Tag Archives: #Killadelphia

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Amanda Marcotte doesn’t care about murders unless they are politically useful

It’s perhaps telling that Amanda Marcotte’s Twitter photo was taken in a bar.

My good friend Amanda Marcotte — OK, OK, she’s not actually my good friend; she hates my evil reich-wing guts and has blocked me on her Twitter account — left Brooklyn and moved to South Philadelphia a couple of years ago. One would think that the über-feminist would be concerned about the huge homicide rate in her adopted home town, but if she is, she certainly hasn’t written about it in Salon.

The City of Brotherly Love saw 499 people give up their last breath in 2020, just one under the record of 500 set in 1990, the depths of the crack cocaine wars. That’s an average of 1.363 murders per day!

Well, guess what: with 77 days elapsed thus far in 2021, Philly is slightly ahead of that mark, at 1.377 per day. But 2020’s 499 mark was ‘achieved’ a bit later in the year; while 106 people were murdered in Philly’s mean streets by 11:59 PM EDT on March 18th, ‘only’ 80 had done so by the same date last year, and the same date last year included another day, due to 2020 being a leap year. City homicides increased as the weather warmed up, as is usually the case.

Miss Marcotte never noted the near-record homicides from last year, when even The Philadelphia Inquirer, which seems to run homicide stories only when something unusual happens, the victim is a ‘somebody’ or an innocent or, of course, a cute little white girl.

Instead, she continued in her usual #TrumpDerangementSyndrome ways.

However, her most recent two stories are about murders. Murders in Georgia, that is: Sarah Everard and the Atlanta spa shootings show how victim blaming continues even after #MeToo and Atlanta spa shootings and the Capitol riot: Gun control is the best tool to fight terrorism.

The murders in the Atlanta burbs have their trumped up racial element, because six of the eight ‘massage parlor workers’ were of Asian ethnicity. Miss Marcotte just loves to blame interracial murders on conservatives or Donald Trump, or really anybody she doesn’t like. She was pretty gleeful about the #BlackLivesMatter protests after the killing of convicted felon George Floyd, attending at least one herself, openly lamenting that “It’s true that anti-lockdown protesters who pack high-powered rifles and scream in cops’ faces haven’t hurt anyone, at least not yet.“

Also see: The Other McCain: Atlanta: The ‘Yellow Fever’ Theory

She wrote:

“Noobs are forever.” That’s what my partner[1]While Miss Marcotte has long been proud of living with Marc Faletti absent the benefit of clergy, her Wikipedia biography lists Mr Faletti as her “Husband.” jokingly said to me this weekend, after the two of us attended the strikingly huge Black Lives Matter (BLM) protest in Philadelphia on Saturday.

We were talking about the phalanxes of newcomers to the movement — often identifiable by their well-meaning but tone deaf signs — who had joined with more seasoned BLM protesters who have been at this for years. We’d both been to BLM protests before, most notably an enormous one in New York in 2014, after an NYPD officer choked Eric Garner to death. But there’s no question that something has shifted, and lots of people who had previously stayed out of the movement now felt compelled to pick up signs and march in the streets against police brutality.

The result is not just that protests seem bigger, but almost more numerous, spreading out not just to every large city but also the suburbs and small towns of America. (The Texas town where I went to high school, which has a population of 6,000, saw a protest on Saturday that drew hundreds of attendees.) There have been many and varied protest movements in the era of Donald Trump, with some — like the Women’s March or the climate strikes — being more successful than others. But BLM seems to be rising above, becoming the protest movement that is doing the best at harnessing the larger anger out there about Trump and his supporters and enablers.

Black Lives Matter is capturing those who have just woken up and, more than any other progressive movement, is turning that noob energy into action.

I will admit it: not being an aging hipster like Miss Marcotte, 43, I had to look up the meaning of ‘noob.’

I spent some time perusing her Salon articles on the George Floyd protests, and one thing struck me: she was far more concerned about the political value of the protests, and their ability to hurt President Trump, than she ever was about that fact that Mr Floyd was killed.

Naturally, as a writer who can work from home, with a partner who can apparently do the same, she absolutely supported the lockdowns, and contrasted them with the #BlackLivesMatter/Antifa protests:

Liberals never wanted “forever quarantine.” That’s a straw man erected by Donald Trump and his supporters. What liberals wanted was an temporary and necessary lockdown to buy time for the federal government to ramp up a testing regime and other health care capacity to deal with the virus.

Trump refused to use the time to do any that, and so it’s no wonder the progressives — who are just as fed up with staying home as conservatives — are exploding in the streets right now. Of course the primary reason for the protests is police brutality, and the motivating incident was the police murder of George Floyd. But the anger fueling the movement has many causes, including three and a half years of the Trump presidency and rage at the federal government for failing us so miserably with the coronavirus response.

Perhaps the left not wanting a “forever quarantine” is laid a bit hollow by President Biden wanting everyone to wear masks until “everyone is, in fact, vaccinated,” and well into 2022. That people might protest the lockdowns because, unlike her partner and her, they can’t work from home and many have lost their jobs, well, who cares about them? Mr Faletti and she apparently saw nothing wrong with breaking Governor Tom Wolf’s (D-PA) orders against large gatherings to join the protest marches.

Oddly enough, I couldn’t find much from her on the actual killings of George Floyd, who was high on a toxic dose of Fentanyl and methamphetamines, or Breonna Taylor, who was killed when her bedpartner started shooting at police and they returned fire, or Walter Wallace in Philadelphia, who was charging at the cops with a knife; all that concerned her was the political advantage to be gained.

And that, to me, explains her stony silence about the murder rate in her adopted home town. While Chicago sees more total murders, Philadelphia’s murder rate is significantly higher, 31.60 per 100,000 population compared to the Windy City’s 28.38, but the uncomfortable fact is that the vast majority of both murder victims in Philly, and their killers, where known, are black, and that does not yield any political benefit for the liberals’ positions.

Of course, I’ve used Miss Marcotte’s writings as a small example of what the left do writ large. I’ve said it before: in Philadelphia, in Chicago, in many of our larger cities, black lives don’t matter unless they are taken by a white person.

References

References
↑1 While Miss Marcotte has long been proud of living with Marc Faletti absent the benefit of clergy, her Wikipedia biography lists Mr Faletti as her “Husband.”
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Killadelphia!

I noted, just three days ago, that with 89 homicides in just 67 days of 2021, that the City of Brotherly Love, at that point killing off 1.328 people per day, ought to hit 100 homicides on March 16th.

Well, it seems that the good natured and kind hearted people of Philadelphia have taken that as a personal challenge; at the end of the 70th day, March 11th, 96 people have bitten the dust there, raising the rate to 1.371 per day. That means it should only take three days to kill off the four people needed to reach 100 homicides, which now means the end of March 14th.

At least on its main page, at 10:45 AM EST, The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t have a single story about any of the murders, about any of the seven homicides over the past three days. I guess none of the victims was a ‘somebody’ or a cute little white girl.

I’ve said it before: in Philadelphia, black lives don’t matter. The Philadelphia Tribune reported that, of the 499 homicides in the city in 2020, 86% of the victims were black, in a city in which less than 44% of the population are black. That black lives don’t matter is evidenced by the silence of the Inquirer when they are snuffed out. The #woke staffers who forced the resignation of Executive Editor Stan Wischnowski for his headline “Buildings Matter, Too” during the #BlackLivesMatter protests don’t seem to bother reporting on young black men being murdered because, well because young black males being murdered in Philadelphia simply isn’t news anymore. It would be a bigger story if a weekend day passed in the city without a killing.

I’m guessing that the Inquirer will have a story once that 100 homicides milestone is reached. That’s about all you can expect from them.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer finally publishes a story about a murder victim

Of course, that victim was apparently not a gang banger, so I suppose it was seen as unusual.

A 16-year-old was killed outside a 7-Eleven after looking at a man who took it the wrong way, police say

Police released surveillance video of the suspect, who had gone into the 7-Eleven store with a female companion.

Kahlief Myrick, 16, was fatally shot outside a 7-Eleven store in Southwest Philadelphia on Feb. 18. Police are searching for the gunman. Photo by family, given to The Philadelphia Inquirer

By Julie Shaw | February 24, 2021 | 7:15 PM EST

Police are searching for a gunman who they say killed a 16-year-old outside a 7-Eleven in Southwest Philadelphia last week because the teen looked at him in a way that made him feel disrespected.

“What are you looking at?” police say the man asked the teen when the two encountered each other inside the store.

“What are you looking at?” Kahlief Myrick responded, according to his family.

The man, believed to be in his mid-20s, waited outside for the teen to leave the store and then shot him in the chest, police said.

Police released surveillance video of the alleged gunman inside the store with a female companion. In the video, the suspect could be seen casually picking out potato chips just moments before the shooting.

The victim’s grandparents, Norman and Crystal Boyce, said their grandson was visiting relatives and went to the store with a 19-year-old cousin. The cousin, who they said was too upset to talk to a reporter, told them what happened. The teens did not know the gunman, the family said the cousin told them, and grew upset over a simple glance.

There’s more at the original, including a discussion of the ‘street code,’ and how a perception of disrespect can lead to violence or death.

But what got me was that while the Inquirer was happy enough to publish a photo of the victim, you had to follow the link to the released surveillance video to see a picture of the (alleged) killer. Surely, one would think, that adding that extra link would mean fewer people would see the photo of the (alleged) killer, meaning fewer chances that someone could identify him and report it to the Philadelphia Police.

I, of course, have no compunctions at all about publishing the video on the front page! I wonder why the Inquirer did.

So, assuming this (alleged) killer is caught, and assuming that Philadelphia’s criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, actually prosecutes him, and assuming that the (alleged) killer is convicted, he could spend the rest of his miserable life getting three hots and a cot in Graterford, courtesy of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, where at least he won’t be out on the streets hurting other people.

If he hurts other people in prison, well, I might not care all that much.

But murder is not normally an entry-level crime. My guess is that, once we find out who the (alleged) killer is, we will read that he has a long rap sheet, and could have been behind bars on February 18th, when he sent young Mr Myrick to his eternal reward.

Was the (alleged) killer out on the streets because District Attorney Krasner didn’t do his duty? We don’t know that yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

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And another one bites the dust!

I have previously noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer does not really take much notice of shootings or homicides unless the victim is a cute little white girl. I do not know if the victim in this case is white, but the story made the website because one of the victims isn’t known to be a gang-banger.

Girl, 15, in critical condition after double shooting in West Philly

The shooting happened in the 6200 block of Chestnut Street.

By Robert Moran | Tuesday, February 23, 2021 | 4:43 PM EST

A 15-year-old girl and was hospitalized in critical condition after being wounded in a double shooting Tuesday afternoon in West Philadelphia, police said.

Just before 3:20 p.m. in the 6200 block of Chestnut Street, the girl and a 20-year-old man were both shot in the head, police said. The girl was taken by private amubulance to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center. The man was taken by police to the same hospital and was listed in stable condition.

Police reported no arrests or other details.

As of 11:59 PM EST on Monday, February 22, 2021, the City of Brotherly Love had counted 75 homicides, in 53 days of the year. On the same date last year, in which Philadelphia saw 499 killings, just one short of the all-time record, there had been ‘just’ 53, to yesterday’s totals were a 41.5% increase. It looks like Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw are doing just an outstanding job, doesn’t it?

Maybe I’m too early with the headline, but if I am with the victim in the Inquirer story, it’ll be true enough of someone else in Philly.

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Is there no actual journalism practiced at The Philadelphia Inquirer?

It’s a pretty sad thing that I have come to check the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page every weekday morning.[1]The statistics are updated Monday through Friday only. Well, this is Monday morning, and the first of February, so we get the homicide statistics for the month of January. And an even fifty people didn’t experience much Brotherly Love in the City during what is normally the coldest month of the year.

In last year’s just-barely-missed-the-record, Philadelphia saw 38 homicides in January. Fifty is a 31.58% increase. Fifty in 31 days is a rate of 1.6129 per day, which, if maintained throughout 2021, would mean 589 people killed in the city’s mean streets.

Yet, The Philadelphia Inquirer, the newspaper of record for the city, the metropolitan area, and really the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, didn’t have the first hint of a story about this, at least not as of 11:38 AM EST, when last I opened the newspaper’s website.

Oh, there was plenty on the website’s main page. There was a big story about why the Inquirer was closing comments on its news stories, because “Commenting on Inquirer.com was long ago hijacked by a small group of trolls who traffic in racism, misogyny, and homophobia. This group comprises a tiny fraction of the Inquirer.com audience. But its impact is disproportionate and enduring.”

How can they be sure that these views do not represent more than a “tiny fraction” of their audience? Have they really done the research, or is it because the #woke in the newsroom, who got Executive Editor and Senior Vice President Stan Wischnowski fired to resign because he wrote an attention grabbing headline, but one of which the left wholly disapproved, didn’t like the idea that the riff-raff could express their opinions?

The Inquirer could post an OpEd piece by Patrick J Egan strongly in opposition to capital punishment,[2]Yes, I, too, am opposed to capital punishment, though not for the same reasons. The author claims that executions could resume once Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA) is out of office, and a capital punishment … Continue reading but make no mention of the one crime, murder, that can result in capital punishment, even as it has surged to record levels?

How could fifty homicides, occurring at a higher rate than during the previous year be so blithely ignored, be not considered newsworthy?

Oh, wait, I know! You have to have actual journalists on the staff to practice journalism. No wonder I’ve seen it called The Philadelphia Enquirer!

References

References
↑1 The statistics are updated Monday through Friday only.
↑2 Yes, I, too, am opposed to capital punishment, though not for the same reasons. The author claims that executions could resume once Governor Tom Wolf (D-PA) is out of office, and a capital punishment proponent is in office, while ignoring the fact that the previous Governor, Tom Corbett, a Republican, signed 47 separate death warrants during his four years in office, yet not one execution actually occurred.
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Chicago thinks it’s the murder capital; Philly says, “Hold my beer!”

I had noted on Twitter that the City of Brotherly Love was exceeding its one-short-of-the-record homicide rate for 2020, though we aren’t even through January, the coldest month of the year, and that The Philadelphia Inquirer hadn’t even noticed it:

I did see an article on the Inquirer’s website yesterday evening, noting that two men had been murdered in a bodega:

Two men fatally shot in North Philly store

by Mensah M. Dean | January 28, 2021 | 6:17 PM EST

Two men were fatally shot in a North Philadelphia store Thursday in what police are calling a double homicide.

Shortly before 1 p.m., police were called to the Al-Madinah Traders store in the 3600 block of Germantown Avenue, which sells jewelry, perfume, books, and other items. Police said passersby had found the men dead inside the store.

Police did not release the names of the victims, but described one as a man in his 40s who had been shot two times in the face, and the other as a man shot once in the head. His age was not given. Both were pronounced dead on the scene by medics.

As of Thursday evening, police had made no arrests and had not recovered weapons, they said.

The article author continued to note that the number of homicides was well above the same date in 2020, and that two other men had been murdered that morning, on in Kensington and one in the Wissinoming neighborhood.

So, that was four people sent early to their eternal rewards on Thursday, so I figured that I’d see 45 as the total when I checked the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crimes Statistics page this morning. I was wrong; it wasn’t 45, it was 46!

That’s compared to 35 slaughtered by January 28, 2020, a 31.4% increase.

As noted two days ago, the Editorial Board of the Inquirer blamed the Police Commissioner, the ironically named Danielle Outlaw, for the Police Department’s response to the #BlackLivesMatter protests. The Editorial Board thought that Miss Outlaw’s response was too harsh; I thought it too lenient.

But what the Editorial Board did not do was blame the huge jump in homicides on Commissioner Outlaw, or Mayor Jim Kenney, or District Attorney Larry Krasner, the three top law enforcement officials in Philadelphia.

People think of Chicago under its ridiculous Mayor, Lori Lightfoot, as the nation’s murder capital. In 2020, the Windy City saw 769 homicides, 270 more than Philadelphia. But Chicago has a population of 2,710,000, while Philly’s is 1,579,000. Crime rates are compared by rate per 100,000 population, and that leaves Chicago with a homicide rate of 28.38 per 100,000.

Philadelphia laughs and says, “We can beat that!”, checking in with a murder rate of 31.60 per 100,000.

As of January 25th, Chicago had 44 homicides, compared to Philly’s 37, but the disparity in population means that the City of Brotherly Love was far ahead.

New York City saw a huge rise in homicides as well, from 319 in 2019 to 462 last year, 44.8%, fewer than Chicago’s or Philadelphia’s, even though its population is several times that of the latter two cities.

Under Mayor Bill de Blasio, New York is on the fast track back to the Hell that Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up, and even the liberal Michael Bloomberg didn’t trash. What New York and Chicago and Philadelphia all need is solid, conservative, no f(ornicating) nonsense mayors, district attorneys and police commissioners who will actually fight crime.

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In Killadelphia, the beat goes on!

Just twenty-one days into the year, it’s a little bit early to tell. Checking the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page has been all over the board. Some days, 2021 has been behind the running total of homicides from 2020’s disastrous year, and some days ahead.

Philadelphia finished Inauguration Day with 32 homicides, 3 ahead of the same date in 2020, for a rate of 1.60 per day. That’s slightly higher than how Philly finished up in December, 1.45 per day.

I wrote earlier that Philadelphia had 502 homicides for 2020, but the Police Department revised its figures, coming up with a total of 499 for the year. What, did three people recover from death or something?

Is the City of Brotherly Love getting ready to leave 2020’s 499, and 1990’s 500 killings in the dust? It’s a little bit early to make a statement like that, with just twenty days gone and 345 days remaining in the year. But one thing is certain: Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw have failed, failed, failed in their jobs.

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Killadelphia reaches the milestone I didn't think they'd make it, but they did: 502 homicides in 2020.

This is part of the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass:

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
in what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault, through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

And I have greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, because, as Philadelphia was approaching 500 homicides for 2020, I was, morbidly enough, rooting for the city to reach the milestone of 500 homicides. And, according to the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page, that ghastly goal was achieved, with 502 people bleeding out their lives in the city’s mean streets.

I noted, only a few days ago, that the City of Brotherly Love had, under the great leadership of Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, won the Silver Medal, with 489 homicides, tying the second place mark set in 1989, but that 1990’s 505 number seemed out of reach.

I had used an article in Wikipedia as my source, which gave that number. But, as of just a couple of days ago, the article changed, stating that 1990’s total was 497. And The Philadelphia Inquirer’s old website, philly.com, has interactive data which gives that same 497 number for 1990.

That may not be the last word, because the Inquirer’s Chris Palmer reported, on New Year’s Day:

The number of people killed last year — 499 as of late Thursday — is 40% higher than in 2019, and more than in all of 2013 and 2014 combined. The only time more people were slain in the city was in 1990, when police reported 500 homicides as violence surged alongside an intensifying crack-cocaine epidemic.

With that 505 number stuck in my brain, I had thought that Mr Palmer was simply using 500 as an approximation, but with the change in data from my source — now two sources — I have to wonder, is the 500 number an approximation, or precise?

Because, if it is precise, and the Police Department’s 502 number is accurate, Messrs Kenney and Krasner, and Miss Outlaw, have won the Gold Medal!

That’s a pretty sad award.

At any rate, a site search for 502 homicides on the Inquirer’s website, at 5:40 PM EST did not turn up any stories noting the ‘achievement.’

Now, I’m something of a math geek, and I do really radical things like run the numbers. It wasn’t so long ago, October 22nd, that I noted in an article entitled We need to stop pretending that #BlackLivesMatter, because in the City of Brotherly Love, it’s very apparent that they don’t, that the math said Philly was on track for 485 homicides.

And that had been a huge jump, because on August 18th, the daily averages led to a number of 439.

Of course, in mid-August, there was still a lot of warm weather left, and violent crimes tend to increase in the long, hot summer.

But by October 22nd, we were a month into autumn, cooler weather had prevailed, and supposedly, so would cooler heads. As I wrote then, the math was simple: 391 people killed in 295 days so far equals 1.325 people killed every single day. With 71 days left in the year, at that rate the city should see another 94 people sent to their deaths before the ball drops in New York City.

391 + 94 = 485.

But 502 killings in 366 days? That works out to 1.372 people being slaughtered, every single day of the year. In the last two months of autumn, and the first two weeks of winter, Philadelphia saw 1.563 homicides per day. The rate of death increased in the cooler months. December’s 48 homicides in 31 days works out to 1.548 per day, during what is supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. December, after President Trump had been defeated for re-election, and COVID-19 vaccines had been developed and approved, yet the things on which the left would like to blame the increased crime rate now being diminished didn’t do much to lower the homicide rate.

I have been profuse in my criticism of Mayor Kenney, District Attorney Krasner and Commissioner Outlaw, and I do not take back a single word of it. But the real blame lies with not just the killers, but the parents who reared them. Yes, a no-nonsense “broken windows” policing and prosecution regime would reduce crime, the way Mayor Rudy Giuliani (D-New York) accomplished it, but the real key is reducing criminal thought in the minds of the people. If the kids are reared right, they won’t commit the crimes, regardless of the policing regimen.

Political leaders cannot rear our children for us; that’s up to parents and grandparents. But the Mayor and the District Attorney can look at what Mayor Giuliani accomplished, and if they don’t like his methods, they can at least appreciate his numbers. Philadelphia’s previous Mayor, Michael Nutter, and his Police Commissioner, Charles Ramsey, might not have been full on “broken windows” in their policies, but, as Robert Stacy McCain pointed out, there were more killings in Philly last year than in two consecutive years, 2013 and 2014, under Messrs Nutter and Ramsey.

Mr Krasner’s Twitter biography states, “District Attorney Larry Krasner fights for equal justice for the great people of Philadelphia. A fair and effective criminal justice system makes us safer.”  The one thing Mr Krasner’s policies have not done is to make Philadelphians safer.
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Cross-posted on RedState.