filed for an emergency protection order against him, court records show.Judge Traci Brislin, from Kentucky Court of Justice, and is a public record.
However, family court Judge Traci Brislin said there was “no imminent threat” to Henderson, and no protective order was entered into the court’s file. A hearing was set to take place on Nov. 30, according to online court records.
Henderson filed for the emergency protection order on Nov. 20 and said that her husband, Stephon Henderson, 59, was verbally and emotionally threatening her. She stated in court records that weapons were involved, and thought her husband to be armed and dangerous. Talina Henderson wrote in court records that her husband would “put hands on (her), or have someone else do harm.” . . .
During Henderson’s court arraignment on Monday, the EPO violation charge was dropped because no official order of protection had been filed against him.
How is it that Talina Henderson reported that her husband, a previously convicted felon, was “armed and dangerous” did not result in the police being notified and sent to search his residence and him? Why wouldn’t notifying the court that a convicted felon was probably armed not generate a response?
Some people keep arguing that we need more gun control, but in this instance, when the courts are notified of a potentially violent person, in probable violation of an existing gun control law, shouldn’t that have led to a quick response?
A previously convicted felon in possession of a handgun, is a violation of KRS §527.020 (2)(a), a Class C felony, punishable by a minimum of five and maximum of ten years in the state penitentiary under KRS §532.060, even if he never uses it. Stephon Henderson could have been taken into custody, locked up, and charged with that offence before he (allegedly) killed his wife.
If the information in Miss Six’s story is correct, isn’t Judge Brislin responsible, at least in part, for Mrs Henderson’s murder? She decided, despite being faced with a plea from a distraught and threatened woman, that Mrs Henderson was not facing an “imminent threat” from her husband, that no emergency protection order would be filed.
“Tonight when he was threatening me, he was so close to me that I was afraid of being hit or hurt,” Henderson stated in her Nov. 20 petition. “I called the police and was recommended to file this EPO because as they were talking to him they could hear the anger that he had in his voice.”
Why wouldn’t Judge Brislin, upon seeing that in Mrs Henderson’s petition, not file the EPO? How did the Judge determine that Mrs Henderson was not threatened when she said he was, e3specially when she claimed that the police told her to do so? Instead, she scheduled a hearing on the matter ten days after the petition.
Judge Brislin needs to be held accountable for the consequences of her decisions and her apparent inaction in not having the Lexington Police Department notified that a previously convicted felon was in probable possession of a firearm. Because Judge Brislin did the wrong thing, Talina Henderson is stone-cold graveyard dead.
This is important: lenient judges, lax prosecutors, and inept parole boards around the country have exposed Americans to serious danger, and all need to be held accountable for the consequences of their rotten decisions. If we can start holding them accountable, we’ll soon see maximum prosecutions, maximum sentences, and very few early releases, which will keep criminals off the streets!
Hold them accountable For all practical purposes, lenient prosecutors, judges and parole boards have been accomplices in the crimes of those not treated seriously
Five people were killed and another 18 wounded, some critically, allegedly by Anderson Lee Aldrich. As Robert Stacy McCain reported, Mr Aldrich, in June of 2021:
was in an armed standoff with police at his mother’s home in Colorado Springs. He was charged with multiple felonies, but for reasons as yet unknown, the charges were dropped and records in the case were sealed. Seventeen months later, Aldrich was wearing body armor when he stormed into a local gay bar with a rifle and a pistol, shooting multiple people, five of whom died in the shooting rampage before bar patrons — one of them a former Army officer — tackled and disarmed him.
You can read the rest at Mr McCain’s site, but it has to be asked: why was Mr Aldrich out on the streets? Why was he able to buy a rifle? Why were the charges dropped and records sealed. But, most importantly, who took the decisions which left a crazy person out on the streets, able to (allegedly) commit the crimes with which he has been charged?
The New York Post reported that:
A Connecticut felon with a lengthy rap sheet fatally stabbed his 11-month-old daughter and dismembered her — then got into an argument with her mom and fled, police said.
Police are on the hunt for Christopher Francisquini, 31, who is accused of murdering Camilla Francisquini on Friday morning at their Millville Avenue home in Naugatuck, the Hartford Courant reported.
After allegedly committing what Police Chief Colin McAllister described Monday as a “horrific and gruesome” crime, Francisquini got into a fight with Camilla’s mom, who was unaware the girl was already dead.
During the argument, Francisquini allegedly destroyed the mother’s cellphone, removed a GPS tracking device from his ankle and fled in a 2006 gray Chevy Impala.
I noted that the nation’s second oldest daily newspaper, the New York Post, founded in 1801 by Alexander Hamilton, cited the nation’s oldest surviving newspaper, the Hartford Courant. Inasmuch as I frequently cite The Philadelphia Inquirer, our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, that part interested me. But I digress.
Further down:
Francisquini has been convicted of assault and drug charges — and also has various pending assault and theft-related cases.
He got out of prison in June and is on special parole until 2032, WFSB reported. He managed to remove his tracking device before going on the lam, police said.
The same questions which I asked concerning Mr Aldrich apply to Mr Francisquini: why was he granted a “special parole,” and why, iif his pending charges of assault and theft occurred after he was paroled, was he not taken back into custody? He was wearing an ankle monitor, so the police knew where he was! And again, most importantly, who took the decisions which left this guy out on the streets?
Now we have a “disgruntled employee” of a Walmart in Chesapeake, Virginia, who murdered six other people before killing himself. The identity of the shooter and whatever interactions he may or may not have had with law enforcement have not yet been released. But when that information is made public, will we be asking the same questions?
On saving this story during the process of writing it, the system notified me that this will be, when published, my 32nd article entitled Hold Them Accountable. From Latif Williams, who (allegedly) killed Temple University student Samuel Collington but was out on the streets because District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office didn’t already have him locked up, to Cody Arnett, now sentenced to life in prison for raping a Georgetown College student, after having been paroled early despite having five prior violent felony convictions, to Benjamin Robert Williams, not charged despite being arrested as being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm, and with a twenty-year criminal history now charged with the murder of his girlfriend, to Brandon Dockery, sentenced in 2012 to 45 years in prison for arson but free in 2021 to go out and (allegedly) kill someone, to Nikolas Cruz, given every break possible by the Broward County Sheriff’s Department and the school district, thus free to buy a gun, and then murdered 17 people and wounded 17 other, to Hassan Elliot, given a lenient plea bargain arrangement by Mr Krasner’s office, released even earlier than that, violated parole more than once, but still not locked up, who then murdered a Philadelphia Police Officer.
So, what would happen if we started holding judges and prosecutors and parole boards accountable for the crimes committed by criminals they sentenced too lightly, prosecuted too leniently, or released too early? A Georgetown College Coed would not have been raped had the Kentucky State Parole Board not released Mr Arnett early; Police Corporal James O’Connor IV would still be alive, if the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office had had Mr Elliot locked up again on his parole violations, and Mr Collington would still be alive today.
Can you give me one good reason why Mr Krasner should not be standing trial, right along with Mr Elliot for the killing of Corporal O’Connor? Is there any reason that the members of the Kentucky State Parole Board shouldn’t be serving the same life sentence as Mr Arnett?
If we held these people accountable for the crimes committed by thugs who they could have had behind bars, we’d quickly find that prosecutors would seek maximum sentences, judges would sentence criminals to the maximum terms allowed under the law, and parole boards wouldn’t turn anyone loose before he had served his full term in prison. We would also have far lower crime rates, far fewer people murdered, far fewer women raped.
Our state legislatures are elected by the people, and do the people’s will. When they pass strict laws, when they set serious maximum sentences, they are responding to what the public and society need, and then we have lenient prosecutors and judges and parole boards undermining all of that. We need to start holding those people accountable for the damage to which their decisions have led!
Perhaps these people really do mean well, but meaning well is not enough; for all practical purposes they have been accomplices in the criminal acts committed by those already in custody, who were not fully punished for the crimes for which they had been previously arrested, and were let go early.
Hold them accountable! It won't happen, but Larry Krasner should be jailed right along with the other Roxborough High School shootings defendants
It is, I suppose, not a surprise that this article in The Philadelphia Inquirer is marked For Subscribers Only. They actually did the journalism, but perhaps they didn’t want too, too many non-liberals to see how bad District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions really are. But I subscribe that so you don’t have to!
Why the accused Roxborough gunman was out on bail at the time of the shooting, despite his conviction for another crime
“Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said.
by Ellie Rushing | Wednesday, October 19, 2022 | 5:34 PM EDT
Yaaseen Bivins. Mugshot via Philly Crime Update, because you know the Inquirer would never print it. Click to enlarge.
Yaaseen Bivins was free on bail when police say he shot five teens outside Roxborough High School last month, eight weeks after he was convicted of plowing his car into a pregnant woman and killing her unborn baby while drag racing.
Bivins, 21, was found guilty in August of aggravated assault by vehicle, illegal racing, and causing an accident involving death while unlicensed, but he walked out of the courtroom because prosecutors didn’t ask the judge to revoke his bail and jail him while he awaited sentencing.
You know, it was that subtitle in the inquirer which really got to me: “‘Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation,’ District Attorney Larry Krasner said.” Just why does it take hindsight to realize that a man convicted of an Accident involving Death or Injury While Not Licensed, a Third Degree Felony in Pennsylvania (Title 75 §3742.1 §§A1), which under Title 18 §1103(3) has a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, is going to jail, and should be sent directly to jail, do not pass Go, even while awaiting sentencing? Just why does it take hindsight to realize that a man convicted of Aggravated Assault by Vehicle, another Third Degree Felony in Pennsylvania (Title 75 §3732.1) is going to jail, and should be sent directly to jail while awaiting sentencing?
There should have been no question that Mr Bivins was going to go to jail; not requesting the revocation of his bail was an invitation for him to flee or commit other crimes.
After five paragraphs describing the frequent criticism of Mr Krasner, including by the Philadelphia Police Department and Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, we get to Mr Krasner’s excuses:
Krasner said in an interview that, in hindsight, he wishes his office had asked for Bivins to be jailed after his conviction. But he said the prosecutor assigned to the case could not have known that Bivins — who had no criminal record and never missed a court date — would go on to commit other crimes.
“Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation,” he said. “I’d love to be able to tell you we asked for it. I’d love to be able to tell you the judge did it. But we can’t go back in time.
“The picture of the defendant that was available to the court, and was available to the attorney… was a very different picture than what we know now,” he said.
The picture available to the Assistant District Attorney was one of a man who killed someone, one who was going to go to jail, and the ADA didn’t realize that leniency was not called for at that point. An ADA with any common sense, any at all, would have realized that, with Mr Bivins then in hand, the sensible thing to do was revoke bail and send him to prison to await sentencing, rather than take the chance that he’d flee.
But we already know: if you have any common sense at all, you are not going to work for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office while George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating Mr Krasner is in charge.
I’ll put it very bluntly: Larry Krasner and whatever idiotic Assistant District Attorney didn’t ask for the revocation of bail are responsible for the death of Nicolas Elizalde! They should be held accountable for 14-year-old Mr Elizalde’s death, but, of course, they won’t be.
Mr Bivins was the one who purchased the ammunition used in the guns which killed Mr Elizalde, and wounded four others, as is documented by this photo of him doing so, five days before the gang hit — I’m sorry, not “gang” hit, but simply a “rival street group” action, according to the District Attorney’s Office[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading — targeting another “rival street group” member, and which wound up killing Mr Elizalde as collateral damage.
Prosecutors routinely ask for bail to be revoked after a conviction if they intend to ask for jail time, former prosecutors said, so the defendant can start serving the sentence immediately.
“I don’t know why you wouldn’t ask to revoke bail if you believe this person actually deserves to be incarcerated,” said Chris Lynett, who worked as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia for five years before going into private practice in 2020. “You want him to serve his time and get out.”
Does this mean that Mr Krasner’s office and the ADA in the case did not intend to ask for jail time for Mr Bivins after his convictions? We don’t know that, and Mr Krasner and the ADA in question aren’t likely to tell us; that “hindsight” thing, you know? Since they charged Mr Bivins with two First Degree Felonies[2]Under Title 18 §1103(1), a First Degree Felony carries a twenty year maximum sentence. — Judge Charles Ehrlich acquitted him of those in a non-jury trial — the DA’s Office must have believed him to be a pretty bad guy.
We have long known that Mr Krasner and his defense-attorneys-as-prosecutors minions have been extremely lenient on criminals, and the result has been a tremendous spike in violent crime, but it’s rare that we get one so time-compressed and nearly immediate. Other people, closer to the situation and better at this than me might be able to put more of those cases together, and I hope that they do. Personally, I’m surprised that the Inky reported on this at all, because they cover for Mr Krasner all that they can.
References
| ↑1 | We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“ |
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| ↑2 | Under Title 18 §1103(1), a First Degree Felony carries a twenty year maximum sentence. |