Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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Killadelphia: Somebody talked? * Updated! *

Somebody talked.

Someone recognized the five shooters who jumped out of the stolen SUV from which the shooters, and possibly a sixth person, driving the vehicle, at the Roxborough High School shootings following a football scrimmage on September 27th. Perhaps it was the thus-far-unnamed 17-year-old black male who appears to be the intended target of the shooting which killed 14-year-old Nicholas Elizalde and wounded five others, or perhaps it was a bystander.

Or, perhaps nobody talked, but the Philadelphia Police were able to get some of what they need from forensic evidence from the stolen vehicle, which was found dumped outside a strip club.

Philly Police say a 16-year-old is expected to face murder charges in last week’s Roxborough High School shooting

Police believe Dayron Burney-Thorne participated in the crime, which left a 14-year-old boy dead and four others wounded. They declined to say if he’s a suspected shooter or get-away driver.

by Chris Palmer | Tuesday, October 4, 2022 | 2:04 PM EDT

Philadelphia detectives are searching for a 16-year-old who is expected to face murder charges over last week’s fatal shooting outside Roxborough High School, authorities said Tuesday.

Dayron Burney-Thorne, via Steve Keeley on Twitter Click to enlarge..

Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said police believe Dayron Burney-Thorne participated in the crime, which left a 14-year-old boy dead and four others wounded. Still, Vanore declined to specify if detectives believe Burney-Thorne was one of the five shooters who jumped out of an SUV and began firing in the ambush-style attack, or if the teen might have served as a getaway driver.“He was there and participated,” Vanore said.

A warrant had already been approved for Burney-Thorne’s arrest on counts including theft and obstruction of justice over his connection to the stolen Ford Explorer that was used in the crime, Vanore said. The teen was now also expected to be charged as an adult with counts including murder, attempted murder, and weapons offenses, according to police.

Remember when I said that, despite young Mr Elizalde’s mother stating that her son isn’t just “a number,” in the larger scheme of things, yes, he really was just a number? Well, in Chris Palmer’s article, Mr Elizalde’s name is not mentioned until the seventh paragraph. Instead of writing, in the second paragraph, “which left 14-year-old Nicholas Elizalde dead,” Mr Palmer wrote, “which left a 14-year-old boy dead.” A small point, perhaps, but noticeable, at least to a careful reader.

The Philadelphia Police Department released Mr Burney-Thorne’s mugshot on Twitter at 12:01 PM EDT, more than two hours before the Inquirer article was published, so reporter Chris Palmer had access to it, but the newspaper didn’t publish it. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw tweeted, at 12:50 PM EDT, that Mr Burney-Thorne was still wanted, meaning that he was not yet in custody, and the newspaper could have helped the police by publishing his mugshot, but they didn’t. The last thing publisher Elizabeth Hughes’ “anti-racist news organization” wants to do is help law enforcement!

It seems that young Mr Burney-Thorne, of whom the Philadelphia Police already had a mugshot, so he’s been arrested previously, has a rather substantial criminal record already, having active warrants for theft, obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence and criminal conspiracy, and he’s just 16 years old.

Juvenile records are normally sealed, so perhaps we’ll never know, but it has to be asked: has Mr Burney-Thorne, who was only 12 when District Attorney Larry Krasner took office, been the beneficiary of lenient treatment by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, and was it possible that Mr Burney-Thorne could have been locked up last Tuesday, had the District Attorney treated him seriously, when he (allegedly) made the ‘mistake’ that could send him to adult prison for the rest of his miserable life? If he could have been incarcerated in juvenile detention, he would not have been (allegedly) involved in Mr Elizalde’s murder, and who knows, perhaps Mr Elizalde would still be alive today.

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’?
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Updated! Tuesday, October 4, 2022 | 9:55 PM EDT

Via Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News, we find that yes, Mr Burney-Thorne has been treated leniently by the system:

Dayron Burney-Thorn’s priors include resisting arrest by @PhillyPolice in March last year while possessing gun illegally, law enforcement sources tell FOX29 News. Another arrest just 10 months ago in January. Law Enforcement sources tell FOX29 News Dayron Burney-Thorn,16, was then caught in January by @PhillyPolice 10 months after gun arrest, pushing a carjacked vehicle into a parking lot trying to hide it. He was charged with receipt of stolen property in that case. Burney-Thorn was released without bail after his latest charge in January for receipt of stolen property involving the prior carjacked vehicle he was caught pushing into a parking lot to hide it.

So, in March of 2021, Mr Burney=Thorne was arrested for the illegal possession of a firearm. If the District Attorney’s office levied any punishment at all against the offender, then aged just 15 years old, he was nevertheless out on the streets in January of 2022. He was then caught trying to hide a carjacked vehicle, and charged under Title 18 §3925, which is a third degree felony if the value of the stolen property exceeds $2,000 but is under $100,000. Under Title 18 §106(b)(4), the penalty for a felony in the third degree is imprisonment for up to seven years. Mr Burney-Thorne was released without any bail on this charge.

So, what do we have? A criminal suspect, who previously been arrested for the illegal possession of a firearm, was caught in possession of a carjacked vehicle, a crime of dramatically increased incidence in the City of Brotherly Love, and the DA just lets him go free? Is it any wonder that the suspect thought that he could get away with murder?

Mr Krasner and his office did Mr Burney-Thorne no favors. Caught with an illegal firearm, little or nothing was done. Then caught with a carjacked vehicle, again, nothing was done. Now young Mr Elizalde is stone-cold graveyard dead — something that could have happened without Mr Burney-Thorne’s participation — and the suspect is looking at a sentence of spending the rest of his pathetic life behind bars.

If the District Attorney had found a way to keep the suspect behind bars, he’d have been looking at a maximum sentence of seven years for the carjacking case, but still having the prospect of getting out of jail while in his twenties. Now, he’s looking at life.

This is the kind of thing that happens when ‘progressive’ George Soros-sponsored defense attorneys get elected as prosecutors: in their oh-so-noble sympathy for the poor and downtrodden, they enable the small-time criminals to become big-time criminals, rather than giving them the harsh lessons early, lessons which might, just might, persuade them to stop being criminals.

“Spare the rod and spoil the child” is an old, old saying, one in which Mr Krasner clearly does not believe, but in the case of Mr Burney-Thorne, that spoiled child just might spend the rest of his days in a maximum security prison.

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It wasn’t a difficult prediction to make

I wrote, on September 27th:

As we have noted many times before, The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl. So, while a 14-year-old boy being killed would normally be seen as the death of an “innocent,” a planned “hit” on a group of junior varsity football players certainly sounds like there was something to have generated bad blood between at least one of the players and a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families.” The dead player might not have been involved in whatever dispute the “clique beefers” had, but the obvious assumption is that at least someone among the departing players might not have been quite the “innocent” the Inky would like to make him out to be.

When the Inky stops telling us what a good and noble fellow the dead boy was, we’ll know a lot more.

Subsequent reports in the Inquirer have indicated that yes, this was a gang hit an unfortunate action by a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,”[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 but that the Philadelphia Police believe that the targeted individual was a 17-year-old black male who had been shot himself in the commission of a carjacking and has been “referenced several times for his criminal activity, and who was not on one of the football teams, but the only victim who was killed, 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde, was apparently an innocent casualty rather than being part of such a gang clique himself. That means it’s time for the Inky to run a nice story on him!

The mother of Roxborough shooting victim Nicolas Elizalde, 14, has a message: ‘He isn’t a number’

“He was happier than he’s ever been,” Meredith Elizalde said of her son, 14, starting the school year and joining the football team.

by Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham | Saturday, October 1, 2022

Nicolas Elizalde had begged his mother to let him play football for years, but she always said no, too worried about the injuries that can come with the sport.

This year, Nick was starting high school in a new area, and needed a way to make friends. So Meredith Elizalde gave in. And in August, they trekked to the athletic store to buy him a new pair of cleats.

They were the cleats that she saw from afar on Tuesday, as she ran toward the sound of gunfire outside Roxborough High School.

But even before she saw them, she knew.

There are dozens more paragraphs, plus photos, in the Inquirer original, telling us that young Mr Elizalde was a good kid who never got into any trouble. Our heartstrings are pulled when we are told that his corneas were donated to help save the vision of two other people.

But despite what his mother said, young Mr Elizalde is just a number, number 401 in the list of people murdered in the City of Brotherly Love. Most of the people killed in Philadelphia are just as bad a guys as the guys who killed them, and Mr Elizalde, like Tiffany Fletcher just a few weeks earlier, will be forgotten in not much more time, as the number of dead bodies continues to rise. As of the end of Thursday, September 29th, two more Philadelphians were shot in broad daylight walking down the public streets, in an obviously targeted hit — note that the victims started to run as the shooter got out of the car, because they recognized that this was a hit, in a way innocent people most probably would not — and no story in the Inky tells us what we already knew: these were just as much gang-bangers as the guy who shot them.

Josef Stalin purportedly said, “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” There were 562 people murdered in Philly last year, and if the current year is slightly behind that pace, it’s not behind by much, and unless the daily average of murders falls dramatically, there will be something on the order of 540 to 550 homicides in 2022.

And this is why young Mr Elizalde really is just a number. Why is he just a number? It’s because nobody really cares! Most Philadelphians aren’t out there shooting people, but the people who know who the shooters are still keep their mouths shut, still don’t help the police solve murders.

Some of that is clearly fear, but the police have set up well-publicized anonymous tip lines which could at least get the police pointed in the right direction. Some of it is that so many residents just plain hate the cops and hate law enforcement, as evidenced by the fact that the voters re-elected, by landslide margins, a District Attorney who loves to prosecute cops but does not want to send street criminals to jail. And some of it is a sense that most of these killings are public service homicides, one group of bad guys taking out another group of bad guys. In that, and yes, I recognize that I’m being an [insert slang term for the anus here] for pointing it out, but young Mr Elizalde was simply collateral damage.

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”.
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Killadelphia: I told you so!

I told you so! I said yesterday evening, concerning the shooting at Roxborough High School, “Four shooters, huh? Were we not 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,’ I would have said that, yeah, this was a gang hit, but apparently it was just a beef of some sort between cliques. I suppose that I’ll have to stop using the term ‘gang-bangers’ and replace it with a more politically correct ‘clique beefers.'” Now we learn from Steve Keeley of Fox29 News:

The Inquirer actually admitted that it was a deliberately targeted hit:

At least one teen shooting victim was targeted, officials say

by Erin McCarthy | Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | 3:48 PM EDT

Philadelphia police officials on Wednesday showed video footage that captured the moments when five shooters, all of whom appear to be juveniles, opened fire on a group of Roxborough High School football players after a Tuesday afternoon scrimmage.

Nicholas Elizalde, 14, of Havertown, was killed in the attack, and Philadelphia Police Capt. Jason Smith said he believes Elizalde was “a totally innocent victim.” Investigators believe one or more of the other victims were targeted, Smith added.

“There was possibly some altercation in the lunchroom” earlier Tuesday, Smith said, noting investigators had interviewed three of the five victims and were still looking into several possible motives.

“Do we believe it was targeted? Yes,” Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said. “Who was the target? We’re still working to determine that.”

The five shooters, one more than had previously been reported, waited near the football field for six minutes, Vanore and Smith said, until the five victims walked by the shooters’ light-colored Ford Explorer.

Then, five people exited the SUV and started firing. Four ran back to the car after the initial volley of gunfire, police said. A fifth shooter continued running down the street, shooting at the 17-year-old victim, who was not a Roxborough football player and whom Smith said he believes was targeted.

“That victim collapses on sidewalk. [The shooter] stands over top of him and continues firing,” Smith said. “The only thing that stopped this individual from firing was that apparently he had run out of bullets and the slide had locked.”

In all, police recovered more than 60 fired cartridges at the scene. They are looking for the five shooters and a sixth individual who drove the SUV.

What the Inky did not have was that the 17-year-old (apparently) intended victim was a previously identified carjacker and “is referenced several times for his criminal activity.” Did those “Law Enforcement sources” tell FOX 29 News but not the Inquirer, or was it the Inky’s usual censorship of the news?

The unidentified 17-year-ols was shot once in his right arm and thrice in his left leg. How, I have to ask, could the shooter have been “stand(ing) over top of (the victim) and continu(ing to) fire,” and still not kill his victim?

Of course, the Inquirer had a feature on how to fudge the truth to your own kids:

How to talk to kids about the Roxborough High School shooting

Tips for how to talk to kids about grief and violence after the Roxborough High School shooting.

by Sarah Gantz and Abraham Gutman | Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | 4:48 PM EDT

On Tuesday, five high school students were shot after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School. One has died.

Whether you are talking to children directly affected by this latest school shooting, ongoing neighborhood violence, or the death of a loved one, guiding them through this emotional thicket can be tough. You may be asking yourself:

How much should you tell children?

How do you make them feel better?

You know, I’m not going to quote any of the psychobabble from the article; if you want to read it, click on the link. But you know how to talk to kids about the Roxborough shooting? Tell ’em that this is what happens to gang-bangers cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families, and if they want to avoid being gunned down, the best way to do that is to do the right things, not the wrong, and stay away from the wannabe thugs.

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Killadelphia: Not a “gang hit”, but just a “beef” between “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families”

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Ellie Rushing, Jessica Griffin, Ximena Conde, and Chris Palmer wrote, on September 19th:

In Philadelphia, there are no gangs in the traditional, nationally known sense. Instead, they are cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families. The groups have names — Young Bag Chasers, Penntown, Northside — and members carry an allegiance to each other, but they aren’t committing traditional organized crimes, like moving drugs, the way gangs did in the past.

(William Fritze, an assistant district attorney who heads the Gun Violence Task Force in the DA’s Office), though, said it’s time to call them what they are: “I think we are now at a point where we can comfortably say there are gangs.”

Beef between rival crews sometimes goes back years. But increasingly, he said, the feuds are fueled by — and chronicled on — social media, particularly Instagram. Members of one group often make posts or livestreams mocking and claiming the shootings of people in rival crews as a way to build street cred.

So, since the learned journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading of the Inquirer tell me there are no real gangs in the City of Brotherly Love, I guess that this wasn’t a gang hit, but simply a beef between a couple of “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families.”

A 14-year-old boy was killed and 4 other teens wounded in a shooting after a football scrimmage at Roxborough High School

Just after 4:40 p.m., players participating in a football scrimmage were walking off the field and heading to a school bus when gunfire erupted.

by Ellie Rushing, Kristen A. Graham, and Robert Moran | Tuesday, September 27, 2022 | 8:32 PM EDT

A 14-year-old boy was killed and four other teens wounded in a shooting after a football scrimmage outside Roxborough High School late Tuesday afternoon, police said, marking the 23rd shooting death of a child this year as Philadelphia continues to face a surge in gun violence.

Just after 4:40 p.m., players participating in a football scrimmage were walking off the field and heading to a school bus on Pechin Street when shooters opened fire from a car and unleashed a volley of bullets on the team, police said.

A 14-year-old boy who suffered a gunshot wound to the left side of his chest was rushed by police to Einstein Medical Center and was pronounced dead at 5:09 p.m.

The boy was a football player on the Roxborough team, but he attended Saul High School, a nearby magnet school that focuses on agriculture, Philadelphia School District spokesperson Christina Clark said.

Further down:

The three-way scrimmage between Roxborough, Northeast, and Boys Latin High Schools’ junior varsity football teams had just finished around 4:30 p.m. and players were grabbing their gear and walking towards the bus.

Suddenly, four shooters ambushed members of the Roxborough team and shot five of them, police said.

Four shooters, huh? Were we not reliably informed by the Inky that there are no gangs in the city, just “cliques of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families,” I would have said that, yeah, this was a gang hit, but apparently it was just a beef of some sort between cliques. I suppose that I’ll have to stop using the term “gang-bangers” and replace it with a more politically correct “clique beefers.”

As we have noted many times before, The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t care about homicides in the City of Brotherly Love unless the victim is an ‘innocent,’ someone already of some note, or a cute little white girl. So, while a 14-year-old boy being killed would normally be seen as the death of an “innocent,” a planned “hit” on a group of junior varsity football players certainly sounds like there was something to have generated bad blood between at least one of the players and a “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families.” The dead player might not have been involved in whatever dispute the “clique beefers” had, but the obvious assumption is that at least someone among the departing players might not have been quite the “innocent” the Inky would like to make him out to be.

When the Inky stops telling us what a good and noble fellow the dead boy was, we’ll know a lot more.
__________________________________________

Updated: Wednesday, September 28, 2022 |  8:59 AM EDT

Shooters remain unidentified, and their motive remains unclear

By Ellie Rushing, Kristen A. Graham, and Robert Moran | 7:20 AM EDT

It remains unclear what led to the shooting outside Roxborough High School, said Capt. John Walker, head of the Police Department’s nonfatal shooting unit, adding that there have been no other recent incidents involving players on these teams.

It was also unclear just how many shots were fired, but there were more than 70 evidence markers throughout the street, noting both shell casings and bullet fragments.

The photo in the Inquirer shows an investigator carrying an evidence marker numbered 74.

Let’s tell the truth here: the surviving victims almost certainly know which “clique of young men affiliated with certain neighborhoods and families” shot them, and their wounds were primarily in their legs:

During Tuesday’s shooting, another 14-year-old boy was shot once in his left thigh, and a 15-year-old was shot in the leg. A 17-year-old was also shot in the right arm and three times in his left leg. All were rushed to Einstein and Temple Hospital, and were in stable condition Tuesday night, police said.

A fifth player suffered a graze wound, but did not require medical treatment, police said.

Translation: their wounds, though doubtlessly painful, are not serious enough that none of them would have been able to be questioned by the police. If the police do not know the identities of the shooters and at least the players’ version of the dispute which led to the attack, then the players simply aren’t talking. They’re following the street code, and expecting that street ‘justice’ will avenge their shootings.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ 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.
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Killadelphia and Killington

We have been noticing that the homicide rate in the City of Brotherly Love has been taking a slightly different path this year than in 2021’s record-setting bloodbath. At the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend of 2021, there had been 363 homicides in the city, where the number was 372 this year. The statistics slightly skew, because Labor Day was on September 6th in 2021, and September 5th this year.

In 2021, the homicide rate really took off after Labor Day, rising from 1.4578 per day, to 1.7155 per day for the rest of the year, taking the projected number of total murders from 532 to 562.

But this year, that surge hasn’t been seen, and the number of homicides has fallen behind 2021’s awful toll; as of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, September 25th, Philly is six homicides behind last year’s same-day numbers. At 1.48134328358209 killings per day, Philly actually has a lower daily death rate than the 1.504032258064516 seen at the end of the Labor Day holiday. At the end of Labor Day, the killing numbers projected out to 548.97, while now they’re down to 540.69 now. That’s still a terrible number, but perhaps, just perhaps, the city can avoid setting a new record for murders this year. Sure, it’s almost certainly going to be above 500, second-place all time, but that’s better than another gold medal.

However, the gold medal is what Lexington, Kentucky has won:

Woody LaPierre, photo by Fayette County Detention Center, and is a public record.

Lexington ties 2021 homicide record after man dies in Sunday morning shooting

by Taylor Six | Sunday, September 25, 2022 | 9:18 AM EDT | Updated: 3:39 PM EDT

Lexington has tied its record for homicides, set in 2021, with the city’s 37th homicide of 2022 taking place Sunday morning on Oxford Circle.

According to Lexington Police, officers responded to the 1800 block of Oxford Circle where they located 25-year-old Adentokunbo Okunoye, who had been shot around 4 a.m.

When officers arrived, they located Okunoye suffering from a gunshot wound. According to police, he was declared dead at the scene by the Lexington Fire Department.

Police arrested 29-year-old Woody LaPierre and charged him with murder. He is currently being held at the Fayette County Detention Center.

There’s more at the original, but it’s just noting the statistics: with 37 homicides, Lexington has tied last year’s record. In 2021, the 37th murder occurred on December 30th, while the city had seen only 27 killings at this time last year.

At 37 murders in 268 days, one every 7.24 days, Kentucky’s second-largest city is on a path to 50.39 murders for the year. Just four days ago, the number was at least under fifty, at 49.585.

In a bit of good news, the Lexington Police Department has solved the killing of Dietrich Murray:

Man arrested in connection to August murder on Dakota Street, Lexington police say

by Taylor Six | Sunday, September 25, 2022 | 9:54 AM EDT | Updated: Monday, September 26, 2022 | 10:59 AM EDT

James Catlett, photo by Fayette County Detention Center on August 6, 2014, and is a public record.

The Lexington Police Department arrested a man in connection with a homicide that occurred in August on Dakota Street.

Forty-five-year-old James Catlett was arrested on Saturday and charged with murder for the August 31 shooting death of Dietrich Murray, 29, according to police.

Murray was found lying in a Lexington road last month with a gunshot wound and died at the hospital, according to Lexington police.

Lt. Joe Anderson of the Lexington Police Department said the night of the homicide, the police received a report of a shooting at approximately 7:45 a.m. Murray was found in the intersection of North Broadway and Loudon Avenue when officers arrived.

According to court documents, a single spent .380 caliber shell casing was found at the scene of the shooting. Catlett was identified as a suspect and it was determined the shell casing came from a handgun that was in Catlett’s possession during a traffic stop on Sept. 1, according to an affidavit.

It was unclear if Catlett was a suspect in the shooting at the time of the traffic stop.

An eyewitness confirmed Catlett as the shooter through a photo lineup, according to court documents. Police didn’t comment on additional details of the investigation when asked Monday.

There’s more at the original.

As usual, what my best friend used to call the Lexington Herald-Liberal did not publish the mugshots of either criminal suspect, despite the fact that that the Lexington television stations had.

With a guesstimated population of 337,000, Lexington had a homicide rate of 10.98 per 100,000 population in 2021. If the city hits the projected 50 this year, the rate would be 14.84 per 100,000 population. Killington isn’t quite in Killadelphia’s league, but perhaps it ought to quit trying.

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Do ‘progressive’ prosecutors equal bloody streets? Correlation does not equal causation, but it sure looks interesting

We have previously noted that while Philadelphia’s homicide rate increased after Jim Kenney replaced Michael Nutter as Mayor, things really began to take off after Larry Krasner became District Attorney. Now my good friend Robert Stacy McCain has noted how homicides took off in Baltimore after another George Soros-sponsored wokester, Marilyn Mosby, became Charm City’s prosecutor:

Homicides in the city increased dramatically after Mosby became the state’s attorney for Baltimore, and the crime wave she unleashed has reverberated across Maryland and into neighboring states, for the simple reason that failure to prosecute criminals in the city means they are free to commit crimes in other jurisdictions. Criminals from Baltimore that Mosby turned loose are perpetrating felonies throughout Maryland, as well as in Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

Mr Krasner has been trying to pass the responsibility for Philly’s surge in homicides on everything but himself, claiming that they’ve surged everywhere, but there’s a noticeable difference. In Baltimore, they surged in 2015, after Mrs Mosby took office in 2015, while in the City of Brotherly Love, there was an uptick, but not a huge one, certainly not the 63.03% increase seen when Mrs Mosby took office in Baltimore. Homicides actually dropped by a small amount, from 280 down to 277, in Mayor Jim Kenney’s first year, though they then pushed up to 315, a 13.72% jump, in 2017.

George Soros sent $1.45 million to Mr Krasner for his 2017 campaign, which he won, and then murders jumped to 353 his first year in office, then 356, then 499, and then to last year’s record shattering 562.

Baltimore’s population in 2015 was a guesstimated 622,851, which put Charm City’s homicide rate at a whopping 55.23 per 100,000 population. The city’s population has continued to shrink, and was down to 576,498 in 2021, which means that its 337 homicides, seven fewer than in 2015, results in an even higher 58.46 per 100,000 homicide rate. Philly’s gang-bangers have a lot of catching up to do to match Baltimore’s bloody streets!

Correlation does not equal causation, but it certainly is interesting how two Interstate 95 corridor cities both saw huge spikes in homicides after Soros-sponsorship put ‘progressive’ prosecutors in office.

 

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Killadelphia: A reason for hope?

We have previously noted, several times, that, at the end of the Labor Day weekend in 2021, the homicide rate in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia had dropped to ‘just’ 1.4578 murders a day, which would yield 532 murders for the entire year, if that average was maintained.

It wasn’t maintained, as the drug dealers and gang-bangers somehow took that as a personal challenge, and in the period after Labor Day, the City of Brotherly Love saw a murder rate of 1.7155 per day.

As of September 5th, the end of the Labor Day holiday weekend this year, 373 people had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards, yielding a homicide rate of 1.5040 killings per day, or a projected 549 murders for 2022; the mid-summer ‘lull’ that had happened in 2021 didn’t occur this year.

But there may be some hope that the post-Labor Day surge that happened in 2021 might not happen, or not be as bad, in 2022. While this wouldn’t seem to be a cause for celebration in more civilized places, there has been only one recorded homicide in Philadelphia since Wednesday, September 14th, and the homicide rate has dropped below 1.50, down to 1.4809 per day, which projects out to 540.53 murders for the entire year.

That’s hardly a great number, but at least it’s better than last year’s record-smashing 562.

At the end of the Labor Day holiday this year, there had been 3.324% more homicides than the previous year; as of 11:59 PM EDT on Monday, September 19th, the increase is down to 1.042%, as the killing rate last year was higher.

Yes, I am a numbers geek to some extent, and yes, it has been only two weeks since the end of the Labor Day holiday, so it’s really too soon to note a real trend here, but at least it’s a reason for hope.

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They’ve got a big job ahead of them

As we have previously noted, the Philadelphia Police Department is seriously undermanned, by some 1,300 positions.

Philly Police have 72 new officers. They’ll start amid a shortage of more than 500.

The class of more than 70 academy graduates is the department’s largest graduating class in three years.

by Anna Orso | Friday, September 16, 2022 | 1:24 PM EDT

The Philadelphia Police Department got 72 new officers Friday when its largest class of recruits in three years graduated from the academy, an infusion of personnel that comes amid a shortage of hundreds of officers.

Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw welcomed the graduates during a ceremony at Temple University, acknowledging that they’re joining the force as the city is simultaneously experiencing a staffing crisis and a surge in gun violence, saying: “It’s been a pretty difficult time to be a police officer.”

“The narrative over the past few years surrounding police hasn’t always been positive or supportive,” she added. “At a time when it could have been easier to pick a different profession … you chose to pick something that wasn’t so popular, because you answered your call to serve.”

The Philadelphia Police Department has faced a critical shortage of police officers for months. There are more than 500 officer vacancies, and hundreds more police are out on injury claims, meaning the force is nearly 1,300 officers short of its full complement of 6,380.

There’s more at the original.

The Police Department will need more recruits, a lot more recruits, but remember: the 72 new officers are all rookies, and will need to gain experience, a lot of experience, before they can really become effective.

One note about The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website: they’ve gotten rid of the san serif Arial font they had been using, and started using something more professional; it looks good.

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Jamie Gauthier stands with Larry Krasner! Trouble is, that also means she stands with the thugs, the gang-bangers, and the killers in her city

Republican members of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives are considering the impeachment of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, and City Councilwoman Jamie Gauthier (D-3rd District) — and please pardon me for assuming her gender — is incensed!

I stand in support of District Attorney Larry Krasner, and wholeheartedly condemn the unconstitutional, partisan attacks against his office.

Sadly, that also means she stands in support of the criminals, thugs, gang-bangers, and wannabes. The death toll since Let ’em Loose Larry took office is stark: at least 2,157 people have been murdered in the city: 353 in 2018; 356 in 2019; 499 in 2020; 562 in 2021; and 387 as of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, September 14th of this year.

Last year’s 562 homicides didn’t just set the annual record for the city, it utterly smashed 1990’s record of an even 500 killings. Under Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, the city has seen two of the top three homicide totals in its history, and is on pace for between 549 and 582 homicides this year.[1]The math: at 1.5058 homicides per day, multiplied by 365 days in the year, the math projects 549.617 homicides. Done a different way, taking the daily percentage increase from last year, 387 ÷ 374, … Continue reading

Unless there is a drastic and wholly unprecedented change, Messrs Kinney, Krasner and Miss Outlaw will wind up presiding over three of the four deadliest years in the history of the City of Brotherly Love. But Miss Gauthier stands with Mr Krasner!

The chart to the right I began that last year, and it includes only those years with 400 or more murders. It’s kept on my computer as a Microsoft Excel file, and I’ll be adding 2022 to it once the city hits 400 homicides, something I anticipate right around the equinox, September 22nd, plus or minus a day or two.

The call for DA Krasner’s impeachment was made by three Republican politicians who live hundreds of miles away from Philadelphia yet claim to be concerned about the gun violence in our communities. Evena casual observer can see that this is a thinly veiled political stunt, as these lawmakers have time and time again refused to pass common-sense gun control legislation that would promote the welfare and safety of everyday Philadelphians. These proceedings set a dangerous precedent and violate the rights of Philadelphia voters to choose who represents them in government.

According to Philly Crime Update, 51 Democrats voted for House Resolution 227, “A resolution finding that Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner is in contempt of the PA House of Representatives,” and which passed 162-38. It would seem that this action was bipartisan, not just an action by “Republican politicians”. More Democrats voted for it than against it.

If Republican State lawmakers truly cared about the well-being of Philadelphians, they would end this charade and pass new laws to get guns out of young people’s hands. Instead, they waste time on political theater, while countless lives hang in the balance.

Have you ever been to Philadelphia? Other than the Delaware River, the borders are just lines on a map, and the only way to know you’ve crossed into Bucks or Montgomery counties, that you’re in Liberty Hill rather than Philadelphia is a sign along Ridge Pike. Giving the city separate, stricter gun laws would be meaningless, because it’s just a drive down the road to get into or out of the city.

As we have reported previously, Pennsylvania’s firearms control laws are pretty much uniform across the Commonwealth; state law prohibits municipalities from imposing restrictions which are stricter than those provided for under state law. In 2020, there were 1,009 murders in the Keystone State, 499, or 49.45%, of which occurred in Philadelphia. According to the 2020 Census, Pennsylvania’s population was 13,002,700 while Philadelphia’s alone was 1,603,797, just 12.33% of Pennsylvania’s totals.

It got worse last year: with 562 homicides in Philly, out of 1027 total for Pennsylvania, 54.72% of all homicides in the Keystone State occurred in Philadelphia. Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, was second, with 123 killings, 11.98% of the state’s total, but only 9.52% of Pennsylvania’s population.

The other 65 counties, with 78.11% of the state’s total population, had 33.30% of total murders.

Of course, when it comes to the gang-bangers and wannabes, it’s pretty difficult to see how the 14-year-old who (allegedly) killed Tiffany Fletcher while firing a “ghost gun” with an extended magazine, during a gun battle with other bangers would somehow have respected stricter laws when he (allegedly) violated the existing ones. Even at 14, he knew that he was breaking the law.

Miss Gauthier, like so many others on the left, want to blame gun laws, and really, they want to blame anything other than what is really the problem, the culture in our cities which both enables and encourages teenaged and twenty-something boys, primarily black teenaged and twenty-something boys, to think the gangsta life is something to emulate, something to seek out to prove what tough men they are. Miss Gauthier doesn’t want to put any blame on the (frequently single) mothers and (often absent) fathers for not rearing their children right, but the urban culture which says that it’s perfectly OK for women to screw around and destigmatizes unmarried motherhood is a culture which enables the very things which produce broken children.

That will be denounced as sexist, but I really don’t care: it’s still the truth. Every society on earth of which we have any social knowledge developed marriage as a societal norm to contain human sexuality in a responsible form, one in which children could be supported and reared; it is only in the enlightened ‘wisdom’ of the late 20th and early 21st centuries that we have discarded this as so much garbage.

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↑1 The math: at 1.5058 homicides per day, multiplied by 365 days in the year, the math projects 549.617 homicides. Done a different way, taking the daily percentage increase from last year, 387 ÷ 374, 3.4759%, multiplied by 562 killings in 2021, yields 581.53 projected killings.