Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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Killadelphia: the problem is the culture!

I suppose I wrote too soon! I noted yesterday morning that Philadelphia was seeing a real and noticeable decrease in the murder rate, with ‘just’ 441 people murdered through 11:59 PM EDT on October 30th. Sadly, Hallowe’en turned out to be deadly:

3 people killed in separate Philly shootings

A 27-year-old man was fatally wounded in a triple shooting around 8:15 p.m. in North Philadelphia that left two other victims in critical condition.

by Robert Moran | Hallowe’en, October 31, 2022

Three men were killed in separate shootings Monday evening in Philadelphia, police said.

Around 8:15 p.m. in North Philadelphia, three people were shot outside on the 200 block of West Ontario Street by an unknown attacker, police said.

A 27-year-old man shot multiple times in the body was transported by medics to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:45 p.m.

A 26-year-old man shot five times in the body was taken by police to Temple and was listed in extremely critical condition.

There’s more at the original, but the number killed is not three; as both Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News and the Philadelphia Police Department report, there were four murders on Hallowe’en night, bring the total dead to 445 for the year.

We’re far enough into the year, 304 days, that four killings yesterday moves the averages just a little. From 1.4554 per day, and a projected 531.2376 as of yesterday, the City of Brotherly Love is up to 1.4638 murders per day, which works out to 534.2928 projected homicides for 2022. I’m tempted to say, big deal, so what, just three more killings, right? It’s not like anyone really seems to care!

Just before 5:45 p.m. in Southwest Philadelphia, a 47-year-old man was cleaning out a building on the 2500 block of Carroll Street when he was shot once in the chest by an unknown assailant, police said. The man, whose name was not released, was pronounced dead at the scene by medics.

NBC10 reported that the man, who lived in Darby, was working as a mover to help a woman. An argument erupted between the victim and an unidentified man before the fatal shooting.

I have to wonder: about what did someone argue with a man, not from the neighborhood, helping a lady move argue that was worth pulling a gun and killing him, and risking going to jail for the rest of his miserable life?

Kitchen in 2639 Carroll Street. Click to enlarge.

Carroll Street is not the worst neighborhood in Philly, but it’s hardly the best: a look through Google Maps shows a street of typical rowhomes, which have the look or some lower-end remodeling by one contractor sometime a couple of decades ago, fixing porch facias and second-story bay windows. SEveral of the homes show what were old porches now enclosed to create additional inside space. A rowhome at 2605 Carroll Street is listed as being a three-bedroom, one bathroom, 960 ft² home for sale for $180,000, and the photos show an interior which looks like a typical lower-priced flip: grey laminate floors, new paint and appliances throughout. Just down the street, at 2639 Carroll Street, is another rowhome being flipped, though the flipper put less money into it, for $125,000. Before the flipper got to it, the home sold for just $47,000 on July 22, 2020.

Maybe the orange kitchen cabinets aren’t helping get the place sold? 🙂

This is a cultural issue in Philadelphia. For whatever reason, the shooter felt the need, or the desire, to walk down Carroll Street while carrying a firearm. Then, for whatever reason they argued, the armed man thought it was serious enough to pull out his weapon and shoot the victim in the chest. Apparently little enough thought was given to just saying, “F(ornicate) you!” and walking away.

The Philadelphia Police Department is shorty hundreds of officers, but adding hundreds of police officers won’t solve the problem. More police officers might help in catching the bad guys who’ve already shot or killed someone, and perhaps, if ‘progressive’ District Attorney Larry Krasner could change his mind and start prosecuting criminals seriously, perhaps a few shootings and killings could be prevented by having the bad guys already locked up.

The problem is a culture, an attitude, a mindset that tells people that attempting to kill other people is a great solution to whatever problems they believe they have. The problem is an attitude that being a tough gang-banger is a real status symbol, proves your manhood, and is someone young girls want to f(ornicate). And the problem is a culture and an attitude that tells people it’s perfectly acceptable to use drugs, which creates the drug dealers who are responsible for much of the violence.

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Killadelphia: the numbers are slightly better!

I had previously speculated that it was possible that the City of Brotherly Love would have fewer homicides this year than last. The reason was simple: at the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend in 2021, the city was on a path fort 532 homicides, but then saw a huge spike in the rate of killings, and finished the year with 562 people pouring out their life’s blood in the city’s mean streets.

It’s Hallowe’en, almost two months past the Labor Day weekend, almost half of the way to the end of the year, and city homicides have fallen by 3.71%. At the current rate of murders, 1.4554 per day, Philly is on a pace for 531.2376 homicides, a horrible number, easily second-place all time, but still 31 fewer people killed than last year.

But if the numbers have improved slightly over last year, the city has still already reached 6th place on the all-time list, with 62 days left in the year. It should only be a few more days until Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw top the high under former Mayor Frank Rizzo, and get into Mayor Wilson Goode — he of the MOVE bombing fame — territory. Given that Philly’s top three still have another year in office together, they could actually hold first, second, and third place, gold, silver, and bronze, when Mr Kenney, and I have to presume, Commissioner Outlaw, leave office at the end of 2024.

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Killadelphia: Black Lives Don’t Matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer * Updated! *

Friday morning’s Current Crime Statistics page by the Philadelphia Police Department indicated that there had been 433 homicides in the city as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, October 20th. Since the police only update that page Monday through Friday during normal business hours, we don’t get individual daily reports, but just the one on Monday morning, updating Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

And over those three days, the homicide total increased by four, up to 437.

Naturally, I checked The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, and neither their main page nor specific crime page had a story, not a single story, on any of those four murders, as of 9:32 AM EDT on Monday, October 24th. I already knew that two murders had occurred Friday, via Twitter, but with the Philadelphia Phillies winning the National League pennant, not a whole lot of other news seems to have been covered in the city’s media.

My guess? All four of the homicide victims, some of which could have been people shot earlier but who had not died until a couple of days later, are all young black males killed by other young black males in gang-related attacks or gun battles, because those black lives don’t matter to the Inquirer.

The city’s shooting victims database is normally updated around noon; I’ll see then if my guess is right.
____________________________

Update at 11:26 AM EDT: The shooting database statistics are in, and the four murder victims are:

  • 44-year-old black male, fatally shot in the chest at 3:18 AM EDT on Sunday, 3600 block of Oxford Avenue, PPD district 2, Wissinoming
  • 26-year-old black male, fatally shot in the abdomen at 4:54 PM EDT on Saturday, 1500 block of West Clearfield Street, PPD district 39, Upper North Philadelphia, near Broad Street
  • 26-year-old white Hispanic male, fatally shot in multiple places, at 5:06 AM EDT on Saturday, 4300 block of North American Street, PPD District 25, North Philadelphia
  • 23-year-old white Hispanic male, fatally shot in the arm, at 2:25 PM EDT on Friday, 3900 block of Kensington Avenue, PPD district 24, Harrowgate

Well, the victims were not all young black males, but they were all male, all ‘persons of color,’ and all in the less desirable neighborhoods. None of the deceased were of people shot days earlier, who didn’t expire until the weekend, so yes, there were four murders committed over that three-day span, and the Inky covered none of them.

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There’s just no cure for stupid!

Meet Quadir T Jones. Mr Jones has been arrested by the Philadelphia Police Department after he (allegedly) kidnapped a 13-year-old girl after she exited the SEPTA subway station at North Broad and Race Streets on her way to school, then forced her to a parking garage stairwell at 1815 Cherry Street, and raped her. Fox 29’s Steve Keeley has reported that Mr Jones demanded her phone number, and later called and texted her. This allowed the police to track his phone and find and arrest him.

Look at Mr Jones’ face in the released mugshot. The dude looks as though he really does not understand what has happened to him. If he is found guilty — and legally, he is innocent until proven guilty — he needs to be locked up in Pennsylvania’s worst penitentiary — it’s a shame that SCI Graterford was closed — for the rest of his miserable life, because he is way, way, way too stupid to be allowed to reproduce.

Mr Keeley reported that Mr Jones will ‘celebrate’ his 24th birthday on Sunday; my guess us that it will not be a particularly happy one.

The Philadelphia Inquirer also reported on Mr Jones arrest, but rather than publish his booking photo, the Inky used a stock photo of the stairs leading to the North Broad and Race Streets subway station.

The assault of the student, according to police, was the second in less than 30 hours on the subway. A similar attack took place on Thursday with a 15-year-old victim, police said. They have not said if Jones is a suspect in that case.

“We are not ruling out that it is the same person, but we have nothing to indicate that it is either,” Capt. James Kearney of the Special Victims Unit said at a Friday news conference

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain: Soros-Funded Philly D.A. Blames G.O.P. ‘Racism’ for Impeachment

Kearney said Jones walked with the 13-year-old victim, toward her school, after the assault. He allegedly took the victim’s phone and her number. He later called and texted the girl, and Philadelphia police were able to find and arrest him on Friday afternoon through location tracking.

We should all be proud and supportive of the 13-year-old victim, who, despite the trauma of being raped, had the strength and courage to report the crime and provide the evidence the police needed to find and arrest this (alleged) criminal.

Naturally, there’s plenty of speculation that Mr Jones might have had previous meetings with the Philadelphia Police Department, as this seems a bit late in his life for this to be, allegedly, his first offense, because the George Soros-sponsored progressive defense lawyer who is now the city’s District Attorney just loves to let bad guys go, but, at least as of yet, we don’t have that information.

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Hold them accountable! It won't happen, but Larry Krasner should be jailed right along with the other Roxborough High School shootings defendants

It is, I suppose, not a surprise that this article in The Philadelphia Inquirer is marked For Subscribers Only. They actually did the journalism, but perhaps they didn’t want too, too many non-liberals to see how bad District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions really are. But I subscribe that so you don’t have to!

Why the accused Roxborough gunman was out on bail at the time of the shooting, despite his conviction for another crime

“Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation,” District Attorney Larry Krasner said.

by Ellie Rushing | Wednesday, October 19, 2022 | 5:34 PM EDT

Yaaseen Bivins. Mugshot via Philly Crime Update, because you know the Inquirer would never print it. Click to enlarge.

Yaaseen Bivins was free on bail when police say he shot five teens outside Roxborough High School last month, eight weeks after he was convicted of plowing his car into a pregnant woman and killing her unborn baby while drag racing.

Bivins, 21, was found guilty in August of aggravated assault by vehicle, illegal racing, and causing an accident involving death while unlicensed, but he walked out of the courtroom because prosecutors didn’t ask the judge to revoke his bail and jail him while he awaited sentencing.

You know, it was that subtitle in the inquirer which really got to me: “‘Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation,’ District Attorney Larry Krasner said.” Just why does it take hindsight to realize that a man convicted of an Accident involving Death or Injury While Not Licensed, a Third Degree Felony in Pennsylvania (Title 75 §3742.1 §§A1), which under Title 18 §1103(3) has a maximum sentence of seven years in prison, is going to jail, and should be sent directly to jail, do not pass Go, even while awaiting sentencing? Just why does it take hindsight to realize that a man convicted of Aggravated Assault by Vehicle, another Third Degree Felony in Pennsylvania (Title 75 §3732.1) is going to jail, and should be sent directly to jail while awaiting sentencing?

There should have been no question that Mr Bivins was going to go to jail; not requesting the revocation of his bail was an invitation for him to flee or commit other crimes.

After five paragraphs describing the frequent criticism of Mr Krasner, including by the Philadelphia Police Department and Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, we get to Mr Krasner’s excuses:

Krasner said in an interview that, in hindsight, he wishes his office had asked for Bivins to be jailed after his conviction. But he said the prosecutor assigned to the case could not have known that Bivins — who had no criminal record and never missed a court date — would go on to commit other crimes.

“Obviously, with hindsight, it is a truly awful situation,” he said. “I’d love to be able to tell you we asked for it. I’d love to be able to tell you the judge did it. But we can’t go back in time.

“The picture of the defendant that was available to the court, and was available to the attorney… was a very different picture than what we know now,” he said.

The picture available to the Assistant District Attorney was one of a man who killed someone, one who was going to go to jail, and the ADA didn’t realize that leniency was not called for at that point. An ADA with any common sense, any at all, would have realized that, with Mr Bivins then in hand, the sensible thing to do was revoke bail and send him to prison to await sentencing, rather than take the chance that he’d flee.

But we already know: if you have any common sense at all, you are not going to work for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office while George Soros-sponsored, criminal-loving and police-hating Mr Krasner is in charge.

I’ll put it very bluntly: Larry Krasner and whatever idiotic Assistant District Attorney didn’t ask for the revocation of bail are responsible for the death of Nicolas Elizalde! They should be held accountable for 14-year-old Mr Elizalde’s death, but, of course, they won’t be.

Mr Bivins was the one who purchased the ammunition used in the guns which killed Mr Elizalde, and wounded four others, as is documented by this photo of him doing so, five days before the gang hit — I’m sorry, not “gang” hit, but simply a “rival street group” action, according to the District Attorney’s Office[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading — targeting another “rival street group” member, and which wound up killing Mr Elizalde as collateral damage.

Prosecutors routinely ask for bail to be revoked after a conviction if they intend to ask for jail time, former prosecutors said, so the defendant can start serving the sentence immediately.

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t ask to revoke bail if you believe this person actually deserves to be incarcerated,” said Chris Lynett, who worked as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia for five years before going into private practice in 2020. “You want him to serve his time and get out.”

Does this mean that Mr Krasner’s office and the ADA in the case did not intend to ask for jail time for Mr Bivins after his convictions? We don’t know that, and Mr Krasner and the ADA in question aren’t likely to tell us; that “hindsight” thing, you know? Since they charged Mr Bivins with two First Degree Felonies[2]Under Title 18 §1103(1), a First Degree Felony carries a twenty year maximum sentence. — Judge Charles Ehrlich acquitted him of those in a non-jury trial — the DA’s Office must have believed him to be a pretty bad guy.

We have long known that Mr Krasner and his defense-attorneys-as-prosecutors minions have been extremely lenient on criminals, and the result has been a tremendous spike in violent crime, but it’s rare that we get one so time-compressed and nearly immediate. Other people, closer to the situation and better at this than me might be able to put more of those cases together, and I hope that they do. Personally, I’m surprised that the Inky reported on this at all, because they cover for Mr Krasner all that they can.

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“
↑2 Under Title 18 §1103(1), a First Degree Felony carries a twenty year maximum sentence.
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Some people would rather be less safe than cooperate with and support the police

If you want to know why homicides in Philadelphia are both proceeding along record numbers and being solved at very low rates, The Philadelphia Inquirer has decided to tell you. Trouble is, I don’t think that they meant to convey the message that they did.

Black and Latino residents in University City feel the weight of police presence

The neighborhood is home to several overlapping police patrols, which doesn’t make everyone who lives there feel safe.

by Nate File | Monday, October 17, 2022

If you were to start your workday in University City by arriving at 30th Street Station, then walking along Market Street for a few blocks before turning towards UPenn, you would have been subjected to at least seven separate and overlapping police patrols.

Of course, if you debark at the 30th Street SEPTA Station, you’re going to be greeted by a large amount of used drug injection needles just laying around on the tracks, so you just might get the impression that the 30th Street Station isn’t the nicest place in the city.

The jurisdictions you would have passed through are: SEPTA and Amtrak Police, UPenn and Drexel Police, unarmed University City District public safety, and the 16th and 18th precincts of the Philadelphia Police Department. University City is blanketed with police officers, and Black and Latino residents feel it every day.

The police’s larger presence here is not entirely condemned or welcomed by residents; feelings can be mixed. But what is clear is that the police’s presence often feels overwhelming to the neighborhood’s most marginalized people.

There were 499 murders in the City of Brotherly Love in 2020, and a record-shattering 562 in 2021. This year is seeing a slight dip in the homicide rate, a whopping 1.86% fewer than on the same date last year, but still on track for 543 murders for the year.

As we have previously noted, that neighborhood is hardly the worst in Philly, but yes, murders have been committed there, recently.

After a couple of paragraphs noting the University of Pennsylvania’s investments in the neighborhood, and its campus police department, we come to this:

It also invested in its police force; UPenn currently has the largest privately funded police force in the state with over 120 officers. Drexel’s police force is much smaller, with about a third as many officers, but it has only been in operation since 2010.

Tamika Diggs, a Black woman who has lived in University City her entire life and works in the area too, has noticed that investment.

“There has been a change in the 30 something years that I’ve been in University City. Initially, there was just a regular police department. You didn’t really see a large police presence. However, as more gentrification happened… more Black and brown families were pushed out of the area, you (saw a surge) of more police,” she said.

“You certainly feel a sense of surveillance,” said Christopher Rogers, a Black PhD student at UPenn. Rogers feels a tangible difference in how much he is watched and perceived by law enforcement in University City as compared to elsewhere in Philadelphia.

He described the burden of the police’s presence more as an everyday “weight”, as opposed to having excessive confrontations with them.

So, Mr Rogers hasn’t has any interactions with the police that he saw as necessary to mention to the Inquirer’s reporter, but he just feels that they’re around. That the police forces are there to try to protect law-abiding citizens from criminals doesn’t seem to be important to him.

There are several more paragraphs in a similar vein, but the concluding three are the important ones:

But investigations and promises can’t undo firmly entrenched problems, and they so far haven’t changed the way Black and Latino residents of University City feel about the police.

“I think there’s an assumption that everyone else that’s not a student is … (dangerous) for the students that are at Penn or Drexel,” said Olivia.

Diggs has made sure to teach her teenage sons to be careful of how they present in public for that very reason. “I always tell them—my youngest is 6-foot-3—’You are not looked at as a teenager by (University City District), Drexel, any police officers … you’re looked at as a grown man. And so when you walk outside, you have to act accordingly.’”

Well, yes, people ought to act like adults! That’s what Olivia — who declined to provide her last name to the Inquirer reporter — is supposed to be teaching her kids.

Here we have several stories, from black and Hispanic residents in one of Philadelphia’s nicer communities, telling us just how much they dislike and distrust the police. But think about that: before very liberal and #woke Jim Kenney became mayor, the previous two mayors, John Street and Michael Nutter, were black. From 2010 into mid 2017, the District Attorney was black. For all of Mayor Nutter’s eight years in office, the Police Commissioner, Charles Ramsey, was black, his successor, Richard Ross, Jr, was black, and the current Commissioner, Danielle Outlaw, is black. The District Attorney, Larry Krasner, is a progressive, police-hating defense attorney, so Philadelphia’s black population know that he’s not going to pursue cases in which there is really any question about guilt.

There’s really nothing more the city of Philadelphia could reasonably do to engender trust betweenj law enforcement and the black community. Yet reporter Nate File was only able to document black or Hispanic residents in a rebuilding, gentrifying area, minority residents who would be generally better off than their minority brethren in the combat zones, who were still very leery of the police.

This, to me, reveals why Philadelphia is the most internally segregated city of over a million people in the United States, because Philadelphians are segregated mentally, segregated in their mindsets to the point that they’d prefer to live in a less safe area than support the police who are trying to make things safer.

Until the black, Hispanic, white, and Asian populations in the City of Brotherly Love can come closer together culturally, the city will remain segregated, and remain violent. That will take a long, long time to change.

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Danielle Outlaw is disgusted, and Larry Krasner is disgusting.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw released a statement after three SWAT Team officers were shot and wounded, though none fatally, while attempting to serve a warrant in the Richard Allen housing projects on North 10th Street Wednesday morning:

Today, shortly after 6 AM, while serving a warrant on a murder suspect, members of our SWAT unit were fired upon. As the officers were knocking and announcing the warrant, without warning, this suspect fired through a window and door. Three of our brave officers were shout by the assailant, but were still able to return gunfire.  By the grace of God, it appears our officers will physically recover from their wounds.

The suspect was killed in the exchange.

Although I am currently in Dallas, Texas, for the Major Cities Chiefs’ Conference, I was grateful to be able to speak with the officers involved, and thank them for their remarkable service to our city.

While our SWAT officers are highly-trained professionals, this is yet again another cold reminder of the dangers involved in the work they do. Warrant service is always a high-risk assignment; particularly when the suspect is wanted in connection to violent crime.

That, of course, is why the SWAT Team officers were wearing body armor and helmets; they knew that the “suspect,” Raheem Lee, was armed and willing to kill people.

But let me make sure something is perfectly clear: it is NOT the job of our officers to be shot at.

Well, it shouldn’t be, but apparently a fairly sizable segment of the city’s population do believe that it is the job of police officers to be shot at. The Philadelphia Inquirer tried to make a hero out of young Thomas Siderio, who shot at police. And District Attorney Larry Krasner wants to try for murder officers who shoot back and kill offenders.

The Commissioner then, without naming his name, begins her criticism of Mr Krasner, the anti-police defense attorney who, thanks to $1.45 million from George Soros, was elected District Attorney.

It is not their job to be stabbed, spat upon, accosted or attacked in any way. And this type of violence towards our police — towards anyone — cannot continue to be normalized.

We are tired of arresting the same suspects over and over again, only to see them right back out on the street to continue and sometimes escalate their criminal ways.

We are tired of having to send our officers into harm’s way to serve warrants on suspects who have no business being on the street in the first place.

No — not everyone needs to be in jail. But when we repeatedly see the extensive criminal histories of those we arrest for violent crime, the question has to be asked as to why they were yet again back out on the street and terrorizing our communities.

A whole lot more people do need to be in jail, but the voters of the City of Brotherly Love first elected, and then, by a landslide margin, re-elected Mr Krasner, who not only made the promise to drastically reduce the number of criminals locked up, but kept his promise.

I am beyond disgusted by this violence. Our entire department is sickened by what is happening to the people that live, work, and visit our city.

Residents are tired of it.

Business owners are tired of it.

Our children are tired of it.

We are long past “enough is enough.”

As your Police Commissioner, I can promise you this: Our officers will not be intimidated, and we will continue to do everything we can to make Philadelphia a safer place to live.

Philadelphians keep saying that they want the violence to stop, but at the same time, they keep voting for the public officials who let the bad guys go, who won’t take responsibility for the results of their policies,

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Killadelphia: another 13-year-old (probable) gang-banger wannabe bites the dust * Updated! * If the Philadelphia media don't step up, don't start telling the unvarnished truth, they will not have done everything they can to reduce the carnage

That the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page showed that seven people had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards over the four days since the last report — the PPD does not issue updated reports on the weekend or holidays — wasn’t exactly a surprise: not only had I heard of five killings via Philly Crime Update, but seven killings over a weekend is simply not uncommon in the City of Brotherly Love.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

13-year-old boy killed in West Oak Lane shooting

The boy was outside on the corner of 65th Avenue and North Smedley Street when he was shot just before 6:50 p.m.

by Robert Moran | Monday, October 10, 2022

A 13-year-old boy was fatally wounded in a shooting Monday evening in the city’s West Oak Lane section, police said.

The story was originally entitled 13-year-old boy critically wounded in Philadelphia shooting, so reporter Robert Moran began it before he was notified that the victim had died.

Just before 6:50 p.m., the boy was outside on the corner of 65th Avenue and North Smedley Street when he was shot at least one time in the face, said Chief Inspector Scott Small.

The boy was rushed by police to Einstein Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 9:12 p.m., Small said.

The boy, who lived about four blocks away, was believed to have been visiting friends in the area when he was shot by possibly two assailants who then ran from the scene, Small said.

There’s your first red flag: if the young victim was shot “by possibly two assailants” who then fled, you’re getting the first clue that this wasn’t a tragic accident, but a gang killing, though the Inky would apparently prefer a term like “cliques of young men.”[1]We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes … Continue reading Nevertheless, Mr Moran continued with a bit more, setting the stage for another heart-wrenching story:

Jerry T. Jordan, president of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers, issued a statement identifying the boy as a student at Wagner Middle School.

“Our city is once again reeling from the murder of a child — a thirteen-year-old boy in West Oak Lane whose life was stolen from him, robbed of his future dreams and aspirations, never to even graduate eighth grade. My heart breaks for all who knew and loved him: his family, his friends, his neighbors, the entire Wagner Middle School community; the impact of such a tragedy is measureless,” Jordan said.

While the Inquirer hadn’t identified the victim as of 5:35 PM EDT, Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News did, via a tweet. Sure seems like the beginning of a new story telling us what a great kid he was, and how his life was ended before he ever lived it.

That, however, might be jumping the gun. People knew who this victim was, and knew enough to check his social media accounts. Will B Late tweeted:

These photos are from what appears to be his tiktok account. If it is indeed him, he can be seen in the video with a gun, drugs and making signs. Horror at a 13 year old being murdered is founded. The question becomes, how is a 13 year old being enabled to live and die like this?

Mr Late added three photos as evidence. Mr Late stated that he blurred the faces, because many of the boys pictured are probably minors.

The Philadelphia media, other than Fox 29 News, really don’t cover most of the murders, because most of the killings in the city involve members of one “rival street group” shooting members of another “rival street group,” and a whole lot of people see these things as public service homicides. If some gang-bangers are wiping out other gang-bangers, well, that’s the risk you take when you become a member of a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families“.

But while the boys who are susceptible to joining such “groups”, who see a glamorized “gangsta life“, probably hear that it’s dangerous, the media need to put out the facts, the brutal, uncensored, tell-it-like-it-is truth, a truth which might make some of them think twice, and more than twice, and strengthen the parents to keep a much closer eye on their kids.

For the family of young Jeremiah Wilcox, assuming that the identification of his name and social media are accurate, it’s too late. There are, I assume, parents and grandparents and siblings and neighbors who are saddened, are crying, that Mr Wilcox is dead. But if the Philadelphia media, especially the Inquirer, which has the space to really delve into and publish the facts, something television news doesn’t really do that well, don’t step up, don’t tell the unvarnished truth, they will not have done all that they can to reduce the number of Jeremiah Wilcoxes bleeding out their life’s blood in Philly’s mean streets.
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Update! Tuesday, October 11, 2022 | 7:53 PM EDT

The previous was published at 5:47 PM EDT. I hadn’t expected it quite so soon, but yup, the Inquirer is here to tell us what a wonderful boy young Mr Wilcox was:

‘He was just a baby’: The family of a 13-year-old who was fatally shot remember him as a loving, protective boy

Jeremiah Wilcox, 13, was fatally shot Monday evening in West Oak Lane, just a block from his middle school. “He was just a baby,” cried his aunt Jamillah Patterson. “He didn’t deserve this.”

by Ellie Rushing | Tuesday, October 11, 2022 | 6:26 PM EDT

It was 6:36 p.m. Monday when Jasmine Wilcox spoke on the phone with her 13-year-old son, Jeremiah, for what she did not know would be the last time.

“Jeremiah, you OK?” she asked.

“Yes, Mom, I’m outside talking to my friends,” Wilcox recalled her son saying. “And I said, ‘OK it’s a school night. Be home by 8.”

Twelve minutes later, Jeremiah was shot twice, struck in the head and body, police said, as he stood outside his friend’s house in West Oak Lane.

Sure sounds like a good kid, huh?

Jeremiah Wilcox, aka “Jay” or “Jerry,” was a sweet, funny boy, who was protective of his family and loved his mama, (Jasmine Wilcox, his mother) said. He had a bright smile and loved to make his family laugh, they said, but wasn’t afraid to speak his mind if something was bothering him. He liked football and basketball, and played casually with friends. In his free time, he watched anime and played video games like Fortnite and Call of Duty with his cousins.

Cheesesteaks were his favorite food, and he got his sweet tooth from his mom, she said.

He kept the waves in his hair fresh, his family said, and he knew he was handsome, always talking to and flirting with girls.

Jeremiah was an eighth grader at Wagner Middle School, just a block from where he was shot. He and his mom had started looking at high schools for next year, she said, and he was interested in attending Roxborough High for its engineering program and football team.

There’s a lot more at the original, all of it letting us know what a fine, upstanding young man he was. What was not in the story was any mention at all of the allegations in social media that young Mr Wilcox might have been a wannabe gang-banger, including no refutation of those claims.

So, are the claims true? We don’t know yet, but those allegations are definitely out there. It’s going to be an interesting development, to see whether the Inky rushed forward with one of their “innocents” killed, without checking it out, or whether the claims that young Mr Wilcox was a gang-banger wannabe flashing guns and gang signs are the false ones. If, as Chief Inspector Scott Small stated, the police believe that he was shot “by possibly two assailants who then ran from the scene,” turns out to be true, then this was a targeted killing.

References

References
↑1 We were reliably informed by The Philadelphia Inquirer that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” who sometimes had “beefs” with other cliques, so we must replace the term “gang-bangers” with “cliques of young men” or “clique beefers”. District Attorney Larry Krasner and his office seem to prefer the term “rival street groups“.
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Yes, actually, homicide rates can be brought down!

St Louis, Missouri used to be our nations murder capital, but has been downgraded to second place behind New Orleans. The Gateway City saw a whopping 263 homicides in 2020, which, with the city’s population being 304,709 that year, the homicide rate was an astounding 86.31 per 100,000 population.

In 2021, the city dropped to a still horrible 199 murders, and, using 2021’s population guesstimate of 293,310, that works out to a homicide rate of a still horrible 67.85, but at least it’s improving.

As of October 7th of this year, St Louis has seen 154 murders in 278 days, which is on pace for 202.19 homicides for the year. With St Louis population for 2022 guesstimated to have slightly increased, to 298,034, the homicide rate works out to 68.11 per 100,000 population.

Philadelphia’s Democratic leadership have tried to blame the huge increase in homicides on just general stuff, saying that homicide is increasing everywhere, but the actual numbers from St Louis demonstrate that homicides, even one of our deadliest cities, can be reduced.

Part of the solution just might be simply telling the truth about murders. The Philadelphia Police Department issue a gross numbers daily update, while the St Louis report breaks down the statistics the police have. Of course, the statistics are very, very, very politically incorrect!

This year, murders in the City of Brotherly Love have been moving up steadily, and with 416 homicides as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday, October 6th, the city, at 1.4910 killings per day, is on pace for 544.22 murders in 2022, a slight improvement on last year’s 562, but still easily in second place all time.

Yeah, Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw are doing what some older Kentuckians would have called a fine, fine, super-fine job.

This article is 10 months old now, but nothing has changed:

Turning the Tide on Gun Violence . . . Everywhere but Philly

Some big city mayors are saying enough is enough and are—finally—doubling down on smart policing and prosecution. Here in Philly? Not so much

by Larry Pratt | December 32, 2021

Last week started with our incredibly shrinking mayor releasing his annual holiday video message to the citizens of Philadelphia. A stirring call to arms in the middle of a gun violence crisis it was not. Instead, it had all the optics of a hostage video—the dour-faced protagonist, reading cue cards in a lifeless monotone, no doubt counting down the days, hours and minutes until he’s free. Someone arrange a ransom payment to Jim Kenney’s City Hall captors!

Watching, it was tempting to feel deflated. Two more years of Kenney fiddles while Philly burns? Breathe, I told myself. Turns out, inspiration was to be had last week, once I widened the aperture of my lens beyond the see-no-evil—and warring—triumvirate of Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner and MIA Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw.

In fact, last week may turn out to be an inflection point in the war on murder and mayhem in our cities. On Tuesday, two former two-term mayors appeared at our Ideas We Should Steal Festival, and made one of the most full-throated arguments we’ve seen for investing in smart policing while reforming what needs fixing in law enforcement. As if a clarion call, within days two current big city progressive mayors delivered the same “enough is enough” message—a nuanced argument that you can be tough on crime and (be) just at the same time.

This is the problem: for ‘progressives,’ “reforming the police” means reducing policing, cutting policing, and, let’s be frank about this, eliminating a lot of laws as well. We saw that in Philadelphia, where the idiotic City Council approved the Driving Equality Act, which prohibits the police from stopping a vehicle for some specific “secondary offenses,” something which enabled carjackers like the ones who committed the Roxborough High School shooting to drive a stolen vehicle with an expired Delaware temporary paper tag. The City Council wanted to decriminalize ‘driving while black,’ but the cops can’t usually tell if a driver is black or white when they are behind a vehicle.

“It seems that there’s this notion that we can either reform the police or we can be safe, and I think that’s just bullshit,” former Mayor Michael Nutter said at the Festival. Under Nutter, Philadelphia posted its lowest murder rates in over 60 years, and he went on to paint a picture of how that gets done. “You have to do both. There’s a lot of focus on the numbers, but it’s not just numbers. There are people behind those numbers. Thats a life in this city. That’s a family that’s been damaged. That’s a neighborhood. When someone is shot or killed on a block, it is not just a personal incident. That entire block and community and neighborhood is affected. Those kids are going to have nightmares at night. Just washing down the sidewalk does not take away the trauma.”

That’s a mayor striking at the emotional heart of a searing issue, something we’ve seen far too little of recently. And then he shifted into game-plan mode: “I had a district attorney, Seth [Williams], who we could work with, and talk to,” he said. “Obviously, he had his other issues and challenges, but as DA, Seth Williams did a better job than the person who is in the job right now because he understood the importance of public safety. That partnership—of our administration, Commissioner Ramsey, the DA, the courts, the federal agencies, the A.G.’s office, the governor’s office, and citizens who said we are not gonna tolerate this shit going on in our neighborhoods—that’s why crime went down in Philadelphia.”

Kasim Reed, the charismatic two-term mayor of Atlanta who hired more than 900 cops during his tenure and lowered crime by nearly 40 percent while growing his city into an economic juggernaut, argued that those two things—safety and prosperity—go hand in hand. “When Mayor Nutter cut crime, you see a thriving economy run right on the tails of that because people believe in their hearts, the city is mine, too,” he said. “And murder and violence make you believe less and less that the city is yours. And fundamentally we’re at our best when everybody believes the city is ours.”

It was a great applause line that makes one wonder: Have we heard anything from our leaders that makes us want to applaud? Hell, they won’t even talk to one another. Kenney and Krasner snipe and snub, while the body bags pile up.

There’s more at the original, but it points out that some — certainly not all — major cities have cut their overall crime rates, and homicide rates specifically, by supporting law enforcement.

Why hasn’t Philly? Because the city has a District Attorney who is actually a defense lawyer, someone who wants to get criminals off the hook. Solutions like “Broken Windows Policing,” which has been proven to work, are appalling to Larry Krasner, who prefers to excuse the ‘little’ crimes, even though some of the ‘little’ criminals are emboldened enough to start committing worse and worse crimes. We’ve seen this time and time and time again: someone treated too leniently by law enforcement — Nikolas Cruz being the most extreme example — has been enabled by that lenient treatment, and then goes out to commit a far worse crime, one which can get him locked up for decades, perhaps the rest of his life, and, in extreme cases, sentenced to death. Have such criminals really been done any favors by the ‘progressive’ prosecutors fighting ‘mass incarceration’?

Crime can be reduced, but it cannot be reduced by ignoring the lesser offenses. And it certainly cannot be reduced by treating actual criminals like poor, mistreated, young people.