On Thursday, October 12th, Philadelphia Police Officers Richard Mendez, 50, and Raul Ortiz, 60, were when the officers attempted to stop a gang of goons from attempting to break in and steal a car in a parking garage at the Philadelphia International Airport. Officer Mendez was killed, and Officer Ortiz wounded. The officers returned fire, and one of ths suspects was wounded. Teenager Jesus Herman Madera Duran was wounded, and his accomplices threw him in the back of their Dodge Durango — which was reported stolen a weak earlier — and dumped him on the floor of a parking garage at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, and then fled. Young Mr Duran, of Camden, New Jersey, was pronounced dead at CHOP. Continue reading
Tag Archives: #Killadelphia
Being taught about white privilege, by The Philadelphia Inquirer
It has been pointed out countless times on The First Street Journal that The Philadelphia Inquirer only cares about individual homicides when the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a person already of some note, or a cute little white girl.
And so it has been with the killing of Josh Kruger. Continue reading
Killadelphia: The city’s white, liberal elite were appalled at Josh Kruger’s murder, but didn’t even notice the killings of four ‘nobodies.’ I am not surprised in the least.
We have noted, really too many times to note all of them, that The Philadelphia Inquirer is not really concerned about individual homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl is the victim. On Monday morning, it was reported that Josh Kruger, a freelance journalist of at least some note in Philly was murdered, which we noted here, and the left in Philly — Rue Landau, Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing, Jordan Winkler, Mayor Jim Kenney, the Liberty City Dems, state Senator Nikil Saval, The New York Times, WPVI-TV, Inquirer editorial writer Daniel Pearson, CNN, Taj Magruder, Maggie Hart, and an untold number of other people are all mourning his death.
Yet what about the three people murdered early this morning, along with a fourth person critically wounded, in the Crascentville section of the city, and the ‘person of interest’ suspected in the killings? They are, as far as the media have told us thus far, not ‘somebodies,’ and there are few tweets about them, few messages I have seen, and, as far as I can tell, other than friends and family, nobody f(ornicating) cares. Mayor Kenney has said nothing about those four people, whom I assume to be black from this photo in the Inky. Mr Kruger was white.
And you know what? I am not surprised in the least!
Killadelphia: Requiescat in pace, Josh Kruger It can get personal when you know the guy who was murdered
I did not follow Josh Kruger on Twitter, though I frequently saw his tweets — sorry, Elon Musk, but I can’t bring myself to call it “X” — because he was followed by twelve other people I do follow. Mr Kruger is a Philly liberal, who occasionally made a point from the left that isn’t bat guano insane, and occasionally made decent arguments. I have interacted with him on Twitter previously, though not frequently, and wrote about his complaint that Wawa was pulling out of Center City.
But, even if I disagreed with him politically, he’s still someone I ‘knew,’ even if only over the internet, so it is disturbing to read that he was murdered: Continue reading
Killadelphia: Turn on, tune in, get dead!
We have said, many times, that black lives don’t matter, at least not to The Philadelphia Inquirer, which only reports on homicides in the City of Brotherly Love in which the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl is the victim. However, as we have also noted, the newspaper sometimes tries to make ‘innocents’ out of some younger homicide victims, as reporter Anna Orso did with 13-year-old Marcus Stokes, shot while allegedly on his way to school, even though he was sitting in a possibly disabled car which had been sitting on a corner for weeks, not on his way to school, and in the car several minutes after he would have been late for school.
Well, this time it’s reporter Ellie Rushing’s turn! Continue reading
Killadelphia: Street Justice! It seems as though the neighborhood didn't wait for the Philadelphia Police to make an arrest for the murder of Hezekiah Bernard
We asked, on the last day of August, how a 12-year-old boy can just disappear in the City of Brotherly Love, and nobody noticed until his dead body showed up in the trash more than a week later.
Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News provided the map of the two murder sites. Click to enlarge.
A teen killed Saturday in West Philly was a person of interest in a 12-year-old’s murder, sources say
Hundreds of comments on social media had called for vigilante justice against Tysheer Hankinson, who was considered by police to be a person of interest in Hezekiah Bernard’s death in August.
by Vinny Vella and Ellie Rushing | Sunday, September 3, 2023 | 2:25 PM EDT
An Upper Darby teen who was a person of interest in the killing of a 12-year-old boy found dead in a dumpster in Philadelphia last month and who himself had survived a shooting in April was killed early Saturday morning, law enforcement sources said.
Tysheer Shahe Hankinson, 16, was found just after 1 a.m. shot multiple times in his neck, face, left leg, and body on Poplar Street near 55th in West Philadelphia, according to police. Medics took him to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
There was no information about a suspect Sunday, and no murder weapon was recovered.
Hankinson was considered a potential suspect and person of interest in the death of Hezekiah Bernard, whose body, wrapped in plastic and shot in the head, was found in a dumpster outside of a public housing complex in West Philadelphia on Aug. 23, according to law enforcement sources. Bernard had been dead for at least 24 hours, investigators said.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s subtitle provided the real information: if there were “Hundreds of comments on social media had called for vigilante justice against Tysheer Hankinson,” then the people of the neighborhood knew who they believed killed young Mr Bernard. Continue reading
Killadelphia: How does a 12-year-old boy go missing for over a week, and nobody noticed?
Body of 12-year-old boy, shot in the back of the head, discovered in the trash, after a Philadelphia Housing Authority worker had already collected the garbage bin and taken it to another PHA facility. The boy’s body fell out during the process.
The body of a 12-year-old boy was found in a dumpster in West Philadelphia, police say
Hezekiah Bernard, 12, was found dead in West Philadelphia last week.
by Ellie Rushing and Chris Palmer | Thursday, August 31, 2023 | 11:32 AM EDT | Updated: 3:54 PM EDT
The body found in a dumpster in West Philadelphia last week has been identified as a 12-year-old boy, police said Thursday.
Police had said they recovered the body of a young man on the morning of Aug. 23 inside a trash can at a public housing complex at 55th and Cherry Streets.Hezekiah Bernard
But for nearly a week, they did not know who he was — or that he was a child.
On Tuesday, he was identified as Hezekiah Bernard, according to Staff Inspector Ernest Ransom, head of the Philadelphia Police Department’s Homicide Unit.
Surprisingly enough, The Philadelphia Inquirer printed young Mr Bernard’s photo.
Bernard’s death has been ruled a homicide. He was shot once in the back of the head and his body was wrapped in plastic, said Ransom. It was not yet known when he was killed, or how long he had been in the dumpster before police recovered his body.
Really? Wouldn’t the police have a good guess due to the missing person report?
Ransom said Bernard had not been reported missing in recent weeks.
So, a 12-year-old boy goes missing, for over a week, and it wasn’t reported?
Who were his parents? Who was the adult responsible for young Mr Bernard?
An autopsy was conducted, but investigators weren’t able to figure out who the victim was, Ransom said. Detectives distributed fliers in West Philadelphia, and on Aug. 29, Bernard’s relatives reached out to the Medical Examiner’s Office and were able to confirm that Bernard was the victim.
“Relatives” may not have been the people actually responsible for the child’s care, so we can’t automatically blame them. But shouldn’t someone have noticed that he was missing? Yeah, my mind is good at speculating what could have happened, but there are too many possibilities, none of them good.
Killadelphia: The area “was littered with shell casings.”
If bullets fly in Kensington, is it really news?
700 block of East Madison Street. Photo via Google Maps, August 2019. Click to enlarge.
Kensington and Independence Mall-area shootings leave two dead, three wounded
The Kensington shootings occurred in an area long burdened by gun violence.
by Anthony R Wood | Saturday, August 26, 2023 | 11:07 PM EDT
A 39-year-old man was shot to death and two others were critically wounded late Saturday afternoon in a triple shooting in Kensington, police said.Several hours later, police said, a double shooting occurred in the Independence Mall area, leaving one man dead and another wounded.
The first shooting occurred just before 5 p.m. in the 700 block of East Madison Street, not far from the intersection of Kensington and Allegheny Avenues, in an area that has been more burdened by gun violence than any other in the city.
The 700 block of East Madison is a racially-integrated, semi-dilapidated rowhouse street, with several homes in which the owners have literally put themselves in jail, adding security bars to keep people off of their front porches. Extremely narrow, cars are shown parked entirely on the sidewalk on the left-hand side of the street, as the one-way traffic flows, and partially on the sidewalk on the right-hand side.
A check of the real estate site Zillow shows that 711 East Madison is for sale, for a list price of $59,900, a 750 ft² home built in 1920, and being sold “as is.” No photos of the inside are available. Zillow’s map shows virtually every home in the neighborhood that is listed for sale is listed for under six digits. Continue reading
Killadelphia: We knew all along whom the Usual Suspects would blame!
500 block of North Creighton Street, via Google Maps. Click to enlarge.
We have previously noted the shooting in the 500 block of North Creighton Street in West Philadelphia. A semi-dilapidated neighborhood with a few rowhouses boarded up, it’s wholly unsurprising that City Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier would blame it not on bad guys or street gangs, but “massive blight and disinvestment.”
Police identified the 19-year-old man who was fatally shot at a West Philly block party
Kevin July, 19, was fatally shot early Saturday on the 500 block of North Creighton Street, police said. Another eight people were wounded in the incident at a late-night outdoor party.
by Chris Palmer and Rodrigo Torrejón | Monday, August 21, 2023
Philadelphia Police on Monday identified the man who was fatally shot at what officials are now calling an unpermitted block party over the weekend as 19-year-old Kevin July, saying he was one of nine people shot in the violent episode in West Philadelphia’s Mill Creek section. The eight other victims survived, police said.
Still, authorities have released few other new details about the crime as they continue to investigate, saying they were not yet sure of a motive, nor were they even certain how many people opened fire during the incident.
July’s relatives declined to comment when contacted by phone Monday.
The shooting happened on the 500 block of North Creighton Street around 1:30 a.m. Saturday, police said, when shooters fired at least 60 shots into a crowd of dozens of people who had gathered for a party or barbecue. The celebration took place at end of the rowhouse-lined street that dead ends in between Wyalusing and Westminster Avenues.
The article noted that the block party had not applied for or received a permit for such, and that permitted block parties must end at 8:30 PM. Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore told the media that shell casings from at least three different types of ammunition had been recovered, and that means only one thing: gangs!
Councilmember Jamie Gauthier, who represents the area, said in an interview that she’d spoken to the captain of the 16th Police District and been told that the event was a private gathering that had attracted guests from elsewhere, and that some people who live on the block “didn’t even know people who engaged in the dispute.” . . . .
She also said Mill Creek, the neighborhood in which the shooting occurred, is burdened by “massive blight and disinvestment,” including city-owned properties that have grown dilapidated. And she said the city should focus on investing in housing, clearing vacant lots, and improving the nearby recreation center as ways to improve conditions that can lead to violence.
“The chronic disinvestment experienced in neighborhoods like West Mill Creek lends to the thought that nobody cares here, anything goes here,” she said.
Would you invest in an area like that? If I were going to invest my money in something, it would be something which showed an at least plausible return on investment. West Mill Creek is not a place in which that plausible return on investment exists.
I grew up poor, too, reared by a divorced mother, alone, with two younger sisters, but somehow, some way, I did get involved with street gangs, and I never shot anyone. Poverty is no excuse!