Tag Archives: #Killadelphia

Posted on by

Killadelphia The not-so-subtle racism of an "anti-racist news organization"

As of 11:59 PM on Sunday, May 16th, there had been 196 homicides in Philadelphia. That having been the 136th day of the year, that worked out to 1.441 murders per day in the City of Brotherly Love, putting Philly on pace for 526 killings for 2021, if the average held.

That was a month ago. According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, as of the end of Tuesday, June 15th, the city hit what could wryly be called a milestone, it’s 250th murder. The math is pretty bad: 250 homicides ÷ 166 days = 1.506 per day, × 365 = 549.70 murders for the year. The evil, reich-wing Donald Trump has been out of office for just five days short of five months now, the very liberal, opposed to mass incarceration District Attorney Larry Krasner has been renominated, the pandemic restrictions have (mostly) been lifted, and Philly’s murder rate is increasing.

The city’s homicide record was 500, set in the crack cocaine wars of 1990; 2020 saw Philly win the silver medal, with 499. But if the current rate continues, and there’s no sign that it won’t, 550 bodies in the city’s mean streets will break the record by a solid ten percent. Yet, at least as of 3:15 PM, there wasn’t a single story on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page about the three killings overnight, or the ‘milestone’ having been reached, though there was an important story on how the strategic use of wallpaper remains popular in area homes.

Another statistic: 250 homicides thus far in 2021 have eclipsed the entire year’s totals of 246 in 2013 and 248 in 2014, when Michael Nutter was Mayor, Charles Ramsey Police Commissioner and Seth Williams was District Attorney.[1]Seth Williams was convicted on one count of receiving bribes, so he isn’t exactly spotless, but his record as District Attorney was sound. Last year’s 499 homicides exceeded those two years’ total killings. Whatever Jim Kenney, Danielle Outlaw and Larry Krasner, whom the Inquirer actually endorsed for renomination, have been doing has not worked.

#BlackLivesMatter, we are told, and Elizabeth Hughes, the publisher of the Inquirer, has said that her goal is to make the newspaper “an anti-racist news organization,” but, as far as I can tell, black lives don’t matter to the Inquirer. It seems that the only stories the paper publishes are small police blotter reports, usually not on the website main page, unless the victim is an innocent, like Christine Lupo, a “somebody,” like a local high school basketball player, or a cute little white girl, like the 2,782 site search results for Rian Thal.

The vast majority of homicide victims in Philadelphia are black, but when one black gang banger kills another black gang banger, it isn’t really news anymore, not to the Inquirer. 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 four separate stories; how many do the mostly black victims get?

It does not matter what Miss Hughes says about her goals, and it does not matter that the newspaper has its first Hispanic Executive Editor in Gabriel Escobar; the paper’s coverage shows us what they consider newsworthy. And black lives wasted are simply not newsworthy.

References

References
↑1 Seth Williams was convicted on one count of receiving bribes, so he isn’t exactly spotless, but his record as District Attorney was sound.
Posted on by

Journolism: The Editorial Board of The Philadelphia Inquirer, with full evidence that too lenient law enforcement has led to more killings, wants to make probation more lenient!

It was less than a month ago that we noted the inherent racism of The Philadelphia Inquirer and it’s oh so #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 publisher Elizabeth Hughes. Miss Hughes’ call was for the Inquirer to become “an anti-racist news organization,” but in the process of doing so, she and her editorial team have instead converted a once-great newspaper into one in which virtually every story is run through the lens of racial consideration. There’s a reason I sometimes refer to it as The Philadelphia Enquirer![2]RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.

There were two more homicides in the City of Brotherly Love yesterday, bringing the total to 247, in 165 days. That works out to 1.497 per day, putting Philly on pace for 546 murders in 2021, a number which would shatter, destroy, stomp into the mud the record of 500 set in 1990, and last year’s second place 499.

While the Inquirer continues to pay scant attention to homicides in Philadelphia, unless the victim is an innocent, a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl, it did pay attention to the senseless murder of Christine Lugo. I noted my guess that, when Miss Lugo’s killer was finally identified, we’d find out that he has a long rap sheet, and that, had he been treated seriously by the law enforcement in the past, could and should have been behind bars at 5:51 AM last Saturday morning. Well, we did find out, and, if the suspect in the case, Keith Gibbson, actually is Miss Lugo’s killer, he was allowed to plead down from a murder charge, one which, if convicted of it, would have had him behind bars in Delaware on the morning he (allegedly) shot Miss Lugo in the head. Several other people would be alive today had he not been treated so leniently.

And so we come to this, the lead editorial in the Inquirer on Flag day, and Donald Trump’s 75th birthday:

Is probation the key to gun violence prevention? Not the way Philly is trying.

For many, probation is a trap — not a path out of violence.

By The Editorial Board | June 14, 2021

In April, Philadelphia’s Office of Violence Prevention (OVP) released an update to the “Roadmap to Safer Communities,” the city’s anti-violence framework. One word was missing from the update: probation. The omission is peculiar because, in the mayor’s proposed budget, nearly a quarter of the OVP’s $12.5 million is earmarked for probation.

For decades, studies have shown that many of the people who are most likely to kill or be killed are already involved in the criminal justice system. If some of the people most at risk already check in with a probation officer, why not leverage that opportunity to also offer services in the hope of reducing gun violence?

You can see where this is going, right? The Editorial Board want to make probation easier, to make it softer, to replace law enforcement with social workers!

That was the logic behind the Youth Violence Reduction Partnership (YVRP).

Philadelphia launched YVRP in 1999. Almost exclusively Black teens and young men, who have been identified by either juvenile or adult probation officers or algorithms, would receive both closer supervision (such as home visits) and first dibs on services (such as help finding a job) with the goal of keeping them alive. A key element of the program was the utilization of street workers — not probation officers — to engage youth.

Between 1999 to 2020, YVRP served more than 9,000 individuals ages 14 to 26. Fewer than 2% were involved in gun violence. If those are the individuals most at risk, that seems like a success.

Somehow, the Editorial Board never gives consideration to the opposite solution: instead of letting the bad guys stay out on the streets, how about locking them up, where they can’t hurt the public? Had Miss Lugo’s (alleged) killer been locked up for the fifteen year minimum a murder charge in Delaware would have gotten him, he was instead allowed to plead down, spent just eight years in the slammer, and had continual probation violations after he was released. The Editorial Board know that, or at least they should if they read their own newspaper, but they are suggesting easier, not harsher treatment of criminals.

For many people, probation becomes a trap. What was supposed to be a lenient alternative to incarceration can become a life sentence due to technical violations and unreasonable expectations.

Unreasonable expectations, such as obeying the law? The linked story complains that people on probation are remaining “under court control for years after being convicted of low-level crimes, resentenced two, three, four, or five times over for infractions including missing appointments, falling behind on payments, or testing positive for marijuana.” Uhhh, missing appointments with a probation officer? Keeping those appointments is far less onerous than being in jail, but is a condition for not being locked up. Making payments? These things are required, as part of the probationary sentence? And testing positive for marijuana? That means those people have broken the law in buying and possessing and using pot. Should we somehow excuse people already being treated leniently for past violations of the law for breaking the law again?

As we noted in the beginning, the Inquirer under Miss Hughes now views everything through the prism of race. “Almost exclusively Black teens and young men, who have been identified by either juvenile or adult probation officers or algorithms,” the Editorial Board noted, as though the vast majority of the 247 dead bodies on the city’s streets this year were not black, and their killers, when known, were also black, is somehow a meaningless statistic.

This is what real journalists, rather than the journolists[3]The spelling ‘journolist’ 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 … Continue reading on the Inquirer’s staff, ought to investigate: just how many murders in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia[4]The formulation “foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia” comes from the song Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve from the musical 1776. would have been prevented had the killers been sentenced harshly for previous crimes and still been in jail when they committed the murder?

That would be reporting, that would be investigative journalism, but that would also be far, far, far outside of the mission Miss Hughes has set for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

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 RedState writer Mike Miller called it the Enquirer, probably by mistake, so I didn’t originate it, but I thought it very apt.
↑3 The spelling ‘journolist’ 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.
↑4 The formulation “foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia” comes from the song Piddle, Twiddle and Resolve from the musical 1776.
Posted on by

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

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

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

Man killed in double shooting at North Philly corner store

A woman was also wounded in the shooting.

by Justine McDaniel | June 7, 2021

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

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

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

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

There’s more at the original.

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

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

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

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

Posted on by

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Me? I’m still betting a case of Mountain Dew that, when we find out who the (alleged) killer is, we’ll find out that he has a long rap sheet, and that, had he been treated seriously by the District Attorney, could and should have been behind bars at 5:51 AM last Saturday morning. That’s hardly a risky bet: that’s what we always seem to find out about these killers.

References

References
↑1 John ‘Jordan’ Lewis, who murdered Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy in a Dunkin’ Donuts on West Oak Lane was apprehended in Miami.
Posted on by

The Philadelphia Inquirer does what the Lexington Herald-Leader will not Updated!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

__________________________________

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by

Killadelphia Shockingly enough, a murder victim's killing actually gets covered by The Philadelphia Inquirer

Credit where credit is due. I noted yesterday:

According to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, as of the end of Monday, May 25th, 208 people had been murdered in the City of Brotherly Love. That works out to 1.434 people being murdered every single day, and, if that figure is maintained throughout 2021, 524 homicides for the year, leaving last year’s 499, and 1990’s record of 500, well back in the rear view mirror.

Two of those 208 deaths were reported as having occurred on May 25th, the anniversary of Mr Floyd’s death. Yet, at least at 10:42 AM on the following day, there was not a single story on the Inquirer’s website main page concerning those deaths. The seven killings the Police Department reported as having occurred over the weekend did not rate a single story on the newspaper’s website main page. A site search for homicide turned up nothing, though searching for reporter Robert Moran, who usually covers these stories, turned up two very short news articles, covering one murder on the 24th and two separate murders on the 25th.

If I have to know which reporter to search to find these stories, how am I supposed to believe that #BlackLivesMatter, at least to the news staff of The Philadelphia Inquirer?

I guess that Philadelphia Inquirer really was working on the story, and it just appeared later, because this one had a large spot on the newspaper’s website main page this morning:

Two Philadelphia high school students were fatally shot Tuesday. One was two weeks from graduation.

The young people shot Tuesday night are the latest victims in a surge of unrelenting gun violence in the city.

By Mike Newall, Anna Orso, and Chris Palmer | May 26, 2021

An 18-year-old who was two weeks from graduating from Overbrook High School and set to attend Kutztown University this fall was fatally shot in West Philadelphia on Tuesday, one of two teenagers killed in the city within an hour of each other.

Nasir Marks, of Overbrook Park, spent the evening practicing a speech on diversity in America — his senior project — in front of his mother and brother, his family said. He slipped on a hoodie and got on the bus to visit his girlfriend, texting her at 7:15 p.m. that he’d arrived.

Fifteen minutes later, police were called to the 3900 block of Poplar Street and found Marks with multiple gunshot wounds. His father, Jermaine Thurman, said his son had stepped into gang territory, where groups of young men on both sides of Girard Avenue have traded gunfire.

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

There’s more at the original.

I try to avoid using photos from the Inquirer, due to copyright issues, but this one seems appropriate. A Philadelphia Police Officer is placing evidence markers, which normally means where shell casings were found, and marker number 17 is visible; that’s a lot of rounds fired off.

The 3900 block of Poplar Street, between 39th and 40th Streets, near Fairmont Park off Girard Avenue, isn’t exactly a high rent neighborhood. Primarily working-class row homes, some in decent repair and some not, there are a few which are boarded up. The economic condition of the neighborhood is evident in the background of the Inquirer’ photo.

Boathouse Row, one of the hoitier of the toitier neighborhoods, is just across the Schuylkill River. The contrast is stark.

Just a few minutes after young Mr Marks was killed, 15-year-old Kanye Pittman, of North Philadelphia, was murdered in the 2500 block of North Sydenham Street, a North Philadelphia neighborhood of shabby row houses, some of which are boarded up, a long commercial building, and overgrown vacant lots.

According to the Philadelphia Police Department, two more people were murdered in the city last night, bringing the total for the year to 210. That’s 1.438 homicides per day, putting Philly on pace for 525 for the year, which would be a new record. The long, hot summer hasn’t even arrived yet.

Inquirer reporter Robert Moran had two very brief stories yesterday, one noting the murder of an unidentified 23-year-old man in a calculated hit — the story said her was “shot several times” — and another about a 23-year-old woman shot once in the head and pushed out of a car, later found abandoned. She was not listed as having died in Mr Moran’s story, but may have expired later, possibly making her that 210th victim.

At least for a bit, the Inquirer seems to be doing better. Nasir Marks was not a “somebody,” or a cute little white girl, but the paper used three reporters to write about his senseless death. Whether we’ll read more about the two people murdered last night, well, that’s something for the future.

Posted on by

Killadelphia

Shockingly enough, this story was listed on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website main page, at least as of 8:15 PM on Sunday, May 16th. The screen grab from the Inquirer’s main page was from the first column on the left hand side. A bigger blurb was located further down. As much as I have criticized the paper for not having these stories where they are easily found, I believe in giving credit where credit is due.

15 shot, 8 stabbed: Philly’s toll from another violent weekend

At least 23 people were injured — one fatally — from guns and knives in the city from Friday night into Sunday night. The toll was expected to grow.

by Diane Mastrull | May 16, 2021

At least 23 people were injured — one fatally — from guns and knives during another violent weekend in Philadelphia.

According to police reports covering Friday night into Sunday night, 15 people had been shot and eight stabbed, including one man at a city jail. The toll was expected to grow.

Officials have been at a loss to explain the surge in gun violence that has the city on track to exceed the all-time high in homicides recorded in 1990 — 500. It finished last year one shy of that record. As of the end of last week, the total was just over 190, up nearly 40% over last year at this time.

The weekend contributed at least one more to that tally. At 9:48 p.m. Saturday, a 31-year-old man was shot in the head on the 7400 block of Fayette Street in East Mount Airy. He was pronounced dead at the scene. No arrests had been made.

The article was published sometime around 5:00 PM; the article simply said it was published “three hours ago” when I opened it up, which is how the Inquirer does things, but it isn’t exactly the most professional way to do things. So there was plenty more weekend time for the gang-bangers to fire off a few more shots.

But man, the gang-bangers are lousy shots. They shot 15 people, but only one has died? I can’t imagine that they were shooting just to wound. We noted previously that the previous weekend, Philadelphia Police recovered 121 shell casings, but ‘only’ hit 25 people, killing ‘only’ seven of them.

 

The above was written Sunday evening, because I wanted to see the Monday morning statistics. The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page reports that there have been 196 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, May 16th. The previous figure was 190, as of the end of Thursday, May 13th.

196 homicides in 136 days works out to 1.44 per day, on pace for 526 for the year. In 2020, the total was ‘just’ 140 killings, in 137 days — 2020 was a leap year — and 121 on the same date in 2019, fewer than one a day. Killings are up an even 40.0% over last year, and 61.98% over the same date in 2019, buy hey, Philly’s voters are poised to re-elect District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose softer-than-soft-on-crime regime has helped lead to this!

Homicides in Philadelphia are up 78.18% from the same time in Mr Krasner’s first year in office, 2018. If the good people of Philadelphia re-elect him, they’ll have no one to blame but themselves.

As of 8:56 AM EDT, the Inquirer story referenced above is still shown on the Inquirer’s website main page, and has not been updated.

 

Updated: 5:15 PM EDT.

In Philadelphia, 30 people were shot or stabbed over the weekend, two fatally

As of Monday afternoon, police had not made an arrest in any of the shooting incidents that took place between Friday and early Monday morning.

by Anna Orso | May 17, 2021 | 4:58 PM EDT

The unrelenting surge of violence in Philadelphia continued over the weekend, leaving 30 victims shot or stabbed — two of them fatally — and some community advocates anxious about what the summer months may bring.

The violence, including a quadruple shooting and three double shootings, was concentrated in North and West Philadelphia and touched Kensington and Frankford. Victims were injured on the street, at bars, and inside homes and stores.

As of Monday afternoon, police had not made an arrest in any of the shooting incidents that took place between Friday and early Monday morning.

So, twenty-one shooting incidents, and nobody saw nothin’, huh?

Among the 21 shooting victims was Darryl Cromwell, 57, of the 2700 block of Germantown Avenue, who police said was shot inside a North Philadelphia home in the wee hours of the morning Saturday. He was transported to Temple University Hospital and died six hours later.

And on Saturday night just after 10 p.m., police said, Charles Campbell, 31, of the 3000 block of North 10th Street, died of a gunshot wound on the 7400 block of Fayette Street in East Mount Airy.

Well, at least the Inquirer named the victims; that doesn’t often happens. Of course, I have to ask: how did the city suffer only two fatalities over the weekend, yet the homicide total, as noted above, increased by six?

Still, at least this story was referenced on the website main page, something that hasn’t happened very often in the past. Perhaps someone at the Inquirer has paid a bit of attention?

Posted on by

Killadelphia By cooperating with evil, the people of Philadelphia have brought evil upon themselves.

I’ve said it several times: to the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer, killings in the city aren’t newsworthy unless the victim is a child, someone who was a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl. We need to stop pretending that #BlackLivesMatter because in the City of Brotherly Love, it’s very apparent that they don’t.

So, I was somewhat surprised looking at the Inquirer’s website this morning and finding 4 wounded in West Philly shooting: The shooting happened on Market Street near 56th Street, and then this one:

2 teens shot in Harrowgate

The shooting happened on the 1900 block of East Wensley Street.

By Robert Moran | May 14, 2021

A police crime scene unit officer investigates a double shooting in the 1900 block of E. Wensley street in the 24th police district. Some 17 evidence makers lay on the street and sidewalk. Friday May 14, 2021. Steven M. Falk, Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Photographer. Click to enlarge.

Two teens were shot Friday night in the city’s Harrowgate section, police said.

The shooting happened around 6 p.m. on the 1900 block of East Wensley Street. An 18-year-old man was shot several times in the head and torso. He was taken by police to Temple University Hospital and was listed in extremely critical condition.

A 17-year-old male was shot in the left leg. He was taken by medics to Temple and was listed in stable condition.

Police reported no arrests and no other details were available.

That’s it; that’s the entire story. Normally, I don’t reproduce photos from the Inquirer, but this one is very germane to the story. It shows most of seventeen “evidence markers,” which normally means shell casings or bullets found at the scene.

Both stories were by Robert Moran, who “covers breaking news at night in the Philadelphia region,” so yeah, shootings are going to be his beat. Neither of the stories was on the Inquirer’s website main page; I found them listed at the bottom of a main page article I opened.

And then I found another, which was also buried:

A 16-year-old fatally shot in Southwest Philly was weeks away from graduating high school

Quamir Mitchell was a senior at West Philadelphia High School, a standout basketball player, and something of a role model for younger teens in the neighborhood.

by Anna Orso and Chris Palmer | Updated May 14, 2021

The 16-year-old boy fatally shot near a Southwest Philadelphia basketball court Thursday night was a high school senior just weeks away from graduation, a standout basketball player, and something of a role model for younger teens in the neighborhood.

That’s how several people remembered Quamir Mitchell on Friday, the day after he was killed and a 13-year-old boy was wounded in a burst of gunfire near the Deritis Playground — a crime that police said remained something of a mystery in the early stages of the investigation.

Adrian Burke, Mitchell’s basketball coach at West Philadelphia High School, visited the crime scene Friday morning, on the 5600 block of Grays Avenue, to offer a prayer for Mitchell. Burke had known the teen for a decade, recalling his big heart, his love of basketball, his tendency to be “dressed to the nines.”

“He was phenomenal,” Burke said, tears pooling in his eyes. “Just a beautiful kid. He was so strong in his skin, and he knew who he was.”

There’s more at the original, but, like I said, the Inquirer provided more coverage because young Mr Mitchell was a “somebody.”

In a story we previously noted, on Monday, May 10th, the Inquirer did note the weekend’s violence in the city, which had one pretty bad paragraph:

The shootings claimed 25 victims in 14 incidents. The victims, 22 males and three females, ranged in age from 17 to 64, and detectives recovered 121 bullet shell casings, officials said.

That’s pretty bad: at least 121 shots fired, actually hitting ‘only’ 25 people, and killing ‘only’ seven of them. The Philadelphia gang bangers are some pretty lousy shots!

Homicide Capt. Jason Smith said some of the bloodshed was fueled by drug turf battles, arguments, robberies, and retaliation for previous killings — a motive police believe was behind three of the weekend killings.

Smith said investigators need the public’s help to solve the crimes — the arrest rate for slayings this year is just 46%.

“It’s up to the community,” he said. “It’s up to these individuals who are committing these acts of violence. They have to take a step back and say: ‘Wow. Is it really worth it? Are we going to continue going in this direction?’”

Smith asked anyone with information about the crimes to notify the police at 215-686-3334, 215-686-3335, or 215-686-TIPS. Tips can also be left at phillyunsolvedmurders.com, he said. Those who provide tips that lead to the arrest and conviction of a suspect will receive $20,000 from the city, officials said.

So far, no one has been arrested in any of the seven slayings and one man was arrested in one of the nonfatal shootings, said Vanore, who added that detectives are culling through video evidence from the various scenes.

An arrest warrant has been issued in one of the slayings, but the suspect remains at large.

Of course, the Inquirer did not print a photo of the suspect, which could help police find him, if someone in the neighborhood spots him and actually calls the cops, but it is possible that the police did not have a photo of the suspect to give to the newspaper.

There are plenty of people, plenty of people, in those neighborhoods who know who shot the victims, but who won’t ‘snitch,’ because they don’t trust the police, and don’t want to become victims themselves. The neighborhood enables these killings, this violence, by its participation in covering up for and hiding the thugs in their midst. With a District Attorney like Larry Krasner, who is trying to reduce ‘mass incarceration’ at a time when more people need to be incarcerated, it’s hard to blame them.

As of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, May 13th, the 133rd day of the year, 192 souls had been sent early to their eternal rewards in the City of Brotherly Love. That’s 1.44 people every day, putting Philadelphia on track for 527 homicides for 2021, which would blow 1990’s 500, and last years 499 out of the water. And yet, with all of that, the Inquirer’s Editorial Board actually endorsed Mr Krasner for re-election, saying, “A complex, relatively recent spike in gun violence isn’t a reason to return to the mass incarceration regime of yesteryear, but a challenge to do better.”

No, it’s most certainly a reason to start locking up the bad guys again. Bad guys in jail aren’t bad guys out on the street, committing more crimes.

Come time for the general election, the Editorial Board will, once again, endorse almost all Democrats, and the voters of the city will elect almost all Democrats, and that process will continue in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Philadelphia is a Hellhole, but it is a Hellhole created by the people living there. They are like the Palestinians living in Gaza, providing food, clothing, shelter and hiding places for Hamas, and then shocked, shocked! when Hamas shoot rockets against Israel, and then the Israeli Defence Force destroys their neighborhoods. By cooperating with evil, the people of Philadelphia have brought evil upon themselves.

Posted on by

The Philadelphia Inquirer says Larry Krasner should be re-elected; I say that he should go to prison!

Perhaps I missed it, or perhaps I simply tweeted too soon:

Well, it turns out that The Philadelphia Inquirer did cover it, though the article doesn’t show a time stamp, so it could have come after I posted my tweet:

Weekend gun violence in city killed 7 and injured 18, police say

Police are investigating 14 shootings that left seven dead and 18 injured in weekend shootings. “This is more violence than I’ve ever seen,” said a detective with 31 years on the job.

by Mensah M Dean | May 10, 2021

A spate of gun violence across the city claimed the lives of seven people and injured 18 over the weekend, making it one of the deadliest stretches of crime in decades, Philadelphia Police Department officials said Monday.

The violence — which included a quintuple shooting, two triple shootings, and three double shootings — pushed the city’s homicide count as of Monday morning to 185 victims, more than 30% higher than at this time last year, according to department data.

When I checked the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page yesterday morning, it stated that there had been 183 homicides, not 185, but it is always possible that there were further updates during the day.

Today? Checking it at 8:55 this morning, 188 homicides have been recorded, a 37.23% increase over the 137 on the same date last year, which was itself an 18.10% increase over the 116 killed by the end of May 10th in 2019.

May 10th was the 130th day of the year. That means that 1.45 people are being murdered every day in the mean streets of the City of Brotherly Love.

Despite all of that, the Editorial Board of the Inquirer endorsed District Attorney Larry Krasner in next Tuesday’s Democratic primary!

Larry Krasner deserves a second term as Philly district attorney | Endorsement

The Editorial Board was surprised and disappointed by Carlos Vega’s lack of new policy ideas.

by The Editorial Board | May 9, 2021

The Democratic primary for Philadelphia district attorney has been drawing national attention, and understandably so. Aside from its colorful main characters — an incumbent DA who’s a national icon in progressive circles, opposed by a former assistant DA whom he’d fired when he took the job — the race hinges on a powerful question: Is dramatic criminal-justice reform possible in a time of rising gun violence and murder rates?

No one can dispute the numbers: Philadelphia experienced the most homicides in 2020 in nearly 60 years, and 2021 is off to an even worse start. The first-term incumbent district attorney, Larry Krasner, notes that this spike parallels a national trend, and he insists it isn’t connected to his programs aimed at curbing mass incarceration. But his opponent, Carlos Vega, argues that Krasner’s approach to prosecuting gun offenses is too lenient — citing recent reports on low conviction rates for such crimes — and that the “bad guys” all know it.

There’s much more at the original, but really, that’s all you need to know about the Editorial Board and their collective stupidity. But one more sentence, from the endorsement’s concluding paragraph, really cements it:

A complex, relatively recent spike in gun violence isn’t a reason to return to the mass incarceration regime of yesteryear, but a challenge to do better.

I have said it before: the problem is not mass incarceration; the problem is that not enough people are incarcerated!

One of the people who wasn’t incarcerated on Friday, March 13, 2020, was Hasan Elliot, 21. How did the District Attorney’s office treat Mr Elliot, a known gang-banger?

  • Mr Elliott, then 18 years old, was arrested in June 2017 on gun- and drug-possession charges stemming after threatening a neighbor with a firearm. The District Attorney’s office granted him a plea bargain arrangement on January 24, 2018, and he was sentenced to 9 to 23 months in jail, followed by three years’ probation. However, he was paroled earlier than that, after seven months in jail.
  • Mr Elliot soon violated parole by failing drug tests and failing to make his meetings with his parole officer.
  • Mr Elliott was arrested and charged with possession of cocaine on January 29, 2019. This was another parole violation, but Mr Krasner’s office did not attempt to have Mr Elliot returned to jail to finish his sentence, nor make any attempts to get serious bail on the new charges; he was released on his own recognizance.
  • After Mr Elliot failed to appear for his scheduled drug-possession trial on March 27, 2019, and prosecutors dropped those charges against him.

On that Friday the 13th, Police Corporal James O’Connor IV, 46, was part of a Philadelphia police SWAT team trying to serve a predawn arrest warrant on Mr Elliott, from a March 2019 killing. Mr Elliot greeted the SWAT team with a hail of bullets, and Corporal O’Connor was killed. Had Mr Elliot been in jail, as he could have been due to parole violations, had Mr Krasner’s office treated him seriously, Corporal O’Connor would have gone home safely to his wife that day. The Inquirer reported:

Philadelphia Police Officers and FOP members block District Attorney Larry Krasner from entering the hospital to meet with slain Police Corporal James O’Connor’s family.

Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5 president John McNesby also has criticized Krasner, saying his policies led to the killing of O’Connor. “Unfortunately, he’s murdered by somebody that should have never been on the street,” McNesby said.McNesby also said FOP members and police officers formed a human barricade to block Krasner from entering the hospital Friday to see O’Connor’s family.

James O’Connor is stone-cold graveyard dead because District Attorney Krasner and his minions, in their abhorrence of mass incarceration, left a repeat offender, one with a record of carrying firearms, using and selling drugs, and flouting his required probation meetings. A guy who needed to be incarcerated, and who didn’t even need to be tried again to get him locked up, but Mr Krasner and his office left him out on the streets, even though the police had him in physical custody on January 29, 2019.

Did the lenient treatment do Mr Elliot any good? Had Mr Krasner and his minions treated Mr Elliot seriously, he’d have been in jail on that fateful Friday the 13th, but he’d also be looking at getting out of prison eventually. Now, Mr Elliot, and four of his goons, are looking at spending the rest of their miserable lives in prison.

The Editorial Board celebrated Mr Krasner as being different from his “‘law-and-order’ predecessors,” and that’s the entire problem: Philadelphia’s homicide rate was bad enough under the District Attorney’s “‘law-and-order’ predecessors,” but it has gotten much, much worse under Mr Krasner. He took office in January of 2018, and under his regime, homicides, an already unacceptably high 315 the previous year, jumped to 353 in 2018, them 356 the following year, and then to 499 in 2020. At the current rate of 1.45 killings per day, Philly is on track for 528 homicides this year, and the long, hot days of summer haven’t started yet.

Even the Inquirer ran an editorial cartoon noting how the George Soros-funded ‘prosecutor’ was blaming all of the city’s woes on everybody but himself, but that didn’t stop the Editorial Board from endorsing him. Then again, we have previously noted that the Inquirer’s newsroom has been taken over by the #woke, who forced the firing resignation of Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski for having written a headline, “Buildings Matter, Too.”

Is there even honesty in the Inquirer anymore? Philadelphia magazine noted, on June 27, 2019:

Maalik Jackson-Wallace, for example, was given a second chance by Krasner’s office. Jackson-Wallace, whose case was highlighted by the Inquirer, was initially arrested on a gun possession charge. The case was sent to ARD and Jackson-Wallace received probation. He was arrested a second time for gun possession and released on unsecured bail. On June 13th, he was arrested again and charged with murder; police say he shot and killed a 26-year-old man. (Jackson-Wallace’s attorney claims it was in self-defense.)

Yet a site search of the Inquirer turned up zero returns on Maalik Jackson-Wallace or any of several variations of the spelling of his name. Did the Inquirer scrub the stories for some reason? I did, however, find the story, in the Inquirer through a Google search:

“You may have a law-abiding person … who gets beaten up and who goes to purchase a firearm but does not know enough to get a permit, or maybe reads some misleading website from the NRA informing him he has rights he doesn’t actually have, and so is carrying that weapon for self-defense,” Krasner said.

“If you go ahead and prosecute that person, it is very likely that you are going to seriously limit the capacity of that person to complete college. You will definitely limit their earning potential, their capacity to get a job.”

Of course, Mr Jackson-Wallace was not a “law-abiding person,” in that his first arrest was not just for carrying a concealed weapon without a license, but for possession of marijuana. Then again, under Mr Krasner, the District Attorney’s office does not prosecute marijuana possession, in effect nullifying what is a crime in the Keystone State. And, in the end, Mr jackson-Wallace’s “capacity to get a job” was limited by him killing someone else.

Larry Krasner not only does not deserve to be re-elected; he deserves to be sent to prison himself, for aiding and abetting the murder of Corporal O’Connor, and of the killings of other Philadelphians who would still be alive today if the District Attorney had treated their killers seriously when in custody on lesser charges.