Tag Archives: #Killadelphia

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If the gun laws are the problem, why aren’t the homicide rates for Philly and the rest of the Commonwealth fairly similar?

It was no surprise that six more murders occurred in the City of Brotherly Love over the weekend, including Friday. Since the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page is not updated on Saturday or Sunday, we don’t get Friday’s ‘official’ numbers until Monday morning, though this tweet let me know earlier that the carnage was on.

Well, it was 10:45 AM EDT on Monday morning as I began, and as always, I checked our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, the 17th largest in terms of circulation, The Philadelphia Inquirer, to check their coverage.

4-year-old shot in Olney barbershop

The child was struck by a single round following an argument. He is currently hospitalized and in stable condition.

by Ryan W Briggs | Sunday, August 28, 2022

A 4-year-old was wounded by gunfire following an altercation at a barbershop in the city’s Olney section — the latest of nearly 150 minors shot in Philadelphia this year.

The boy — whom police are not identifying because of his age — was with his father getting a haircut at a barbershop on the 5000 block of Rising Sun Avenue on Sunday afternoon. About 5:15 p.m., police say, they believe another patron got involved in an unrelated argument, pulled a gun, and opened fire inside the tiny salon.

Police say the boy was struck once in the right shoulder. Medics took the boy to nearby Einstein Medical Center, and he was then transferred to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and placed in stable condition.

No weapon was recovered and no arrests had been made. Police are now reviewing surveillance footage.

There’s more at the original, but it’s a story about a young boy shot, but not killed. It was also the only story on either the Inquirer’s website main page or specific crime page I could find on any of the weekend shootings. Oh, there was a week-old story about 2 killed, 1 shot in Midtown neighborhood, from Atlanta, Georgia, and Oklahoma sheriff deputy serving eviction papers shot, killed, along with several other, older stories, but not one single word about the six Philadelphians who spilled out their life’s blood on the city’s mean streets.

I’ll be blunt here: none of the six slain could have been non-Hispanic whites, because, as we noted on Saturday, the newspaper which publisher Elizabeth Hughes vowed to make “an antiracist news organization” provides plenty of coverage when white guys get killed, but mostly ignores homicides when the victims are black, because to cover that would reinforce stereotypes that blacks are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime.

Of course, readers already know that, and mostly assume that both victims and perpetrators of murder in Philly are black, unless told otherwise. There really are no secrets being kept here.

However, while the Philadelphia Police Department report six killed, the city’s shooting victims database tells me that nine people were shot to death over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, August 26th through 28th. The nine fatal shootings,[1]The embedded link will take you to the city’s original. However, the city’s chart is formatted horribly, so I downloaded it and pasted it into a Microsoft Excel file, hid some columns and … Continue reading highlighted in yellow, include seven black males and two Hispanic white males.

It is possible that three of those killed were shot in self-defense, or some other justifiable situation, which could explain the discrepancy between the database and the Police Department’s numbers.

The Editorial Board of the Inquirer likes to blame a lack of gun control laws for the increased killings:

Lawmakers in Philadelphia have long tried to pass gun safety measures, only to get rebuffed by state courts and the recalcitrant Republican-controlled legislature in Harrisburg. Just last week, a majority-Republican panel of the Pennsylvania appeals court rejected Philadelphia’s latest attempt to overturn the state law that prevents the city from enacting its own gun regulations.

Mayor Jim Kenney rightly said the city would appeal the wrongheaded decision to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

There we have the Editorial Board telling us that Philadelphia is under the same gun control laws as the rest of Pennsylvania.

In 2020, there were 1,009 murders in the Keystone State, 499, or 49.45%, of which occurred in Philadelphia. According to the 2020 Census, Pennsylvania’s population was 13,002,700 while Philadelphia’s alone was 1,603,797, just 12.33% of Pennsylvania’s totals.

Here’s how the actual numbers work out: there were 510 homicides among 11,398,903 Pennsylvanians not living in Philadelphia, for a homicide rate of 4.474 per 100,000 population, while there were 499 murders among 1,603,797 Philadelphians, which works out to a homicide rate of 31.114 per 100,000. If the gun laws are the problem, why aren’t the homicide rates for Philly and the rest of the Commonwealth fairly similar?[2]Even as late as the end of August, I have been unable to find the ‘official’ statistics for the number of homicides statewide for 2021. With 562 murders in Philly in 2021, I’m sure … Continue reading

Yeah, I know: math has now been deemed racist by some on the left, but numbers are numbers, and the math is really pretty simple. The problem is not the gun laws; the problem is something specific to Philadelphia and our other large, urban areas.

References

References
↑1 The embedded link will take you to the city’s original. However, the city’s chart is formatted horribly, so I downloaded it and pasted it into a Microsoft Excel file, hid some columns and moved others, so the reader could see the data in an easier to read format.
↑2 Even as late as the end of August, I have been unable to find the ‘official’ statistics for the number of homicides statewide for 2021. With 562 murders in Philly in 2021, I’m sure the statistical disparities would be even worse, but I cannot work with numbers I do not have available.
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Killadelphia Do gun buyback programs work?

Tweet by Captain Joseph Busa, commanding officer, 39th Police District. Click to enlarge.

There is an episode of Blue Bloods, a television series about a fictional law enforcement family, “No Questions Asked,” about a gun buyback program, in which a very distinctive, pearl-handled pistol linked to a crime was turned in, in this case by the brother of the criminal. Detective Danny Reagan had to jump through all sorts of hoops to find the criminal, since the buyback program was not supposed to produce any evidence against anyone who sold the firearms. But, in a way, it showed that the only time such a buyback program produced a weapon actually used in a crime was when it was turned in by someone else.

Philly buyback events have yielded 1,000 guns in the last three years. None had been used in crimes.

“It’s political theater,” said Joe Giacalone, a former New York Police Department sergeant-turned-CUNY criminology professor.

by Ryan W. Briggs and Ellie Rushing | Saturday, August 13, 2022

As both shootings and gun sales in Philadelphia rose to unprecedented levels last year, a growing number of residents also turned their firearms over to the city’s Police Department, data show.

In 2021, during 16 gun-buyback events — in which people are typically offered $50 to $200 gift cards for each weapon — 558 handguns and 188 long guns were turned in. That’s a 532% increase over 2019, when just five such events were held, according to police data.

Yet of the more than 1,000 weapons turned in over the last three years, not a single one has been linked to a crime.

Ahhh, the journolism[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading of The Philadelphia Inquirer! The article headline states that none of the guns bought back “had been used in crimes,” but the article tells us that none have been linked to crimes. A gun could have been used in a crime, to threaten people, but never actually fired, in which case there would be no expended bullets recovered to test for ballistics which could link a particular weapon to a crime.

The number of buyback events — and media attention surrounding them — has grown in reaction to the city’s escalating gun violence crisis. But experts on the issue say the lackluster statistics show the events are not effective in reducing crime.

“It’s not reaching the area of the community that’s possessing illegal guns and using them,” said Joe Giacalone, a former New York Police Department sergeant-turned-CUNY criminology professor.

“It’s political theater.”

Philadelphia Police Capt. Frank Palumbo, who coordinates with community groups to staff buyback events, acknowledged that police generally do not expect crime guns to be turned in. But he said getting just one gun off the street could still potentially prevent a fatal shooting.

“It tends to be family people, mom-and-pop-type people” attending the events, he said. “It’s people that want to get a gun potentially out of the hands of a toddler that might frequent their homes, or get rid of a gun they don’t use or have the means to secure.”

And there you have it: even the Inky is admitting that these silly programs aren’t targeting the actual criminals. Captain Palumbo tells us that he knows that the bad guys, the ones who expect to use a firearm criminally, aren’t about to give up the tools of their trade.

‘Guns do not belong in the home’

Philadelphia is often credited with launching the first gun-buyback program. In 1968, amid a wave of interest in gun-control regulations nationally, City Council and the police commissioner-turned-mayor, Frank Rizzo, organized a “gun turn in” event, although initially no money was offered for the weapons.

Rizzo noted then that the program was not aimed at nabbing criminals but attracting “good citizens” interested in doing their civic duty to get guns out of circulation.

“Guns do not belong in the home,” Rizzo said. “Many homicides occur because a weapon was handy.”

Mr Rizzo presided over four straight years as mayor of over 400 murders per year, and an average of 349.5 for the four years of his second term.

Whatever the late Mr Rizzo’s views about firearms not belonging in people’s homes, it has become very apparent that Philadelphians have been buying weapons, and obtaining concealed carry permits, at a record pace because they have no confidence that the city and Philadelphia Police Department can or will protect them. The Police Department is seriously undermanned:

Shortages in the Police Department have been well-documented. The force, authorized to have 6,380 officers and nearly 1,000 more civilian staff, has 400 vacancies and hundreds more officers off-duty on injury claims. The department saw 195 uniformed officers retire last year, double from five years prior.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw has repeatedly said the department is at its lowest staffing levels in years, hampering its ability to fight crime because it can’t replicate the work of a force that was at least 10% larger several years ago.

That’s a problem in a city that has, over the past two years, seen its highest rates of gun violence in generations. Reports of other crimes, including carjackings and auto thefts, have skyrocketed since the spring of 2020. In the meantime, average police response times jumped 20% in 2021 compared to the year before, according to an Inquirer analysis of department records.

There’s an old saying, “When seconds count, the police are only minutes away.” Well, in short-staffed Philadelphia, the police are, on average, 22 minutes away.

Of course, there were a few guns not bought back in the City of Brotherly Love:

Pregnant woman shot in the head among 15 gun violence victims in Philly in less than 24 hours

The violence occurred over about 21 hours from noon on Friday through 9:30 a.m. Saturday, leaving at least three dead.

by Nick Vadala and Robert Moran | Saturday, August 13, 2022 | Updated: 8;25 PM EDT

A woman seven months pregnant who was shot in the head, a 6-year-old boy grazed by a stray bullet, and four people injured in a drive-by shooting were among at least 15 shooting victims in Philadelphia on Friday and Saturday, police said.

The violence occurred over about 21 hours, from noon on Friday through 9:30 a.m. Saturday, leaving at least three dead. Police reported no arrests.

Actually, it started earlier than that: a 64-year-old woman was stabbed to death, allegedly by a 16-year-old relative, in the early morning hours on Friday.

2626 North Bouvier Street. Click to enlarge.

The shootings happened as gun violence continues to surge in the city, with 338 homicides and 1,149 shooting victims as of Thursday — 3% more than on the same date last year, which ended in a record 562 homicides.

The pregnant woman, said to be in her 20s, remained in extremely critical condition Saturday at Temple University Hospital.

It was shortly after 10 p.m. Friday when at least two people — including one with a powerful rifle — started shooting at her and a 15-year-old boy while they sat in a white Honda on the 2600 block of North Bouvier Street in North Philadelphia, said Inspector D.F. Pace.

The teenager died a short time later, Pace said.

Police found 43 spent shell casings at the crime scene.

At least 43 rounds fired, in a very narrow street, and the woman is still alive?

The 2600 block of North Bouvier Street — really, one of the city’s very narrow, alley-like streets — isn’t exactly the greatest neighborhood in North Philly, adjacent to Strawberry Mansion. Zillow is telling me that 2626 North Bouvier Street sold for $133,000 on March 26, 2022.

The Inquirer article lists three dead from shootings. With the stabbing, I count four. That makes at least 342 murders in the city, and that’s only the early evening on Saturday night. Looks like the bad guys didn’t turn in their weapons for buyback.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
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Killadelphia Not all murders in Philly are in the combat zone neighborhoods

The Philadelphia Police Department updates its Current Crime Statistics Page only during “normal business hours,” Monday through Friday, so homicides on Friday, Saturday and Sunday are not reported until Monday morning. The City of Brotherly Love — and yes, while I like to use various nicknames for places, using Philly’s nickname is pretty much mocking it these days — had no reported murders on Thursday, leaving the city with 338 homicides, nine more, 2.74% more, than the same date in 2021.

But just because the numbers won’t be officially reported until Monday, we already have one for Friday on the books:

Woman fatally stabbed in South Philadelphia home; 16-year-old relative is person of interest

Police responded to the home on the 2300 block of South 20th Street shortly before 12:30 a.m. Friday.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Friday, August 12, 2022

A 64-year-old woman was stabbed to death early Friday morning and police said a 16-year-old relative is being treated as a person of interest.

Shortly before 12:30 a.m. Friday, police responded to a report of a stabbing in a home on the 2300 block of South 20th Street. When police arrived, they found the woman with multiple stab and cut wounds to her neck in the second floor hallway of the home, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Scott Small told reporters at the scene.

A large kitchen knife with a 10-to-12 inch blade that had blood on it was found feet away from the woman’s head, he said. The woman, whose name has not been released, was pronounced dead by a medic, police said.

The 16-year-old was found with blood on him and cuts to his hands, said Small. He was taken to Jefferson Methodist Hospital and was being treated as a person of interest.

The Inquirer story said that an arrest has been made, but that the police did not say who was in custody. However, Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News tweeted that the 16-year-old family member had been taken into custody.

This was not a typical gang-banger shooting, and, for some reason, it appears that the 16-year-old was trying to kill the owner’s cat, and the elderly woman died trying to save her cat.

The 2300 block of South 20th Street is not a terrible neighborhood. Primarily working-class rowhomes, Google Maps, at least as of September of 2019, does not show any houses with front porches barred in to keep out the bad guys, or steel bars on first floor windows. Zillow shows a guesstimated value of the home in question — yes, I know exactly which home it is — of $183,300, and some homes nearby have recently sold for more than $200,000. An obviously flipped rowhome, just a block further up South 20th Street, sold for $290,000 in January of 2021.

Yeah, most of Philly’s violence is in the combat zones, but not all of it. This could have been a kid who was already nuts, or a delinquent treated leniently by the system, or one hopped on drugs, or even just someone who, for some unknown reason, snapped; the information released to the public doesn’t tell us. But life is cheap in Philadelphia, and being in a decent neighborhood is not perfect protection.

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Killadelphia Sixty killings in Philly in July, but hey, the real problem is monkeypox!

According to the Philadelphia Police Department, there have been 317 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, July 31st. With a recorded 257 murders as of the end of June, that means that 60 dead bodies littered Philly’s mean streets just in July, topping the 48 killed in June and 54 murdered in May, making July the city’s deadliest month so far.

But there’s more. We had previously noted that, in 2021, there had been a decrease in the homicide rate in Philly, beginning July 9th. July 2021 saw 48 murders in the city.

As of June 30th, there had been 257 homicides in the city, 5.17% fewer than the 271 on the same day in 2021. At the end of July, those 317 homicides are only 0.63% fewer than the 319 last year. At least so far, last year’s ‘lull’ has not shown up. Rather, it seems as though the gang-bangers and wannabes are trying to make up for lost time.

As of the end of July in 2021, there had been 1,356 recorded shootings in Philly; compared to 1388 this year.

Philadelphia is not a monolith. Heavily segregated, much of the violence has been restricted to five dozen blocks. As Robert Stacy McCain has noted, not all neighborhoods are created equal, and if you’re white and live in Rittenhouse Square or Society Hill, you don’t have nearly as much about which to worry.

But, hey, the real problem is Monkeypox!

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“She snuck out that night and been with some bad friends.”

We have previously noted the murder of James “Simmie” Lambert, 73, beaten to death by a group of seven young Philadelphia teens. There’s outrage in the city, as people have been asking, over and over again, why a group of kids ranging from (at least) 10 to 14 years old were out on the streets running wild at 2:30 in the morning on Friday, June 24th. ‘Where were their parents?’ is the usual cry.

Gamara Mosley, mugshot by Philadelphia Police Department, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

Well, one of the parents, the mother of 14-year-old Gamara Mosley, who has been charged with third-degree murder, was dumb enough to talk to reporters:

‘I’m sorry, as a parent’: Mother of 14-year-old charged in death of James Lambert, Jr. speaks out

By Alex Holley | Published July 15, 2022 11:33PM | Updated July 16, 2022 7:17AM | Philadelphia | FOX 29 Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – Young teens are charged as adults in the deadly assault of 73-year-old James Lambert, Jr. and the mother of one of those teens, 14-year-old Gamara Mosley, sat down with Alex Holley Friday to talk about her daughter.

“All social media about me and my child is not true. I’m not a bad mom,” mom Shara stated.

A whole lot of people would disagree that Shara — no last name is given in the article — isn’t a bad mother.

“What do you say to some people who looked at that video and say, ‘How could a good kid be capable of something like that, beating a 73-year-old man with the traffic cone to his death?” Holley asked.

“It’s the other kids and, you know, bad influence. She probably didn’t know, didn’t mean to do it,” Shara answered.

From Chapter 18 §2502.

Young Miss Mosley is shown, on the surveillance video, picking up a traffic cone and throwing it at the victim’s head, but hey, she probably didn’t really mean to do that. Perhaps, just perhaps, had Shara been a good mother, and taught her lovely daughter that assaulting an elderly, partially disabled man — photos of Mr Lambert show him holding a cane — is not a good or acceptable thing to do, her daughter wouldn’t be locked up and facing a first-degree felony in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Under Pennsylvania Chapter 18 §2502, as I read it, young Miss Mosley could have just as easily been charged with second-degree murder.

Under Pennsylvania Title 18 §106(b)(2), “A crime is a felony of the first degree if it is so designated in this title or if a person convicted thereof may be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, the maximum of which is more than ten years.” The normal sentence would be 10 to 20 years, but it could be longer. Second-degree murder can carry a sentence of life in prison.

“Since her dad’s gone, it’s just…things are different cause we ain’t got that family no more, like we used to have. We used to be in the house and stuff like that as a family,” Shara explained. “She’s going through a lot.”

“Why was it important for you to talk to us?” Holley asked.

“That’s my daughter and I care. And, like I said, she wasn’t with me when it happened. She snuck out that night and been with some bad friends,” Shara answered.

“So, she’s never snuck out before?” Holley asked.

“No,” Shara replied.

Just how does her mother know that Miss Mosley has never “snuck” out before?

Shara apologized to the family of Mr Lambert in the interview, but the family were having none of it:

Family of 73-year-old murder victim speaks out, asking for all involved to be charged

By Shawnette Wilson | Published July 15, 2022 11:46PM

Richard Jones, mugshot by Philadelphia Police Department, and is a public record. Click to enlarge.

CENTER CITY – James Lambert’s niece says she wants all of the kids charged and she doesn’t accept an apology she heard from one of the parents Friday evening.

“She’s not a bad kid. Why did she have to be around them kids that make her do them things?” stated the mother of one of the two teens charged, Shara.

Tania Stephens, the niece of James Lambert, Jr, reacting to the words from the from Shara, whose 14-year-old daughter, Gamara Mosley, is charged with murder and conspiracy in the death of Lambert.

14-year-old Richard Jones and Mosley are both charged with Third Degree Murder and Conspiracy, as adults, which is why their photos are being shown.

A 10-year-old was released and not charged and a 13-year-old girl, whose lawyer says she tried to stop it, was also released and isn’t facing charges.

Stephens reached out to FOX 29 to speak after seeing, over the past week, four children turn themselves in with lawyers and their family alongside them. “I want everyone to be charged. Everyone. I don’t want house arrest. They were all part of the crime, no matter if they actually threw a cone. They were there and everyone is guilty even the parents, from the 10-year-old, to the parents.”

Miss Stephens continued to say that those who physically assaulted Mr Lambert should be charged with murder, and those in the group who did not should be charged with aiding and abetting.

It has to be asked: what legal liabilities do the parents of these seven delinquents face? They clearly failed in their responsibilities as parents to rear their children properly. The answer is that they almost certainly face no legal problems, though they ought to be at the very least ostracized and run out of town. Of course, that would just mean that some other town would wind up with those parents living there.

The area in which Mr Lambert was murdered is not that bad looking. A row house at 2021 Cecil B Moore Avenue, a block from 21th Street where the murder occurred, is currently for sale, listed at $439,900, while another in the general area is listed at $405,900. There are some other properties in the area listed for lower, but some of them are vacant lots.

Yes, I do look at real estate listings to judge the character of a neighborhood, though I can’t imagine spending over $400,000 for those places. Of course, the fact that we just bought a house in better condition — at least now that my nephew and I redid the plumbing — than the ones listed for a whopping $69,999 might color my opinion on that, but that house is in a small town in east-central Kentucky!

I have to say that I agree with Miss Stephens: all of these kids need to be charged. I can understand why some people are reluctant to charge a 10-year-old, but in Pennsylvania, 10-year-olds can be declared delinquents, and the 10-year-old in question is the brother of 14-year-old Richard Jones, charged with murder, and very probably brought up the same as Mr Jones. The attorney of a 13-year-old girl involved claimed that she attempted to stop the beating, and called 911 to get Mr Lambert help after it was over, but she was still there, and under Pennsylvania law, she was an accomplice.

As we previously noted, The Philadelphia Inquirer printed an OpEd piece, 2½ weeks after Mr Lambert was murdered, claiming that the Commonwealth should cease charging juveniles with crimes to be tried in adult courts. But criminals charged as juveniles have one huge advantage: not only are they released based on age rather than the severity of the crime, but juvenile records are sealed, meaning that, if soft-hearted and soft-headed, social and racial justice warrior District Attorney Larry Krasner gets the charges knocked down to juvenile offenses, Mr Jones and Miss Mosley and perhaps some of the other three killers who have yet to turn themselves in, or be apprehended, could, after age 18, return into the community and apply for any job they wanted, and the fact that they killed somebody would not appear on their records.

If tried as adults, they would still get out of jail when they are in their prime crime-committing years.

Yes, despite her claim, it appears that Shara is a bad mother, but its more than that. Several mothers and (absent?) fathers were bad parents, in that they were allowing teenagers that young to roam the streets of North Philadelphia at 2:30 in the morning. What decent parent does that? Beyond that, the entire community apparently tolerates kids that age to be out on the streets at that time of the morning, and nothing is said.

Jail will (hopefully) punish these kids, but the prospect of prison doesn’t seem to deter most of the other bad kids in North Philly, and the cops can’t be everywhere; the Philadelphia Police Department are undermanned now, but even at full staffing they can’t cover everything.

The real solution, if there is one at all, must come from within the community itself. The people in the community must ostracize the bad kids, and rear the children who still have a chance at leading decent, normal lives to be good citizens. Race and poverty are not valid excuses.

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Killadelphia Last year saw a lull in the killings between July 9th and Labor Day; will the same happen this year?

It was one year ago today that we correctly projected the number of homicides in 2021 for Philadelphia, 562.

It was just yesterday that we noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t seem to pay much notice to the murders of young black males in the City of Brotherly Love. I pointed out, in the footnote, that with 287 homicides in 188 days (as of 11:59 PM on July 7th) equaled 1.5266 homicides per day, projecting a total of 557 for the year.

Well, it looks like the city’s thugs realized that they weren’t quite meeting their quota, because after two straight days of the Philadelphia Police Department reporting only one homicide, the gang bangers caught up: the Current Crime Statistics page shows 291 killings as of 11:59 PM on July 8th. 291 ÷ 189 days in the year, = 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year.

Then, guess what happened? Eight days later, we reported that the homicide rate had dropped slightly, to 1.5306 homicides per day, and the projection dropped down to 559.

It kept falling from there, and on Tuesday, September 7, 2021, we were able to report that there had been a real lull in killings in the City of Brotherly Love:

The Philadelphia Police Department reported that, as of 11:59 PM EDT on Labor Day, September 6th, there had been 363 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love so far this year. With 249 days of the year having elapsed, that gives Philly an average of 1.4578 murders a day, which would yield 532 murders for the entire year, if that average was maintained.

As we reported on July 9th, the city then had a rate of 1.5397 homicides per day, for a projected 562 for the year. Thus, even with the really, really bad part of the year in the statistics, the ‘projected’ homicide total for 2021 has dropped by thirty souls.

But there’s more. Over the last 1½ months, the murder rate has really dropped. There had been 314 homicides as of July 22nd, the 203rd day of the year. Since that time, 46 days ago, there have been ‘just’ 49 murders, a rate of 1.0652 per day. With 116 days left in 2021, if that rate were maintained, there would be ‘just’ 124 more killings, for a total of 487 for the year, 12 fewer than last year, and 13 fewer than 1990’s all time record of 500. If that number was the final one, it would be 75 fewer homicides than the math had projected just two months ago.

Which raises the obvious question: why has the homicide rate decreased? After all, mid-July through Labor Day is part of the long, hot summer, when killings seem to be at their peak. Did a really bad gang or two just get completely wiped out? Did a few gangs come up with a truce? Whatever happened, this ought to be a question real journalists would attempt to investigate.

The Philadelphia Police Department does not report the statistics on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, so we won’t get the numbers specifically for today, but only the aggregate totals for Friday, today, and Sunday on Monday morning. My question is: will we see a similar lull this year, as the hottest part of the summer is coming upon us? Just yesterday, I did the math: 280 homicides ÷ 188 days = 1.4894 per day, or a projected 543.62 murders for the year. Done a different way, dividing the number of murders this year, 280, by the same number on the same day as last year, 287, and then multiplying by 562, last year’s homicide total, I came up with a projected 548.29 killings. Either way, the city is looking at a homicide total in the 540-550 range.

The lull didn’t last in Philly. On September 24, 2021, the day before Thanksgiving, the city tied its all-time record of 500, set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990, pushing the rate back up to 1.5244 per day, for a projected 556.40 homicides for the year. After that, the rate kept slowly creeping up, and at the end of the year finished with 562, 1.5397 per day.

The lull? August of 2021 was not abnormally hot, with only 14 days in which the temperature reached or exceeded 90º F, and just three in which the temperature met or exceeded 95º. Beginning on July 9, 2021, from when the lull began, there were only 7 days in which the temperature reached or exceeded 90º, and 95º was never reached. Nighttime lows — and most homicides occur during the evening and nighttime hours — were in the low 70º range throughout the period.

From July 9th through the end of Labor Day, there were only 20 days with any rain recorded, only 4 of which saw rain exceeding 1 inch.

I do not know the reason for the mid-to-end of summer lull in homicides, but it’s difficult to attribute it to the weather.

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Killadelphia: City looking at between 540 and 550 murders this year Twelve people reported murdered over the last two days, and The Philadelphia Inquirer has exactly zero stories on them.

There are times I worry that I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but the City of Brotherly Love has become just appalling. It was just yesterday that I noted that Philadelphia had seen six homicides on Wednesday, July 6th, and all six were the murders of black males.

Well, the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page now reports another six killings, as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, July 7th. The city’s Shooting Victims Database reports ‘only’ two homicides by firearms, with both victims being black males, in eight total shootings, with seven black victims, and one victim reported as being a white Hispanic male and, in the first time I have ever seen this in that database, one of the black males also reported as being Hispanic.

Mr Keeley’s math is wrong. As of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, June 30th, The Philly Police reported 257 homicides: 280 – 257 = 23. Nevertheless, this is mind boggling. Remember: twelve homicides were reported on two weekdays, not the weekend.

There may be some catch-up in the report, of people reported as seriously wounded several days ago, but if you thought that surely, surely! that even The Philadelphia Inquirer would have to have noticed, you’d have been wrong, or at least you would have been wrong at 12:03 PM EDT.

Now the math: 280 homicides ÷ 188 days = 1.4894 per day, or a projected 543.62 murders for the year. Done a different way, dividing the number of murders this year by the same number on the same day as last year, and then multiplying by 562, last year’s homicide total, I come up with a projected 548.29 killings. Either way, the city is looking at a homicide total in the 540-550 range.

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Killadelphia Idiocy, fueled by alcohol, leaves a young woman dead, and a man who'll, hopefully, spend the rest of his miserable life in prison

We have often said that The Philadelphia Inquirer does not care about murder victims unless they are an innocent, a ‘somebody,’ or a cute white girl. One second she was happy and alive, and the next she had a bullet in her brain.

Bystander killed in shooting at Northeast Philadelphia bar

The woman was later identified by a relative as Jailene Holton

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Wednesda, June 29, 2022 | 10:12 AM EDT

Jailene Holton, via Steve Keeley, Fox29 News. Click to enlarge.

A bystander was killed after a disgruntled customer sprayed bullets into a Northeast Philadelphia bar late Tuesday night, police said.

Around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, three men were kicked out of the Philly Bar and Restaurant, on Welsh Road, after causing a disturbance at the bar. While two of the men left without issues, one had to be forced out.

That man, after being thrown out, walked to a pickup truck about 200 feet away and then shot at least 15 times into the front of the bar. Five of the bullets went through the window and one struck a 21-year-old woman in the head. Continue reading →

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Killadelphia Philadelphia ties 2013's homicide totals, with more than half of the year remaining.

Congratulations for Philadelphia’s Mayor, Jim Kenney, District Attorney, Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw! As of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, under their leadership the City of Brotherly Love has, with 246 homicides this year, tied the total number of murders for the entire year of 2013.

I will admit it: I hadn’t previously thought much of former Mayor Michael Nutter. He was a liberal Democrat in a line of liberal Democrats — Philadelphia’s last Republican mayor left office while Harry Truman was still President! — and, in following John Street, I didn’t really see reason to hope that he’d be any better than Mr Street. But, under Mr Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams — who wound up with legal problems of his own, and served 2½ years in federal prison — and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, murders in the City of Brotherly Love steadily declined, from 391 in 2007, the year before Messrs Nutter and Ramsey took office — Mr Williams was elected in 2009, succeeding Lynne Abraham — down to 246 in 2013. There was an increase to 248 in 2014, and then 280 in 2015, Messrs Nutter’s and Ramsey’s final year in office.

But nothing like the increases under Mayor Kenney! 2016 saw 277 killings, but then they jumped to 315, then 353, 356, 499 and 562 last year. It was only by pure, dumb luck that 2020 finished below 500 homicides, given that there were two more on New Year’s Day of 2021, and the Philadelphia Police Department actually stated that there had been 502 homicides in 2020, before ‘correcting’ that down to 499. I fouled up and didn’t take a screen capture of that when it was up, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Were it not for the previous record of 500 homicides in 1990, under Mayor Wilson Goode, he of MOVE bombing fame, Mayor Kenney would have both first and second place in the homicide numbers.

But, not to worry: although this year’s homicide numbers are down slightly, 5.75%, the city is still on track for between 519 and 530 homicides, easily good for second place.[1]Methodology: I divided the total homicides by June 22nd of this year by 261, the number of murders on the same date in 2021, yielding 0.9425287356321839, then multiplied that number by 562, the … Continue reading

The chart to the right? That includes only those years in which homicides were at least 400; Mayor Kenney ought to break into that chart again, for this year, sometime between and October 2nd and 8th.

Whatever Messrs Kenney and Krasner, and Miss Outlaw, are doing, doesn’t work!

References

References
↑1 Methodology: I divided the total homicides by June 22nd of this year by 261, the number of murders on the same date in 2021, yielding 0.9425287356321839, then multiplied that number by 562, the number of homicides in 2021 to get 529.70. I use this method to account for the fact that there are more warm months ahead than behind, and homicides normally increase in summer and fall. Another method, dividing 246, the number of homicides, by 173, June 22nd being the 173rd day of the year, yielding a figure of 1.421965317919075 killings per day, then multiplying that by 365, yields 519.02 homicides for the year.