Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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Live by the gun, die by the gun A public service homicide

Yeah, I’m treading on Robert Stacy McCain’s “Aspiring Rapper Update” turf with this one, but it was a Philly story, so I can call dibs.

Abdul Vicks, 25, had some sort of rap career as “YBC Dul”, and Philly Crime Update told me that he had “millions of streams” for his ‘songs,’ if rap can actually be called a song, and I don’t think it can.

Popular rapper who prosecutors say was ringleader of violent gang was fatally shot in Olney

Abdul Vicks, who performed as “YBC Dul,” was fatally shot on the 5500 block of North Sixth Street, just after 3:30 p.m. Friday.

by Ellie Rushing and Robert Moran | Saturday, August 23, 2024 | 7:14 PM EDT

A popular 25-year-old rapper — who prosecutors say was considered the ringleader of a notoriously violent West Philadelphia-based gang — was shot and killed Friday afternoon in the city’s Olney section, a law enforcement source said.

I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked, that The Philadelphia Inquirer, which told us 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, used the word “gang,” especially when one of the writers of this article, Ellie Rushing, was also the first name in the byline of that September 19, 2022 article.

Police said the shooting occurred just after 3:30 p.m. on the 5500 block of North Sixth Street. The victim, who was identified as Abdul Vicks, was taken by private vehicle to Einstein Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 3:55 p.m.

The newspaper’s source remains anonymous, because he was not authorized to speak to the press about the case. As of the writing of this article, no arrests have been made.

Prosecutors say Vicks, who performed as “YBC Dul,” was considered the ringleader of the West Philadelphia-based gang called YBC, or Young Bag Chasers.

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain, “‘Public Service Homicide’ in Killadelphia“

Philly Crime Update also told us that young Mr Vicks, who will never become the elder Mr Vicks, was also known by a gang name, “Mr Disrespectful.” It appears that someone else has “disrespected” Mr Vicks.

Earlier this month, 22-year-old Quamere Hall, a Vicks associate, was arrested at the Criminal Justice Center and charged with the shooting death of a 34-year-old man last year.

Hall, another rapper who performs as “Mere Pablo,” was at the Criminal Justice Center to show support for Arshad Curry, a fellow YBC member who was scheduled to be sentenced for shooting five people, three fatally, in 2021. Curry was sentenced to 42½ to 85 years in prison.

Last year, three other YBC members were convicted of killing two teens.

Let’s tell the truth here: other than for the families of the Young Bag Chasers, this is all pretty good news. Mr Vicks, the supposed ‘ringleader’ of the gang, has been taken off the streets, permanently. Mr Hall has been arrested for murder.

Arshad Curry, a.k.a. “Most Wanted,” Raheis Sherman, street name “F5ive,” Zaire Crawford, a.k.a. “1k” or “Murda K”, Yaseam Miles, a.k.a. “Baby Wick” or “Ya Ya”; and Semaj Nolan, a.k.a. “Reek12Hunnit,” some of them with the Chaser’s allied gang, the Young Face Arrangers, are all behind bars, most for decades. How can it be a bad thing when bad guys are off the streets?

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Don’t blame Other People if your neighborhood is a mess

Our good friends on the left like to tell us that the plight of poor people is the result of systemic racism, redlining, poor schools — though never to say that vouchers for private schools or school choice could help! — and disinvestment in poorer communities, basically blaming all of their travails on greedy capitalists, and really anybody other than the poor themselves.

Then I found this, in The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Residents welcome Philly’s citywide cleanup, but complaint data show trash quickly returns

Mayor Parker’s Office of Clean and Green aimed to deep clean every Philly neighborhood this year. Halfway through the program, Philly 311 data show that trash complaints have not receded.

by Saara Ghani and Ximena Conde | Tuesday, July 30, 2024 | 5:00 AM EDT

My Nguyen and Cloud, her big and fluffy dog, walk through their Kensington neighborhood every day. She worries that Cloud will rifle through the garbage on the sidewalk and get dirty — or worse, choke on something.

Just a week before, the area had been swarmed by city crews armed with leaf blowers, street sweepers, and water trucks — part of a citywide summer cleanup targeting every corner of Philadelphia.

“It doesn’t last, because people keep littering,” Nguyen said.

From Kingsessing to Kensington, residents have welcomed the added investment but said it is not a long-term solution. Garbage complaints keep rolling in to Philly311, the city’s reporting system for nonemergency complaints.

I certainly appreciate the alliteration the Inky’s reporters used, but it’s worth noting here that Kingsessing and Kensington are two of Philly’s poorer neighborhoods.

The story included a photo by staff photographer Tom Gralish that could be somewhat deceiving, showing the intersection of South 55th and Elliot Streets in Kingsessing, with a bunch of litter and trash in the street, but also six city workers equipped with leaf blowers, and it appears that they were blowing the trash into a smaller area for easier pick up. Nevertheless, there was a lot of trash!

Some of the problems are caused not by the residents just littering the streets, but illegal dumping, presumably from other neighborhoods, but that happens because people know that they can get away with it. Yet, just two weeks after the city cleanup crews have gone through, the system receives more complaints about trash than before the cleaning. Some of that can be attributed to people seeing that hey, someone did clean up the mess, people who might not have complained before because they thought it a waste of time and effort. I suppose that, under previous Mayor Jim Kenney, who mentally checked out of his job long before his term ended, very little got done, so almost anything getting done under the new administration is an improvement.

But, to me, it’s pretty simple: if you don’t want your neighborhood trashed, don’t trash your neighborhood. If you have some garbage in your hands, carry it with you until you get to a trash can; how hard is that? The above linked picture shows dozens of scraps of paper, some soda bottles and drink cups, the kind of thing you’d have after a trip to McDonald’s or a corner bodega. If you’re walking up to your house, and you see little stuff like that littering the sidewalk or the gutter, pick it up and take it in to your trash can. I can understand if the garbage is a used drug needle that no decent person would want to pick it up with his bare hands, but a sandwich wrapper or a drink cup? Just pick it up!

You don’t have to be wealthy to pick up a piece of trash. Just because there are a lot of poor people in the City of Brotherly Love does not mean they can’t try to keep their neighborhoods clean.

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Killadelphia: The Inquirer isn’t fooling anyone by censoring the news

We have previously reported about how the rest of the credentialed media in Philadelphia despise Fox 29 News reporter Steve Keeley. They just don’t like the fact that Fox 29 reports on crime in the City of Brotherly Love, and they publish mugshots, which are public records.

My reaction upon seeing Mr Keeley’s tweet about the story? What a great mugshot! He has an expression on his face that very clearly says, “Oh, what did I do?” Or perhaps, “I am so f(ornicated).” If he’s guilty, Title 18 §2505(b), second-degree murder, Title 18 §1102(b), life in prison.

Too bad Graterford was closed!

Arrest made after Philadelphia store clerk shot, killed during robbery

By FOX 29 Staff | Wednesday, July 17, 2024 | 9:20 AM EDT

PHILADELPHIA – A man is charged with murder after a robbery at Philadelphia convenience store took a deadly turn last week.

Kharee Simmons, 37, is accused of shooting Kenneth Kennedy-McLeod to death inside Frankford Convenience Store on Pratt Street.

The 37-year-old victim was found gunned down behind the counter with several shell casings surrounding his body.

He was pronounced dead minutes later with multiple gunshot wounds to his shoulders.

An open register and several loose bills led police to believe the shooting stemmed from a robbery.

Simmons was arrested Tuesday and charged with Murder, Criminal Conspiracy, Robbery, Theft-Unlawful Taking, and Theft-Receiving Stolen Property.

That’s all there was, six short paragraphs on the robbery and murder.

Though there was a story in The Philadelphia Inquirer on the robbery and murder, published last Friday, the newspaper doesn’t have anything on the arrest of Mr Simmons. If there is a story published later, you can bet euros against eclairs — my version of dollars against doughnuts 🙂 — that Mr Simmons’ mugshot will not be included. [Update: Story published at 2:34 PM EDT. And, no, there was no mugshot published.]

My far too expensive Philadelphia Inquirer subscription. I could use a senior citizen’s discount right about now.

Inquirer publisher Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Hughes decided, a couple of years ago, that the the newspaper would be an “anti-racist news organization,” and the paper ceased noting the race of suspects and victims, or publishing the mugshots of accused criminals, because mugshots somehow leave the impression that some minority groups are more closely identified with crime, but let’s tell the truth here: simply publishing Kharee Simmons’ name tells the reader that he is black. And the location of the murder, Pratt Street near Frankford Avenue and SEPTA’s Frankford elevated train depot, tells anyone familiar with the city that the suspects would probably be black.

Why, then, should people be paying $285.48 a year for a newspaper that doesn’t report all of the news? It’s not as though the Inky is actually fooling people. I would argue that, by trying — and failing; it’s not as though the Inquirer is the only news source in town — to conceal the news, the newspaper is actually pushing an impression that all criminals are black.

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right.

My good friends at The Philadelphia Inquirer have, as we have previously noted, been giving OpEd and other space to those criticizing Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ harder line on the open-air drug markets and junkies sleeping on the streets in Kensington.

Well, here they go again!

Drug deaths and overdoses plague Philly jails, raising concerns about plans to step up Kensington arrests

Since 2018, 25 people have died drug-related deaths in Philly jails, where drugs are widely accessible. As the city plans to arrest more drug users in Kensington, that has compounded safety concerns.

Continue reading →

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Stupid is as stupid does, and prison cannot cure stupid Swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool

Jayana Webb mugshot, via Fox29 News.

This site has twice previously reported on the very lovely Jayana Webb. On March 21, 2022, 21-year-old Miss Webb killed 29-year-old Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Brendan Sisca, 33-year-old State Trooper Martin Mack, and 28-year-old electrician Reyes Rivera Oliveras. No, Miss Webb didn’t pull a gun and shoot them; she used a Chevy Captiva. The Philadelphia Inquirer, in an article designed to promote some sympathy for Miss Webb, reported:

At 12:47 a.m., Webb wrote on Twitter that she had been stopped “doing 110 in a 50″ mile-per-hour zone. While state police have neither confirmed nor denied the stop, multiple news outlets reported that Mack and Sisca stopped the woman for speeding on the interstate that night.

Around the time of the tweet, state police said the troopers were abruptly redirected to assist a man apparently attempting to cross the highway near Lincoln Financial Field. The troopers bolted south, and found Oliveras.

In other words, Miss Webb was about to get away with going 60 MPH over the speed limit. That’s more than just speeding; that’s reckless driving. Unfortunately, reckless did not translate into wreckless. Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right Progressives are complaining that more conservative policies won’t work, when progressive policies have already failed

Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Perhaps relying on a misunderstanding of Werner Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the progressive left can hold that if they just keep doing the same thing — albeit spending more of Other People’s Money while doing so — their oh-so-noble policies will work where they haven’t worked before. The progressive left are complaining that more conservative urban policies won’t work, but they are being implemented because liberal and progressive policies didn’t work! Continue reading →

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Sometimes you just have to be an [insert slang term for the rectum here] to do things right

Is Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins (D-Philadelphia) an [insert slang term for the rectum here]? The city’s left are aghast that Mrs Mullins has promised that the city government will not provide even a single dollar for the syringe exchange program to ‘reduce harm’ to the junkies who shoot up in Philly’s streets. And while I have yet to see an official editorial in The Philadelphia Inquirer opposing the Mayor’s announced policy, the newspaper’s coverage certainly seems slanted in that general direction. We have previously reported on how almost everyone supports drug addiction treatment and rehabilitation, but they prefer it to be in other people’s neighborhoods, and how even in Democrat-controlled Philadelphia, the City Council passed an ordinance which bans ‘safe injection centers in all council districts except one. We also noted that, despite residential opposition, the editors of The Philadelphia Inquirer have supported the concept of ‘safe injection centers and been opposed to efforts to ban drug treatment centers in specific neighborhoods.

Mayor Parker proposes cutting nearly $1 million in syringe exchange funding for Prevention Point

The shift is part of Parker’s promise to end the city’s financial support of programs that provide sterile syringes to people who use drugs.

by Anna Orso and Aubrey Whelan | Income Tax Day, April 15, 2024 | 12:02 PM EDT | Updated: 4:11 PM EDT

Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins, from her Facebook page.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration wants the city to cut nearly $1 million of funding to Prevention Point, a large social services organization in Kensington, as part of her promise to end the city’s financial support of programs that provide sterile syringes to people who use drugs. Continue reading →

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Not old enough to grow a man’s beard, but old enough to do a man’s crime! And now he'll do a man's time, but will he learn a real man's lessons?

In 25 years, John Nusslein will be 44 years old; in 25 years, Chung Yan Chin will still be dead.

We should have, I suppose, some gratitude that carjacking is a federal offense, and such cases can be tried in federal court, rather than in a state court in which Philadelphia’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, and softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, has no say in the charges or outcomes. Nevertheless, Mr Nusslein will eventually be a free man, while his victim will still be pushing up daisies. Continue reading →

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Ok, OK, this was bad, but really, I’m sure that were about to turn their lives around, any day now!

We have previously noted that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to child activists Donna Cooper and Anton Moore, to tell us that people’s brains are not fully mature until their mid-20s, and how, rather than incarceration, we should provide those juveniles accused of non-violent offenses with more opportunities for reform. But, rather than being all sympathetic, I instead noted retired Sgt Marc Fusetti’s tweet, which pointed out that two of the three initially arrested for the Burholme shooting had been treated leniently, for non-violent offenses as juveniles, and then went out and, allegedly, of course, shot eight people at the SEPTA bus stop in a targeted hit. I also noted that the Philadelphia Police Department already had a mugshot of the fourth suspect, 17-year-old Asir Boone, which meant that he, too, had a previous ‘encounter’ with law enforcement.

Well, the Burholme shooting net gets wider and wider!

Police arrest 15-year-old they say staked out Northeast shooting victims, texting gunmen ‘go’ as targets walked by

Jeremiah Jefferson is the fifth person to be arrested and charged in a shooting that left eight teens injured in the Northeast.

by Ellie Rushing | Thursday, March 21, 2024 | 5:08 PM EDT | Updated: 7:14 PM EDT

Jeremiah Jefferson, mugshot via Philly Crime Update.

A 15-year-old who police say acted as a lookout for the gunmen in the Burholme shooting, standing inside a nearby Dunkin’ and texting “go” to the shooters as their targets walked by has been arrested, police said Thursday.

Jeremiah Jefferson is expected to be charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, and related crimes for his alleged role in the shooting at a bus stop in Northeast Philadelphia earlier this month that left eight students injured. He is the fifth person to be charged in connection with the March 6 shooting.

Jefferson was inside the Dunkin’ next to the gas station, while his friends with guns were seated in a blue Hyundai parked outside, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

Young Mr Jefferson was allegedly on the lookout for the intended victim in the shooting, described his own clothes so the shooters wouldn’t aim at him, sent photos of the two intended targets, and then, in a final text, simply said, “Go”.

If young Mr Jefferson has a juvenile record, that information has not yet been released, or, more probably, leaked. About the only good thing about this is that, at 15-years-old, there’s at least a reasonable hope that he hasn’t knocked up some girl and further polluted the gene pool, because this fine young gentlemen, if he did that of which he is accused, is dumb as a box of rocks. The last thing Philly needs is more stupid babies born.

Police on Thursday also announced that they intended to charge (Anhile) Buggs, (18), with a separate homicide that occurred in mid-February on the 5800 block of Rising Sun Avenue. In that shooting, 20-year-old Kristopher Dowling was killed just before 9 p.m. while he was walking with a friend to get pizza.

Dowling’s mother, Ivory, said police told her Buggs, who is from Olney, had been driving around the Lawncrest area with others, searching for someone to shoot as part of a back-and-forth feud between groups from Lawncrest and Olney.

The retaliation had been ongoing for years, she said — it was one of the reasons why she moved her family from Lawncrest, their home of 19 years, to Abington two years ago.

That’s two planned and premeditated shootings for Mr Buggs. Let me be clear about this: there’s no reforming this gentleman, and he needs to never see another sunrise outside of prison. His accomplices in the Burholme shootings? They, too, are waste cases, completely lost souls who might, if they’re lucky, find the Lord while they’re in prison, but they, too, should never get out. They are too evil, and too stupid, to ever walk among free society again.