Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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Killadelphia Philadelphia ties 2013's homicide totals, with more than half of the year remaining.

Congratulations for Philadelphia’s Mayor, Jim Kenney, District Attorney, Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw! As of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 22, 2022, under their leadership the City of Brotherly Love has, with 246 homicides this year, tied the total number of murders for the entire year of 2013.

I will admit it: I hadn’t previously thought much of former Mayor Michael Nutter. He was a liberal Democrat in a line of liberal Democrats — Philadelphia’s last Republican mayor left office while Harry Truman was still President! — and, in following John Street, I didn’t really see reason to hope that he’d be any better than Mr Street. But, under Mr Nutter, District Attorney Seth Williams — who wound up with legal problems of his own, and served 2½ years in federal prison — and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, murders in the City of Brotherly Love steadily declined, from 391 in 2007, the year before Messrs Nutter and Ramsey took office — Mr Williams was elected in 2009, succeeding Lynne Abraham — down to 246 in 2013. There was an increase to 248 in 2014, and then 280 in 2015, Messrs Nutter’s and Ramsey’s final year in office.

But nothing like the increases under Mayor Kenney! 2016 saw 277 killings, but then they jumped to 315, then 353, 356, 499 and 562 last year. It was only by pure, dumb luck that 2020 finished below 500 homicides, given that there were two more on New Year’s Day of 2021, and the Philadelphia Police Department actually stated that there had been 502 homicides in 2020, before ‘correcting’ that down to 499. I fouled up and didn’t take a screen capture of that when it was up, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Were it not for the previous record of 500 homicides in 1990, under Mayor Wilson Goode, he of MOVE bombing fame, Mayor Kenney would have both first and second place in the homicide numbers.

But, not to worry: although this year’s homicide numbers are down slightly, 5.75%, the city is still on track for between 519 and 530 homicides, easily good for second place.[1]Methodology: I divided the total homicides by June 22nd of this year by 261, the number of murders on the same date in 2021, yielding 0.9425287356321839, then multiplied that number by 562, the … Continue reading

The chart to the right? That includes only those years in which homicides were at least 400; Mayor Kenney ought to break into that chart again, for this year, sometime between and October 2nd and 8th.

Whatever Messrs Kenney and Krasner, and Miss Outlaw, are doing, doesn’t work!

References

References
↑1 Methodology: I divided the total homicides by June 22nd of this year by 261, the number of murders on the same date in 2021, yielding 0.9425287356321839, then multiplied that number by 562, the number of homicides in 2021 to get 529.70. I use this method to account for the fact that there are more warm months ahead than behind, and homicides normally increase in summer and fall. Another method, dividing 246, the number of homicides, by 173, June 22nd being the 173rd day of the year, yielding a figure of 1.421965317919075 killings per day, then multiplying that by 365, yields 519.02 homicides for the year.
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I owe Seth Williams an apology

At 11:17 AM EDT on Monday, June 20th, Seth Williams, a former District Attorney for Philadelphia, tweeted, “I am now being told that from midnight Friday until midnight Sunday, Philadelphia tragically suffered 41 shootings, 14 homicides, and 6 victims remain in critical condition. What we are doing now is not working!” Not having seen numbers like that anywhere in the media, I responded:

Well, I suppose that I owe Mr Williams an apology, because the numbers from the Philadelphia Police Department — the report was not updated on Monday, I suppose because whoever does the updating was off for the Juneteenth holiday — finally came in, and they are ugly.

The previous report was that 230 people had been murdered as of Friday, June 17th, so yup, Mr Williams’ report was right on target.

I responded to Mr Williams that I had seen nothing in The Philadelphia Inquirer supporting numbers anywhere close to that, and, checking the newspaper’s website main page again this morning, I still don’t. There is a story about teenagers concerns about the proposed 10:00 PM curfew, which is being considered in the wake of the South Street shootings during a rowdy street celebration full of teenagers, a five day old story about serious problems at Prevention Point Philadelphia, and, Heaven forfend!, the hugely critical Local strike could impact availability of beer ahead of Fourth of July weekend! Moving on to the newspaper’s crime page, there was a story about the killing of John Albert Laylo, a visitor from the Philippines, who was shot dead in what is now being called a targeted hit, but one which hit the wrong car. There was a story from Friday about two fatal shootings, plus another which left a victim, shot in the head, in extremely critical condition, and another about a murder in February, allegedly committed by a closeted bisexual male who wanted to keep his boyfriend from revealing their relationship.

There was a story, dated Thursday, June 16th, about three homicides Wednesday evening into Thursday morning.

But that’s it; there’s nothing in the Inky, at least as of 9:14 AM EDT, to tell readers that 14 people were murdered over the Juneteenth weekend.

There was, however, a significantly sized advertising blurb, telling people that they could subscribe for unlimited digital access for just 99¢ per week for 12 weeks, followed by $3.99 per week, billed every 4 weeks, no commitment, cancel anytime.

But I have to ask: why should people subscribe to the Inquirer if the newspaper is not going to do something really radical like report the news?

We noted, in January, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Helen Ubiñas and her complaint, For two mothers touched by gun violence: ‘Pray, pray, and pray some more.’: Numbers tend to attract attention around here; the people behind them, not always so much.

On Thursday, she typed a similar lament:

Everyday gun violence goes unchecked, even as high-profile massacres capture the nation’s attention

We can’t accept the asymmetrical way people look at shooting victims based on race.

by Helen Ubiñas | Thursday, June 16, 2022

Within a few days of the mass shooting on South Street, two people were already in custody.

Two days later, two more.

And almost immediately came a familiar appeal from the loved ones of murder victims whose killings remain unsolved:

Where was the full-court press to identify suspects and make arrests in the deaths of their family members?

There’s more at the original. But perhaps Miss Ubiñas ought to look a bit more closely at her own newspaper in asking that question.

She had, in December of 2020, written an opinion column saying that we should at least know the names of the people slaughtered in the City of Brotherly Love, yet the newspaper at which she has worked for many years appears to have gotten even worse at reporting the news about homicides.

Fourteen people murdered? That’s almost five South Streets! 41 shootings, at least according to Mr Williams?[1]The city’s shooting database has not been updated to confirm this. That’s one shy of three South Streets, about which the Inquirer wrote story after story.

But last weekend, which ended two days ago? Barely more than crickets from our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, nothing, no one looked at the numbers, no one figured it out.

The thing is, I’ve figured it out. The Inky spends a lot of time when innocent people are killed. We saw that the paper paid attention to the accidental killing of Jason Kutt, a white teenager shot at Nockamixon State Park, an hour outside of the city. That’s five separate stories, a whole lot more than the two or three paragraphs most victims get.

Then there was the murder of Samuel Sean Collington, a Temple University student approaching graduation. Mr Collington was a white victim, allegedly murdered by a black juvenile in a botched robbery. The Inquirer then published 14 photographs from a vigil for Mr Collington, along with another story about him. Five separate stories about the case of a murdered white guy.

To which shootings, to which killings, does the newspaper not pay attention? It doesn’t pay attention to the murders of young black boys and men by other young black boys and men, which happens to be the majority, the vast majority, of the homicides in the City of Brotherly Love. It’s easy to have sympathy for people like Mr Collington, or Mr Laylo. The Inquirer has even tried to drum up sympathy for kids like Marcus Stokes or Thomas Siderio.

But when one gang banger shoots and kills another gang banger? The editors and publisher of the Inquirer not only don’t care, but actively don’t want to publish stories about them, because it does not fit within the worldview they want to project.

References

References
↑1 The city’s shooting database has not been updated to confirm this.
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Philadelphians are fighting back! When the city cannot protect the people, the people will protect themselves

We have previously noted that the law-abiding people in Philadelphia have been seeking concealed carry permits at a record pace. And we have seen stories about some of the bad guys in Philly being sent untimely to their eternal rewards.

Why are people in the City of Brotherly Love arming themselves? When there are innocent victims being gunned down for no apparent reason, when it’s not just the gang-bangers shooting other gang-bangers, and the city has a George Soros stooge ‘progressive’ District Attorney who likes to set the captives free, a whole lot of Philadelphians have gotten the message: you are on your own!

But today’s surprise is that The Philadelphia Inquirer has actually reported on it!

As more people get guns and carry permits, Philly sees a sharp rise in homicides ruled justified

More people in Philadelphia are legally arming themselves and shooting their armed attackers amid a violent crime spike.

by Mensah M Dean | Monday, June 20, 2022

In May, a South Philadelphia man stepped out of his house for a smoke when police said a gun-wielding man rode up on a bicycle and demanded money. The homeowner dropped his cigarette, pulled out his licensed gun, and fatally shot the would-be robber in the head.

In March, an assistant manager at a Dollar General store in North Philadelphia used his legal gun to shoot a man who police said burst into the store in a ski mask, demanded money, and threatened to kill the cashier. “I’m opening up the register for you, sir,” said the manager, who instead pulled his own handgun and shot the robber in the head, killing him.

The same month, a customer with a carry permit inside Max Food Market in the Yorktown section fatally shot a gunman who tried to rob him while he was playing a video poker machine. “You have to defend yourself,” said Maximo Torres Rodriquez, the store’s owner. “You have to do it.”

The three would-be assailants died from their injuries and in all three cases authorities brought no charges against the shooters. These sorts of deadly clashes in which the intended victims survive and assailants die are rare in Philadelphia, but are becoming more common as a growing number of people have legally armed themselves amid rising numbers of carjackings, shootings, and homicides.

Mr Rodriquez put it exactly right: sometimes “You have to defend yourself. You have to do it.”

Also read: Jennifer Stefano: The case for impeaching Larry Krasner

We’re not supposed to say it, but sometimes a homicide is a public service. When the Dollar General assistant manager shot and killed the would-be robber, perhaps the robber would have been satisfied with the cash and left without hurting anyone, but as crooks get successful, they are also emboldened, and the odds are extremely high that he’d have attempted to knock over another store and another store, and eventually someone would get shot, and possibly killed.

Justified homicides jumped 67% from 2020 to 2021 ― from 12 to 20 according to the Philadelphia Police Department. An additional six have been ruled justified by the department but are awaiting the District Attorney’s Office to sign off. In 2019, there were 10 justified killings, six in 2018 and eight in 2017, the department said.

So far in 2022, victims have shot at least eight armed assailants to death, with more than seven months remaining in the year.

“The total number of shootings and the climate of gun violence has gotten more severe,” said District Attorney Larry Krasner. “So I would expect that there would be more situations involving self-defense.”

As Krasner said, the surge in justified shootings reflects the general rise in gun violence in the city. With unjustified homicides hitting a record total last year, with 562 victims, self-defense killings climbed too, though only slightly as a percentage of all homicides.

Let’s do the math:

  • 2017: 315 murders + 8 justified homicides = 323 total, 2.48% justified.
  • 2018: 353 murders + 6 justified homicides = 361 total, 1.66% justified.
  • 2019: 356 murders + 10 justified homicides = 366 total, 2.73% justified.
  • 2020: 499 murders + 12 justified homicides = 511 total, 2.35% justified.
  • 2021: 562 murders + 26 justified homicides = 588 total, 4.42% justified.
  • 2022: 230 murders + 8 justified homicides = 238 total, 3.48% justified.

The trend worries some analysts and gun-control advocates, who say civilians who buy guns for protection may be putting themselves and others at more risk, not less. They cite studies showing that legally purchased guns are more likely to be fired in accidental shootings, during domestic disputes, and in suicides than in self-defense.

721 West Butler Street. Click to enlarge.

Of course, the Inquirer article let us know that more law-abiding people obtaining weapons is a bad thing, stating that they are more likely to be discharged in accidents, domestic disputes and suicides, offering several paragraphs of statistics.

There is one thing that the article did not include, perhaps because it simply isn’t quantifiable. We have previously published several street scene photographs of Philadelphia, showing how many residents have put themselves in jail, barring up their porches and windows, to try to defend themselves from the thugs. There is an attitude of fear, fear! permeating the city, a fear that at any time your number could come up, and that is due to the city not protecting innocent people. When you have a district attorney like Larry Krasner who largely refuses to prosecute illegal firearm possession cases, who doesn’t like to enforce the laws already on the books, who metes out slaps on the wrists for even violent crimes, coupled with a homicide rate higher than Chicago’s, of course people are going to be worried. People are buying firearms for the protection of their families and themselves because it has become blatantly obvious: the city isn’t protecting them.

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In which Larry Krasner shows us just how much respect he has for the Philadelphia Police!

Sometimes, you just can’t make up this stuff!

Philadelphia’s George Soros stooge ‘progressive’ District Attorney, Larry Krasner, tweeted:

Ahead of Father’s Day, I challenge anyone thinking about picking up a gun unlawfully, think twice, and remember the families gun violence is wrecking. If you are caught by the @PPD, you will be held accountable. Have a peaceful Father’s Day weekend.

The image to the right is a screen capture of Mr Krasner’s original, because it’s highly likely that he’ll delete it. Why? @PPD is not the Philadelphia Police Department’s Twitter account, @PhillyPolice is. @PPD leads to a suspended account.

Mr Krasner’s recent tweet is very much at odds with what he has said before, that he does not believe that arresting people and convicting them for illegal gun possession is a viable strategy to reduce shootings. Perhaps I’m just not edumacated enough, but it seems to me that a guy who’s locked up can’t shoot anyone, that a guy who does not have a firearm cannot shoot someone.

That latter is what the gun grabbers argue, right, and Mr Krasner wants stronger gun control laws, but he won’t enforce the ones already on the books!

There’s a move in Harrisburg by the state House of Representatives to impeach and remove Mr Krasner, but it will fail: while the Republicans have majoritioes in both Houses of the General Assembly, they do not have the requisite 2/3 super majority to remove him from office.

And why should they? In his initial campaign in 2017, Mr Krasner told the voters what he would do, and he was elected by a wide margin. Then in 2021, with plenty of evidence that Mr Krasner was doing exactly what he said he would do, the good people of Philadelphia re-elected him, by a landslide margin. One thing is clear: Philadelphians want a district attorney who will not seriously prosecute criminals.

The city’s last Republican mayor left office when Harry Truman was President of the United States. Seventy straight years of Democratic Party rule has helped turn the City of Brotherly Love into the [insert slang for feces here]hole city that it is today, but the voters simply can’t learn the obvious lesson, that Democratic policies simply do not work.

So, my friends in the state House of Representatives, leave Mr Krasner alone. He is exactly what the good people of Philadelphia want, and he is exactly what the people of Philadelphia deserve.

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Pennsylvania Democrats always double down on policies that have failed in the past

Jennifer Stefano, from her Commonwealth Foundation biography page. Click to enlarge.

I will admit to some surprise that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to Jennifer Stefano, the executive vice president of the Commonwealth Foundation and a fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum. After all, Miss Stefano and the Commonwealth Foundation support “transforming free-market ideas into actionable public policies, we’re ensuring all people can flourish.”

Good luck taxing the rich when they’re gone

Pennsylvanians are moving to red states in search of smaller government, school choice, and lower taxes, writes Jennifer Stefano.

by Jennifer Stefano | Monday, June 13, 2022

Widespread shortages. Economic tumult. Disappearing businesses. When Ayn Rand released her magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, in 1957, her critics considered it a work of fiction. She did not.

Her art is now imitating life in Pennsylvania. Fiction or not, Rand was prescient.

She predicted a world where government and “looters” (as she called them) exploited producers. A mysterious man named John Galt gets those business owners and workers to leave and recreate a free and fair society elsewhere.

In Pennsylvania, leaders like Gov. Tom Wolf and Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney demonize financially successful individuals, with promises that if the all-powerful government bureaucracy could just take more of their money, our problems would be solved. Wolf, Kenney, and their supporters operate under the misguided belief that bigger government will heal the Earth, defeat racism, and end poverty.

Worthy goals, wrong solutions — and Pennsylvanians know it. While some will wait for November to register their discontent at the ballot box, many are already voting with their feet.

Honestly, I wish I could reproduce the entire thing, but you can read it for yourself if you follow the embedded link. Alas! in my search to see if it had been published elsewhere, I could not find it, and the Inquirer’s articles are hidden behind a paywall; I pay for a subscription so that you don’t have to! However, the inquirer does allow people a few free articles a month, so if you haven’t followed too manty of my links, you might be able to read the whole thing.

Miss Stefano continues to document for us the strong net emigration from the Keystone State, and notes to where Pennsylvanians have been moving, Texas, Arizona and, especially, Florida, all states with lower state taxes and more business-friendly laws and regulations.

It is a familiar story for Philadelphia, where the nearly century-long run of one-party rule and unrealistic policies has sent people fleeing to the suburbs. Now it’s driving them into the waiting arms of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — and the rest of Pennsylvania is following.

Miss Stefano’s points are a bit too economic specific, not that they are not valid, but such ignores the rest of Philadelphia’s horrible mismanagement, as made plainly obvious by the city’s homicide rate. As of 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, June 12th, 227 Philadelphians had been sent untimely to their eternal rewards, and if the South Street shootings made for big headlines, only three of those victims, at least one the criminal who shot the first bullets, actually died. In the week since then, nine more people were butchered in the city’s mean streets.

A poll by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 70% of Philadelphians believe that public safety is the most important issue facing the city, and also noted that in the very diverse overall, but internally highly segregated, black and Hispanic residents felt unsafe at significantly higher rates than whites.

The Inquirer’s Editorial Board was appalled, though seemingly more appalled that whites didn’t feel as unsafe as others:

What does it mean to be a segregated city in a gun violence crisis? According to the Controller’s Office’s gun violence mapping toll, the zip codes of Rittenhouse Square and Chestnut Hill, where about 70% of the population is white, haven’t experienced a fatal shooting since before 2015. Contrast that with nearly 200 fatal shootings in North Philadelphia-Strawberry Mansion, where more than 90% of the population is Black, or nearly 240 in the Kensington-Port Richmond area, with a Hispanic population of 50%.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer, August 12, 2021. Click to enlarge..

Given that white Americans are, in general, wealthier than black and Hispanic citizens, white Philadelphians have the greater ability to head for the Sunshine State. What that means as far as emigration is concerned, because white Philadelphians are simply safer, in general, than black or Hispanic residents, needed to be further explored.

We do know, however, that the white population of the city has dropped precipitously.

It’s easy to see why. Florida lawmakers have spent the last 22 years slashing government spending, zeroing out the income tax, lowering others, creating a vibrant school choice model with state education dollars, and fostering a business-friendly climate. . . . .

The key to righting the ship in Pennsylvania is simple and should be bipartisan. As the Commonwealth Foundation’s poll shows, a majority of voters across parties want what Florida has: low taxes, less government spending, school choice, and jobs and opportunity for themselves and their children.

The solution offered by Wolf and Kenney? Increase property taxes. Let crime run rampant. Stifle any opportunity to foster an education landscape that puts parents in the driver’s seat. Push endlessly for tax hikes against middle-to-upper-income earners.

It’s simple: Philadelphia is ruled by Democrats, has been for three generations, and Governor Wolf’s and Mayor Kenney’s plans fall right in line with standard Democratic Party tropes.

Going after people with money has become the one solution that unites Democrats. It’s a populist cause with devastating results. As Rand foretold, there will always be a Ron DeSantis (or John Galt) creating a place where all people can flourish. When wealthy people leave, those of us without the means or opportunity to follow are left behind. That means fewer tax dollars for government programs, fewer jobs, and less opportunity.

The wealthy should pay taxes just like everyone else. But good luck getting the money when they’re already gone.

One thing has become painfully clear: Democratic policies simply do not work. Conservatives have been telling the left that for decades, but the response of the left has always been to claim that the only problems are that they just didn’t go far enough; Democrats always double down.

I stated that I was surprised that the Inquirer gave Miss Stefano the OpEd space, but, on the front page of the newspaper’s website, at least as of 7:45 PM EDT on Monday, June 13th, immediately below Miss Stefano’s article was another entitled “Too much property tax relief will put city schools at risk“. The Inquirer never misses an opportunity to advocate for the policies which have failed in the past.

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“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein

We have previously noted how Mayor Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City in the 1990s, with policies continued by his successor, Michael Bloomberg, and how my younger daughter, whom I have joked is the whitest white girl in town, and I were able to walk, in complete safety, from the lower borders of Harlem back toward downtown. Messrs Giuliani and Bloomberg focused on ‘quality of life’ crimes and ‘broken windows’ policing, trying to intercept the petty criminals before they became major thugs.

Philadelphia isn’t like that. Under Mayor Jim Kenney and District Attorney Larry Krasner, the ‘lesser’ offenses have been ignored, which have done nothing but embolden the ‘entry-level’ criminals, who see themselves as getting away with doing whatever they want, until they become really bad guys, and start killing people. Now it seems as though a lot of people in the City of Brotherly Love would like to see the Giuliani program! Continue reading →

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Chesa Boudin gets kicked to the curb

It has been said that a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged. Well, to quote Yogi, I’m smarter than the average bear, I’m a conservative who has never been mugged, but was smart enough to figure out, all on my own, that being soft and lenient on crime does not turn criminals into liberal sweethearts, but just more emboldened criminals. Sadly, it took being mugged for the leftists in the land of fruits and nuts to figure out what ought to have been plain, common sense:

S.F. DA recalled, L.A.’s Caruso advances as Democrats tested on crime

Some of the highest-profile primaries were fueled by angst over liberal leaders’ approach to public safety

by Hannah Knowles | Tuesday, June 7, 2022 | 11:00 PM EDT | Updated: Wednesday, June 8, 2022 | 2:58 AM EDT

Crime, homelessness and Democratic divisions over the issues took center stage Tuesday as a liberal prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled and seven states held primaries that helped mold each party’s image heading into November’s fight for control of Congress, statehouses and major cities across the country.

The recall of San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin (D) — whom critics called too lenient — came as angst over liberal leaders’ approach to public safety also loomed large in a contest for Los Angeles mayor, where Rep. Karen Bass (D-Calif.) and billionaire businessman Rick Caruso are projected to advance to a runoff. Caruso, a former Republican, has pitched himself as a different kind of Democrat who will fix long-simmering crises in the nation’s second-largest city.

Continue reading →

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More on the South Street gunfight Businessmen want 'broken windows' policing; Philly Mayor and District Attorney don't want that at all!

Laughing out loud! Philadelphia District Attorney won’t even prosecute people for illegal firearms possession, yet business owners expect the city to enforce “anti-nuisance laws”?

Rudy Giuliani was unavailable for comment.

Business owners say weak enforcement is emboldening the violence on Philly’s South Street

Several South Street business owners cited a climate of “lawlessness” in the city. The lack of enforcement is creating a climate of impunity that climaxes in lethal force.

by Joseph N DiStephano | Tuesday, June 7, 2022

Ron Dangler served two tours in Iraq — where he was “a door-kicker,” a cavalry scout at the front of a dangerous patrol in Ramadi in 2005 and 2006.

So it wasn’t the first time the Philadelphia native who owns Dobbs, the rock club at 304 South St., had heard gunfire, when shooters blasted each other and a crowd of people in the street on Saturday night, leaving three dead and 11 wounded. Continue reading →

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The left love to blame Republicans for the actions of the Democratic base

Adopted Philadelphian Amanda Marcotte doesn’t normally write about the City of Brotherly Love, but with the gang gun battle on Sunday, even she had to pay attention. From Salon:

U.S. gun laws are causing mayhem and mass murder — and Republicans couldn’t be more thrilled

Crappy gun laws cause our crime problems. But Republicans blame liberal prosecutors and make racist arguments

by Amanda Marcotte | Monday, June 6, 2022 | 1:30 PM EDT

After reassuring multiple people by text that my partner and I had been tucked safely in bed at 11:30 on Saturday night, I finally cracked and posted a general reassurance on Facebook. No, we had not been near the shooting on South Street in Philadelphia, where we live, that resulted in 3 deaths and 11 major injuries. But people’s concerns weren’t misplaced. We had been at a party in that neighborhood just the night before. Saturday’s was the ninth mass shooting in the city this year alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive. There have been shootings at train stations and house parties. One group of victims was going to the prom. These things really are a matter of luck in a society that’s swimming in as much gun violence as ours.

It’s interesting that the author lives in Philadelphia, but cites The Washington Post. Perhaps she doesn’t subscribe to her hometown newspaper?

I get it: Miss Marcotte isn’t really interested in digging more deeply into a story, if the surface fits Teh Narrative she wishes to use. The “group of victims” going to prom”? There was one male targeted, because some other people wanted him dead, and the other three were simply in the way. This was gang violence, but that’s not something she wishes to discuss. Continue reading →