Tag Archives: #Killadelphia

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A Killadelphia murder update!

Robert Stacy McCain updated a story on which we had previously reported. He let me know about his update via Twitter!

‘A Philadelphia Gentleman’s Club’

by Robert Stacy McCain | January 1, 2022

These two Philadelphia gentlemen are suspects.

Euphemism alert:

Authorities have identified two suspects wanted in a double homicide that happened outside a Philadelphia gentlemen’s club on Tuesday.

Investigators say a 32-year-old man and a 42-year-old man suffered fatal gunshot wounds when an argument turned deadly in the parking lot of Club Risqué on Tacony Street around 2:30 a.m.

(Because where else would a Philadelphia gentleman be at 2:30 a.m.?)

At least The Philadelphia Inquirer was direct enough to call it a “strip club”.

Surveillance footage shared by the Philadelphia Police Department shows the suspected shooter and a female person of interest arriving at the club in a black Nissan about an hour before the shooting.

(A “female person of interest” is what they call a “lady” in Philadelphia.)

The suspect, who police say walks with a distinct limp, was wearing a blue coat and denim pants with dark-colored boots at the time of the shooting. The woman passenger labeled by police as a person of interest was wearing a white shirt with tan pants and white shoes.

Security footage from inside the vestibule of the club shows a second suspect also wearing a blue winter coat over a blue hooded sweatshirt.

There’s more at Mr McCain’s original.

Weather records for Tuesday, December 28th, indicate that it was 45º F, with light winds, and no precipitation at the time, as recorded at the Philadelphia International Airport. Why would a hooded sweatshirt and a winter coat be needed in those conditions?

Mr McCain congratulated me on the new record, but I have to be honest: I started getting morbidly interested in this in 2020, as the city kept ever closer to the record of 500 set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990, and at one point, which I noted here, the police reported 502 for 2020, setting a new record.

Then it was ‘adjusted,’ to 499. It could have been that the killings happened after midnight on December 31, 2020, and were properly assigned to 2021, but that seemed pretty ‘convenient’ to me, as a way for Mayor Jim Kenney, George Soros-stooge District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw to say, well, it wasn’t the worst year. Since the appropriately named Miss Outlaw’s Police Department is the one which releases the official figures, she would have direct authority over that report, if she chose to exercise it. I have no evidence of that, and it’s pure speculation on my part, but I don’t think it’s an unreasonable guess. I just regret that I didn’t do a screen capture of the 502 report when it came out. That was my mistake, and I won’t make it again.

Maybe they hoped that the killing would decrease, and three murders from 2020 would get lost in a 2021 with a decrease in homicide.

Good plan, huh?

__________________________

Update: 450 PM EST

I said that I wouldn’t make the mistake again. The Philadelphia Police Department are claiming 559 homicides, the same number as they listed on Friday morning, but before their ‘normal business hours’ update. The Philadelphia Inquirer stated that the 2021 homicide number is “at least 560“.

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Killadelphia starts out the New Year with a bang!

While the Philadelphia Police Department does not normally update its Current Crime Statistics page until ‘normal business hours’ Monday through Friday, we already know that the City of Brotherly Love is picking up where it (never) left off as the new year has turned:

    Deadly gun violence carries on as New Year begins

    It took less than two hours for eight people to get shot, three of them killed in two separate violent outbursts.

    by Barbara Laker | Saturday, January 1, 2022 | 11:00 AM EST

    On the streets of Philadelphia, 2022 began where 2021 left off. It took less than two hours for eight people to get shot, three of them killed in two separate violent outbursts.

    Police responded to calls for a person shot on Cecil B. Moore Avenue between Wellington and 17th Streets near Temple University at about 1:50 a.m. Saturday. Police found two people who had been shot multiple times. Both were rushed to Temple University Hospital where they died shortly after arrival. Police did not identify the victims.

    In addition, three women, also shot at the scene, either walked into Temple Hospital or were taken by car. All three were listed in stable condition, said Police Inspector D F Pace.

    All victims were part of a large group gathered to celebrate the new year.

Moore Avenue in that block, the 1600 block, is a commercial street, not residential.

Further down:

    Shortly before that shooting, at around 1:30 a.m., 25th District officers received multiple calls about gunshots in the 100 block of East Luray Street near North Front Street in Feltonville. Police found a 33-year-old man who had been shot multiple times in the chest. He was rushed to Temple Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The article noted that, in 2021, “at least 560 people in Philadelphia were murdered, a bigger tally than in more heavily populated cities including New York and Los Angeles.” I will work out the exact homicide rate when I get the final numbers.

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The tale of the Democrats’ failure in Philadelphia has been written in blood

As both of my regular readers know, I check the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page every weekday morning, to get the latest homicide numbers in the City of Brotherly Love. I was somewhat surprised that, after reporting 547 homicides through 11:59 PM on Thursday, December 23rd, the police reported ‘only’ 549 through Sunday, December 26th, and the same number as of Monday, December 27th.

Techish, 2640 Germantown Avenue, photo via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

But this morning? The police report six more dead, for a total of 555, through Tuesday, December 28th. Philadelphia Inquirer nighttime breaking news reporter Robert Moran had two stories late yesterday, Unidentified man fatally shot inside North Philly phone store, in which a masked man entered the Techish phone sales and repair shop at 2640 Germantown Avenue, and fired sixteen shots, killing an unidentified man, without any prior known provocation, and Two men killed outside Club Risque among nine shot in Philadelphia overnight, in which two men were gunned down outside the Wissinoming strip club at 5921 Tacony Street, a less than attractive area across from Interstate 95, early Tuesday morning.

Club Risque, photo via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

As usual, I had to dig for those stories; none were on the front page of the Inquirer’s website, because, as I have said many times before, black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Well, perhaps some of the six newly recorded dead had been shot the previous day, and simply didn’t expire in time to be included in the Monday stats:

    Seven are wounded, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate Philly shootings

    The shootings happened around the same time in Olney and Kensington, and later in South and North Philadelphia.

    by Robert Moran | Updated: Monday, December 27, 2021

    Seven people were injured, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate shootings Monday night in Philadelphia, police said.

    Shortly before 7:15 p.m., the teen was outside on the 200 block of Widener Street in Olney when he was shot in the face and back. He was taken by police to Einstein Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition.

    Police reported no arrests in that case.

    Around the same time, three people were shot on the 200 block of East Cambria Street in Kensington, police said.

Among the most seriously wounded:

    2300 block of South Bouvier Street, via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.

    Just before 8:40 p.m., police responded to a reported double shooting inside a residence on the 2300 block of South Bouvier Street.

    A 52-year-old woman shot twice in the head was taken by police to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was listed in critical condition. A 54-year-old man also had a gunshot wound to the head. He was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and was reported in critical condition.

At least according to Google Maps, South Bouvier Street doesn’t look too bad! More modern row houses, at least from the front, than is frequently seen in the city, though the street is one of Philly’s narrowest.

So, how many people have been murdered in Philadelphia? I noted, on Monday, January 4, 2021, that the police had reported 502 murders for the previous year. It wasn’t my imagination; that was the number showing on the then-current crime statistics page. I guess that I should have taken a screen shot of it, because somehow, three people managed to recover from death, and the number was quickly reduced to 499.

I won’t make that mistake this year!

I have my suspicions, of course. It could have been that three people reported murdered didn’t expire until after 11:59 PM EST on New Year’s Eve, and were thus counted as having been killed this year. Or, were I a conspiracy theorist, it could have been that 502 people were murdered in 2020, but three were pushed off until 2021, so that Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, District Attorney Larry Krasner, a stooge of George Soros, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, wouldn’t have that ignominious gold medal on their records, leaving 1990’s 500 as still the record number of homicides, but, if that’s the case, it didn’t work, because the city hit the 500 mark just before Thanksgiving!

There are only three days left in 2021, but with the current 2021 homicide rate of 1.5331 per day, 560 is a distinct possibility; the actual projection is 559.5994. Looking at the homicide rate since the end of the Labor Day weekend, 192 people killed in 113 days, or 1.6991 per day, the city would see 560.0973 murders.

But even if the city finishes with ‘just’ 555 killings, and we take the 2021 guesstimated population of 1,607,667 — the 2020 census showed 1,603,797 people living in Philadelphia — that works out to a murder rate of 34.52 per 100,000 population, higher than New York, higher than Los Angeles, and higher than Chicago.

Philadelphia has been governed by Democrats since before I was born, since January of 1952, when George VI was still King of England, and Harry Truman President of the United States. And one thing has become blatantly clear: the policies of the Democrats have not worked in the City of Brotherly Love!

The tale of their failure has been written blood.

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Chicago thinks it’s the nation’s murder capital. Philadelphia laughs and says, “Hold my beer!” The good people of those two fine cities are getting exactly that for which they voted.

A police officer places makers on evidence on the 3900 block of Poplar Street 18-year-old Nasir Marks was fatally shot on Tuesday, May 25, 2021. Steven M Falk, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photographer. Click to enlarge.

According to the Chicago Tribune, as of Sunday, December 19th, there had been 783 murders in the Windy City thus far in 2021, 34 more than on the same day last year. As of the same day, 540 homicides had occurred in Philadelphia. The 19th being the 353rd day of the year, that works out to 2.2181 homicides per day in Chicago, and ‘only’ 1.5297 per day in the City of Brotherly Love.

But, according to the 2020 census, there were 2,746,388 people living in Chicago, and 1,603,797 in Philly. Using the homicide rates, that works out to a projected 558 killings in Philly and 810 in Chicago. Murder rates are calculated based on 100,000 population, meaning that Chicago is headed for a homicide rate of 29.4933 per 100,000, while Philadelphia is looking at 34.7924. Philadelphia is far deadlier than Chicago!

We noted that Philadelphia tied its 1990 homicide record of 500 the day before Thanksgiving, and at that point, the city was actually seeing slightly fewer killings per day than it was on December 19th. And guess what: with 547 homicides as of the end of Thursday, December 23rd, the rate has crept up slightly again, to 1.5322 per day, making the projected number of killings 559!

I will admit to a sort of grim fascination with the numbers, but murder in Philadelphia has really changed things. One murder, it has been said, is a tragedy, but 547 is just a statistic, and to the leadership of the city, and the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer, that’s all it is, a statistic, a number that they can attribute of “gun violence,” but never examine the real problem: bad people!

In Ironic Justice: Two Anti-Police Lawmakers Get Carjacked, Robert Stacy McCain noted that two Democratic politicians, one in Chicago and one in Philly, who supported the “reform” of policing — meaning: getting even softer on crime — were carjacked within 24 hours of each other.

Illinois state Sen. Kimberly Lightford (D-Maywood) was targeted in suburban Chicago on Tuesday night, while Congresswoman Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.) was carjacked Wednesday afternoon after an event in South Philadelphia.

Well, it seems that, given that Representative Scanlon is a sitting congresswoman, the feds are getting involved:

“The investigation into this incident is in its very initial stages, and we are continuing to investigate and evaluate charging decisions,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “Armed carjacking is a serious federal crime. There have been a rash of violent crimes like this recently, and while there were national security implications to this particular incident, we are always working collaboratively with our local partners to evaluate if cases should be taken federally. Working together means more resources, more tools, more intelligence. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you pick up a gun and use it to commit a crime, together, we will come after you. And we are very good at what we do.”

In point of fact, however, if armed carjacking is a “serious federal crime,” when was the last time the feds got involved in such a case? Just two weeks ago, Philadelphia police said the city has seen an 80% increase in carjackings this year, and what had United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams done in response? Nothing, until a Democratic congresswoman got carjacked in — sweet irony! — FDR Park.

Seriously, go look through the press release archive at the U.S. Attorney’s web site and tell me if you find a case where they previously prosecuted a carjacking. I went back as far as April and didn’t find one, so if the Biden DOJ was making it a priority to “come after” carjackers before this week, they weren’t very successful at it. But then again, success really hasn’t been a hallmark of the Biden administration, has it?

Mr McCain was employing sarcasm, but there’s a not-so-veiled slam at Philadelphia’s District Attorney, Larry Krasner, a George Soros-financed stooge whose main goal is getting the bad guys released, not jailed. At some point, you’d think Philadelphians would get tired of all of the crime and violence in their city’s streets, but not tired enough: Mr Krasner was re-elected last month!

The good people of those two cities are getting exactly that for which they voted.

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Killadelphia It's not just that the raw number of homicides is increasing; the rate of killings has increased as well

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page is only updated Monday through Friday, during normal business hours, so when last I saw it, the police had indicated that there had been 513 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EST on Thursday, December 2nd. This morning, that number had jumped to 521 killings as of 11:59 PM EST on Sunday, December 6th.

That’s eight homicides in three days!

Forget the “long, hot summer” when it comes to murder in Philly. As of the end of Labor Day, September 6th, the 249th day of the year, Philly had seen 363 homicides. 363 ÷ 249 = 1.4578 homicides per day × 365 days in the year = 532.1084 homicides projected for the year.

Well, that was then, and this is now. 521 homicides ÷ 339th day of the year = 1.5369 killings per day, × 365 = 560.9587 projected murders.

But it gets worse. Labor Day is the ‘traditional end of summer’, even if it’s not autumn astronomically. Since the end of Labor Day, there have been 158 killings, in just 90 days. That works out to 1.7556 murders per day. If that rate is maintained through the end of the year, that’s another 45.6444 souls sent untimely to their eternal rewards, for a projected 567 dead bodies littering the city’s mean streets.

Yeah, I’m something of a number’s geek on this subject, but I’m also a writer, and there have been so many murders in Philadelphia that I’ve been struggling to come up with different words to use, to avoid redundancy in my prose. Perhaps that explains why The Philadelphia Inquirer has nothing on their website main page, at least as of 10:15 AM EST, not a single thing, on the eight killings over the past three days.

In reality, the editors of the Inquirer don’t want to hear about homicide in the city, not in any nitty-gritty way. I submitted the article Being taught about white privilege, by The Philadelphia Inquirer, to the newspaper as a prospective OpEd piece on Friday, December 3rd, and though I did not really expect them to print it, I did hope that maybe, just maybe, upon reading it, the editors would realize just how biased they’ve been on the reporting of the carnage in the city’s streets.[1]At least as of 10:15 AM this morning, I have neither been contacted nor received a rejection email from the Inquirer.

The American Free News Network did print it.

Of course, the Inquirer is concerned about homicide, in macro terms:

In that last one, the Editorial Board noted just how concerned they are that #BlackLivesMatter, because pregnant black women are five times more likely than white women to terminate their pregnancies. Nothing quite says black lives matter than wanting to see them being snuffed out before birth!

But none of it makes sense. In their own stories, the Inquirer noted that Latif Williams, the (alleged) killer of Samuel Collington, was a juvenile, with a criminal record, and could not be legally carrying a gun . . . but he was. They reported that Donavan Crawford, charged with the murder of Sykea Patton, was “charged overnight with murder and multiple counts of illegally carrying a gun.” Somehow, some way, the highly educated and experience editors and reporters for our nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper never noticed that the people committing crimes with guns are almost never holders of firearms permits, almost never carrying firearms legally, and, shocking, I know, aren’t that interested in obeying the law in the first place.

This is the problem that the left simply cannot see, because they are unwilling to see it. It is not a matter of guns, but the people using the guns. Since the people using guns to kill others are disproportionately black, to admit that it’s the people who are the problem is to recognize that homicide in our major cities is primarily a black problem, and that the #woke[2]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading just cannot do.

But if you cannot admit what the problem is, you can never hope to solve the problem. And the left would rather ignore the truth than deal with the truth.

References

References
↑1 At least as of 10:15 AM this morning, I have neither been contacted nor received a rejection email from the Inquirer.
↑2 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.
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Hold them accountable!

Latif Williams, photo by, Philadelphia Police Department, via KYT-TV, Philadelphia.

As we noted just a few days ago, murder is not usually an entry-level crime. Killers usually have a string of leading in crimes, of increasing seriousness, before they finally blow someone’s brains out. And it seems that 17-year-old Latif Williams was having quite the run of criminal activity before he (allegedly) shot Temple University student Samuel Sean Collington to death during a botched carjacking attempt.

I will admit to having gotten it wrong when I stated, “Since juvenile records are normally sealed, we’ll probably never know if he was treated over-leniently by District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office.” But it seems that the rules are different when a black juvenile (allegedly) kills a white student, especially one who was well-known and well-liked by several people in the city government:

    Suspect in killing of Temple student Samuel Collington — who had been arrested and released after a July carjacking — surrenders to police

    Latif Williams was in custody earlier this year in connection with a gunpoint carjacking. He was released on house arrest, and charges were later withdrawn when a witness failed to show in court.

    By Anna Orso | Wednesday, December 1, 2021 | 9:12 PM ST

    The teenage suspect in the killing of Temple University student Samuel Collington during a botched carjacking over the weekend surrendered to police Wednesday, officials said in a statement without elaborating.

    Earlier, officials had identified Latif Williams, 17, of Olney, as the person they said shot the 21-year-old Collington on Sunday on the 2200 block of North Park Avenue, near the school’s North Philadelphia campus. The student had just returned after spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his family in Prospect Park, Delaware County.

    Samuel Sean Collington, photo shared by his mother with Channel 10, and from this tweet. Click to enlarge.

    Officials on Wednesday identified Latif Williams, 17, of Olney, as the person they said fatally shot Collington, 21, of Prospect Park, Delaware County, on the 2200 block of North Park Avenue, near the school’s North Philadelphia campus, on Sunday. Investigators said they used video and forensic evidence found at the scene to link Williams to the killing, and law enforcement sources said he is under investigation in connection with several armed robberies in the area.

    Williams was in custody in August after he was charged in a gunpoint carjacking. According to court records, a man told police that late on July 31, he was giving Williams and a second male a ride to a restaurant when Williams pointed a gun at his head and told him to get out of the car. . . .

    Williams was arrested Aug. 14 and charged with aggravated assault, robbery, and related counts. His bail was initially set at $200,000 and he was detained. At a bail hearing less than a week later, Municipal Court Judge Joffie C. Pittman III allowed Williams’ release on unsecured bail, meaning he would need to pay bail only if he violated the terms of his release. Pittman ordered him released on house arrest.

So, Judge Pittman released an accused carjacker, who (allegedly) threatened his victim with a gun, with unsecured bail, which is to say: no bail at all. Mr Williams was released to house arrest, but there is no indication in the Inquirer story that young Mr Williams was placed under electronic monitoring.

    In September, prosecutors dropped the charges before a preliminary hearing at which they would have had to show that there was probable cause to believe Williams had committed a crime.

Note that the prosecution dropped this case well after Judge Pittman released Mr Williams with no bail. The prosecution was dropped because a “key witness” failed to appear. Does the District Attorney’s office make any effort to look up these witnesses before court dates, to get them to appear? We are not told in this story.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: ‘Killadelphia’ D.A. Turned Loose Teen Carjacker Who Murdered Marxist Student

It seems as though, when young Mr Williams was already in custody, law enforcement failed! First we had an idiot judge who basically turned loose a suspect charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault with no bail. Then, when a preliminary hearing was scheduled, the District Attorney’s office failed to ensure that their key witness would be present.

The result? If Mr Williams is indeed the killer, the actions, or inactions, of Judge Pittman and Larry Krasner, directly led to the murder of Mr Collington. If Mr Williams is proven to be the murderer, is there any reason why Judge Pittman and District Attorney Krasner shouldn’t become young Mr Williams’ cellmates? Is there any reason that the “key witness” who failed to appear, whose refusal to provide the evidence needed to keep Mr Williams locked up, shouldn’t be held legally responsible for the murder of Mr Collington?

We need to hold law enforcement officials and judges accountable for the consequences of their decisions! Because nobody stood up and did the right thing, Mr Collington is stone cold graveyard dead.

It’s simple: hold idiotic judges like Mr Pittman, and soft-hearted, soft-headed prosecutors like Mr Krasner, responsible for the consequences of their decisions, and other judges and prosecutors will quickly fall into line.

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Killadelphia Black lives don't seem to matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer

How many times have I said it? The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl.

A couple of ‘innocents’ have been murdered recently, the killing of Jessica Covington meriting two separate stories, while that of Sykea Patton was mentioned in two stories as well. And now another seemingly innocent person has been gunned down:

    Samuel Sean Collington, photo shared by his mother with Channel 10, and from this tweet. Click to enlarge.

    Temple University student killed in shooting Sunday

    The student was 21 years old.

    by Cassie Owens and Jonathan Lai | Sunday, November 28, 2021

    Samuel Sean Collington, a Temple University student and fellow with the City Commissioner’s Office, died Sunday afternoon shortly after being shot in North Philadelphia.

    The 21-year-old Collington was shot twice in the chest, authorities say. He was pronounced dead around 2 p.m. at Temple University Hospital. Police are still searching for a suspect.

    According to 6abc reporter Bob Brooks, sources told him that a robber attacked the student after he finished parking his car, then killed him. The incident occurred just blocks from the university’s main campus.

There’s considerably more at the original.

I will admit it: I had missed the story in the Inquirer on Sunday, and this tweet of mine was in error; the story is dated on Sunday.

But the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page reported that there have been 506 homicides in the city so far this year, after reporting an even 500 as of 11:59 PM EST on Thanksgiving day. That’s six people who have been sent early to their eternal rewards, and, unless I missed, the Inquirer didn’t mention four of them. Black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mr Collington qualifies, I suppose, as an ‘innocent,’ but also as someone already of note, as you can read in the referenced Inquirer story.

The two women slain on whom the Inquirer reported appear to be innocent victims, as is Mr Collington, but I have to ask: for the anti-racist news organization that publisher Elizabeth Hughes says the Inquirer is, and must be, why don’t we see such stories concerning the vast majority of the murder victims in the city? The vast majority of them are black males, and if #BlackLivesMatter, one would think that the Inquirer would cover them, would send out its reporters to find out and tell the stories. Instead, the paper paid more attention to the accidental killing of Jason Kutt, a white teenager shot at Nockamixon State Park, an hour outside of the city. That’s five separate stories, a whole lot more than the two or three paragraphs most victims get.

Was the life of young Mr Kutt really that much more important than that of the mostly unnamed men and women spilling out their life’s blood on the city’s mean streets? Most of them weren’t 6’5″ forwards for Simon Gratz High School, a leader on the city’s 2019 6A title, but were their lives really worth nothing? Even in death, a young black gang banger’s life can have some lesson for those growing up and somehow idealizing, or fearing, the thug lifestyle. If only Editor Gabriel Escobar would actually send out a reporter or three to investigate.

Then again, perhaps the Editor knows too much already, and doesn’t want to send a reporter out into what could be a life-threatening situation. But, that too, would be a story that ought to be told.

——————————

Update: 6:45 PM EST:

Yup, the Inquirer published a second story on Mr Collington’s murder!

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Killadelphia! The City of Brotherly Love has tied for the Gold Medal Philly has tied its all-time annual murder number, with 37 days left in the year!

That didn’t take long. It was just this morning I wrote about the city tying its second-place record of 499 homicides, set just last year.

    500th homicide: Woman, 55, fatally shot in South Philly

    It was the city’s 500th homicide so far in 2021, matching the worst year on record.

    by Robert Moran | Wednesday, November 24, 2021

    A 55-year-old woman was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon in South Philadelphia, police said.

    Her death was the 500th homicide in the city so far this year, matching the worst year on record — 1990 — and surpassing the total of 499 that occurred in 2020.

    Around 4:30 p.m., the woman was outside in the area of Seventh and Jackson Streets when she was shot three times in the chest. She was transported by medics to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 5:15 p.m.

Another murder in broad daylight.

    No arrests or other details were reported.

    Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw issued a statement Wednesday night:

    “Each and every homicide carries with it a profound sense of loss. However, for our City to have reached such a tragic milestone — 500 lives cut short — it carries a weight that is almost impossible to truly comprehend.”

    Outlaw continued: “There are not enough words to comfort our grieving families in their time of loss. However, I want these families to know that seeking justice for their loved one remains a top priority for the Philadelphia Police Department. We will continue to work with our local, state, and federal partners and other stakeholders to get ahead of the violent crime that is plaguing our beautiful communities.”

Of course, Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, had complained earlier that afternoon, that it was the fault of the state legislature for not allowing the City of Brotherly Love to issue its own, stricter gun control laws:

    As Philadelphia records 500 homicides, Mayor Kenney takes aim at the state: ‘They don’t care’

    The administration convened the gathering hours before the city’s 500th homicide, tying to record for the most in modern history.

    by Anna Orso | Wednesday, November 24, 2021

    As Philadelphia approached a record number of homicides, Mayor Jim Kenney on Wednesday said the city is doing what it can to slow the bloodshed but is stymied by state law that keeps the city from enforcing stricter gun laws.

    “There are people making money selling these guns, making these guns,” he said, “and the legislature, they don’t care about people getting killed.”

    Kenney spoke during a morning news conference at City Hall alongside police brass, federal law enforcement officials, representatives from the District Attorney’s Office, and a handful of lawmakers from City Council and the state General Assembly. . . . .

    In taking aim at the state, Kenney was repeating his frequent criticism of a concept in state law known as preemption, which generally prohibits municipalities from passing laws that limit access to firearms. His administration last year sued the state, seeking to overturn the rule, and the case remains unresolved.

    If the city was not operating under preemption, Kenney said, officials would enforce regulations that target “straw purchasers,” or people who legally purchase firearms and then illegally sell them to others. Those include setting limits on how many guns someone can buy within city limits during a specific time period.

There’s more at the original.

In a story published just yesterday, reporter Anna Orso, who wrote the story immediately above, noted:

    Donavan Crawford, 28, of West Philadelphia, was arrested Monday and charged overnight with murder and multiple counts of illegally carrying a gun.

WPVI-TV reported the charges more specifically:

    Crawford is also charged with Violation Uniform Firearms Act -Former Convict, Violation Uniform Firearms Act -No License, Violation Uniform Firearms Act -On Streets, Possessing Instruments of Crime, Recklessly Endangering Another Person and Criminal Use of Communication Facility.

In other words, it was already illegal for Mr Crawford, a previously convicted criminal, to have a firearm. Just what good does Mayor Kenney think having more gun control laws will do when people like Mr Crawford are willing to (allegedly) break the gun control laws already on the books?

Those gun control laws were on the books in 2008, when Mayor Michael Nutter, a Democrat took office, and appointed Charles Ramsey to be his Police Commissioner. In 2008, under Mr Nutter, city homicides decreased from 391 to 331, and then made steady progress, to 302, 306, 326, 331, 246, 248, with an unfortunate jump to 280 in 2015, Mr Nutter’s and Commissioner Ramsey’s last year in office.

If the homicide rate could be reduced that much under the current gun control laws by Messrs Nutter and Ramsey, why has everything collapsed under Mayor Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Commissioner Outlaw? Under Messrs Nutter and Ramsey, the city averaged a still-too-high 296.25 killings a year, while, since they left office, the average has jumped to 383.33 per year, and, with 37 days left in the year, will go higher.

Mr Krasner, whom The Philadelphia Inquirer actually endorsed for renomination, has more of a history of letting criminals go free so that they can then go out and murder people. And while the police have been making more illegal gun possession arrests than ever, under Mr Krasner, a George Soros stooge, convictions for illegal possession of firearms have dropped dramatically:

    Inspector Derrick Wood, commanding officer of Southwest Division, attributes some of the spike in VUFA arrests to what he describes as a growing lack of fear among people carrying guns due to dropping conviction rates and lower bails set by bail commissioners.

    “What I see is that the city and the criminal justice system do not take illegally carrying firearms seriously,” Wood said. “There’s been an explosion of gun violence in the last three years, and there’s more than one reason — but I think one reason is we don’t take it seriously.”

    An Inquirer review of 2019 gun arrests from the 18th Police District, in Wood’s Southwest Division, showed that of the 82 people whose cases were resolved as of January 2021, more than half, 53%, had their charges withdrawn or dismissed.

    Wood and some of his officers contend that amid this reality, they are encountering the same suspects over and over again. Fed up, they began posting photos on social media of confiscated firearms and calling for stricter consequences for carrying them.

    “They know there’s no consequences for carrying a gun in Philly. It’s zero to none,” he said. “I don’t care what kind of programs you come up with, what kind of money you put in prevention — if people are not held accountable, then people are going to keep carrying guns.”

Then, further down:

    These problems existed long before Krasner took office, and yet none seemed to prohibit his predecessors from securing a higher conviction rate. . . .

    Krasner has built his administration on the idea that fewer people belong in jail — that he was sworn in to help unravel decades of misguided policy devastating communities of color and fueling more crime.

And there you have it: Philadelphia has a District Attorney who believes that fewer people should be in jail, and he’s doing just that, putting fewer people in prison. Mr Krasner blames his lower conviction rate on the police not bringing good evidence, but how much evidence is actually needed: man found with a gun, man not legally allowed to have that weapon, it ought to be case closed.

The problem is not what the left refer to as “mass incarceration,” but that not enough people who could already be behind bars are behind bars.

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Philadelphia ties for the silver medal! 499 homicides so far in 2021 matches 2020's second place all time murder numbers . . . with 38 days left in the year.

Starting this story at 7:15 AM, it’s a little bit early for the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page to have finished its updates, but the PPD are already listing 499 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. That would tie it for last year’s 499 dead, just one behind the all-time record of 500, set during the crack cocaine gang wars of 1990.

Philadelphia Inquirer overnight breaking news reporter Robert Moran clued me in with a three-paragraph story telling readers that an unidentified man was shot once in the head in the 6200 block of Woodland Avenue in Southwest Philly. Two paragraphs, three sentences, and that’s it, that’s all to sum up a man’s life.

The third paragraph? It pointed out that this was the 499th murder in Philadelphia, and hyperlinked to an Inquirer story from earlier on Tuesday:

    Almost 500 people dead: Philadelphia is about to set a grim record for homicides

    With nearly six weeks remaining in the year, the number of lives lost will likely far exceed the 500 people who were killed in 1990.

    by Anna Orso, Chris Palmer, and Dylan Purcell | Tuesday, November 23, 2021

    Nearly 500 people have been killed in Philadelphia in 2021, putting the city on pace to surpass the record for annual homicides in the coming days.

    Driven largely by skyrocketing rates of gun violence, the number of killings this year will be the highest since at least 1960, which is as far back as the Police Department said it kept statistics on homicides.

    With nearly six weeks remaining in the year, the number of lives lost will likely far exceed the 500 people who were killed in 1990 at the height of the crack-cocaine epidemic — the previous record, and the only other time the city has seen 500 killings in a year.

    And the relentless pace of homicides through Tuesday is 13% more than at the same point in 2020, when shootings swelled amid the global pandemic and the city ended the year with 499 homicide victims. The violence has struck overwhelmingly in underserved communities of color.

Of course, the #woke[1]From Wikipedia: Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from … Continue reading writers for the inquirer have to come up with a cutesy phrase like “underserved communities of color,” but they’ll never point out that the vast majority of homicides are committed intraracially: black people killing other black people, and white people killing other white people.

It ought to be obvious: if a significant number of blacks in the city had been slain by white suspects, the Inquirer would be all over that story!

The writers referenced the murder of 32-year-old Jessica Covington and her unborn daughter, as well as that of 24-year-old Sykea Patton, shot in broad daylight in the 800 block of North Preston Street, while walking her sons home from school.

Donavan Crawford, mugshot published by WPVI-TV. Click to enlarge.

The Inquirer had a second story on the killing of Miss Covington and her unborn daughter, as well as one on the arrest of Donavan Crawford, 28, of West Philadelphia, for the murder of Miss Patton, his ex-girlfriend. That’s a lot more than we normally see on city homicides, but that’s because Miss Covington, her unborn child, and Miss Patton are innocent victims, and, as we have noted many times before, the Inquirer is concerned about homicides in the city only when the victims are innocents, someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl.

But, for most victims? As columnist Helen Ubiñas noted just 17 days short of a year ago, the vast majority of the murder victims get about as much attention as the unidentified victim at the top of this story.

Just like the McClatchy newspapers, about which we’ve written, decline to publish mugshots of criminal suspects who happen to be black, the Inquirer did not publish the photo of Miss Patton’s suspected killer, but the Philly television stations, including WPVI-TV, channel 6, and KYW-TV, channel 3, did. Why won’t the Inquirer publish straight facts?

    The wave of homicides over the last two years is historically unique. In Philadelphia, other violent crime — including rape and assaults committed without a gun, which were already at decades-long lows — have continued to decline since 2019, even as shootings and killings rose.

This is where the Inquirer truthfully reports the statistics, but never questions them. Murder is not normally an entry-level crime.

There are two different types of crime, crimes of evidence, and crimes of reporting. Murder is a crime of evidence, because it leaves a dead body, and dead bodies get found. It’s hard to dispose of 100 to 300 pounds of dead and decaying flesh and bone and muscle and fat unless someone has carefully planned how to do it.

But assaults, or robberies, or rapes? Assaults and rapes can be crimes of evidence, if the victim goes to the hospital for treatment. But if the victims is not seriously enough injured to seek medical care, or if the rape victim chooses not to report it, then those crimes become crimes of reporting, and if they are not reported to the police, then as far as the police are concerned, as far as the statistics measure, the crimes never happened. Yet, while the statistics vary, it seems that fewer than half of all “violent victimization” are reported to the police, and rape appears to be the least reported crime. According to the survey, only 32.5% or rapes or sexual assaults were reported in 2015, and that dropped to 23.2% the following year.[2]See Table 4. In a city, in communities, in which the vast majority of crimes which are known about go unsolved, why would people who are already distrustful of the police, people who have low expectations that the crimes will actually be solved, even bother reporting the crimes?

And in the City of Brotherly Love, both the George Soros stooge District Attorney, Larry Krasner, and the nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper, have been working as hard as they can to undermine the police!

So, when Anna Orso, Chris Palmer, and Dylan Purcell tell me that “other violent crime — including rape and assaults committed without a gun, which were already at decades-long lows — have continued to decline since 2019, even as shootings and killings rose,” I believe that they are accurately reporting the statistics, but I don’t believe the statistics in the first place, and believe that real journalists ought to investigate what is behind those statistics.

References

References
↑1 From Wikipedia:

Woke (/ˈwoʊk/) as a political term of African-American origin refers to a perceived awareness of issues concerning social justice and racial justice. It is derived from the African-American Vernacular English expression “stay woke“, whose grammatical aspect refers to a continuing awareness of these issues.
By the late 2010s, woke had been adopted as a more generic slang term broadly associated with left-wing politics and cultural issues (with the terms woke culture and woke politics also being used). It has been the subject of memes and ironic usage. Its widespread use since 2014 is a result of the Black Lives Matter movement.

I shall confess to sometimes “ironic usage” of the term. To put it bluntly, I think that the ‘woke’ are just boneheadedly stupid.

↑2 See Table 4.