Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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Philly ties for 3rd place!

It wasn’t really that much of a stretch to guess that 475 wouldn’t be the final homicide number for Thursday, and it wasn’t: the Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page shows that 476 Philadelphians have been murdered so far this year, up from ‘just’ 428 on the same day last year. Last year being a leap year, the gang bangers had an extra day to hit that 428 number.

The numbers are ugly: 476 homicides in 315 days works out to 1.5111 per day, or a projected 551.5555, rounding up to 552 for the year.

With 50 days left in the year, and ‘only’ 24 murders needed to tie the all-time record of 500, set in 1990, the homicide rate would have to drop to slightly less than a third of what it is right now, and, at this point, only God could make that happen. At the current rate, the city should tie the all-time high in just 16 days, or Saturday, November 27th.

Mayor James Kenney (Democrat-Philadelphia), District Attorney Larry Krasner (Soros stooge-Philadelphia), and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw (Kenney Puppet-Philadelphia) have certainly done a fine, fine job, haven’t they?

But hey, Philadelphians must like all of those bodies stacked up like cordwood, because they just re-elected George Soros stooge District Attorney Larry Krasner. No one can say that they didn’t know what they were getting.

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Killadelphia

This brings the homicide total in the City of Brotherly Love to 475 for the year; one more, and Philadelphia ties 1989’s Bronze Medal for most murders! Of course, as of this writing, Thursday isn’t over, and the police could still report more killings.

    Nicetown fire that killed 2 ruled arson

    The fire occurred on the 1400 block of West Jerome Street shortly before 4 a.m. Thursday.

    by Robert Moran | Veterans’ Day, November 11, 2021

    A predawn house fire Thursday that killed two men in the city’s Nicetown section has been ruled an arson and is being investigated as a homicide case, police said.

    Firefighters and police responded to the blaze just before 4 a.m. on the 1400 block of West Jerome Street. Two men in their 50s were found in an upstairs bedroom and were transported to Temple University Hospital and Einstein Medical Center. Both were pronounced dead shortly before 5 a.m. Their names were not released.

    Investigators from the Philadelphia Fire Department and the ATF Arson Task Force found an accelerant was used inside the front door.

    Police said the motive for the arson was unknown.

One thing is certain: whoever started this fire didn’t care for anyone’s life. The 1400 block of West Jerome Street consists entirely of Philadelphia row houses. The Google Maps street view shows them as primarily brick buildings, presumably with brick firewalls between each unit, but there’s still plenty of century-old wood involved, and the arsonist could have burned down a whole side of the street.

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Killadelphia! Philadelphia's homicide rate has increased dramatically since Joe Biden was elected

Mayor Jim Kenney (Democrat-Philadelphia), District Attorney Larry Krasner (Soros-Philadelphia), and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw (Puppet-Philadelphia) haven’t quite won the Bronze Medal for annual homicides for the City of Brotherly Love for the year, but they aren’t far away. The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page reports that there have been 471 homicides in the city so far this year, through 11:59 PM EDT on Sunday, November 7th. With 471 killings over 311 days elapsed in the year, that works out to 1.5145 per day, or a projected 552.7814 for 2021. Since there’s no such thing as 0.7814 of a homicide, that works out to a projected 553.

As of November 7th in 2020, there had been 422 killings in the city. Due to the counting problems in the 2020 elections, that Joe Biden had defeated President Trump on November 3rd wasn’t certain until November 5th. Since the Philly Police don’t report the homicide numbers on the weekend until the subsequent Monday, this is the first day I could make this comparison, but since the evil reich-wing Donald Trump was defeated, and the all sweetness-and-light Joe Biden elected, there have been 548 homicides in the city, over 367 days.

Yet from November 7, 2019 to November 7, 2020, Philly saw ‘only’ 474 murders. It seems as though the killing rate in Philly has been significantly higher, as in 15.61% higher, since Mr Biden was elected! And remember: the vast majority of the COVID-19 lockdowns occurred when Mr Trump was President, so you can’t blame it all on the pandemic.

No Bronze Medal yet, but Miss Outlaw and Messrs Kenney and Krasner need just five more to tie for third place, and at the current rate, they ought to get that by Wednesday or Thursday.

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Another two bite the dust!

If I check the website of The Philadelphia Inquirer in the evening, I can sometimes — certainly not always — find brief stories about murder victims in the City of Brotherly Love:

2 women killed in North Philly shooting

The shooting occurred on the 1900 block of Ridge Avenue.

by Robert Moran | Thursday, November 4, 2021 | 8:10 PM EDT

Two unidentified women were fatally shot Thursday night in North Philadelphia, police said.

The shooting was reported shortly after 7:45 p.m. on the 1900 block of Ridge Avenue. Police arriving at the scene found two women inside a building that was first believed to be a church, but later described as a speakeasy.

The women were pronounced dead by medics at 7:52.

Police said the shooting scene appeared to be outside in front of the building, where they found spent shell casings.

That’s the entire story, and I’d bet euros to eclairs that I won’t be able to find it anywhere on the Inquirer’s website main page on Friday morning. But two more homicides brings the city’s total for 2021 up to at least 466.
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Updated: Friday, November 5, 2021

As I anticipated, the homicide total is 466, and no, there isn’t a single reference to the story concerning the homicide on the main page of the Inquirer’s website, even though the story was updated with more details at 9:39 AM this morning.

Black lives don’t matter in Philadelphia!

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Killadelphia Black lives really don't matter in Philadelphia, or to The Philadelphia Inquirer

I noted, in a tweet Thursday morning, that under Mayor Jim Kenney, District Attorney Larry Krasner, and Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw, Philadelphia’s 443 homicides as of 11:59 PM Wednesday put the city in fifth place, all time, for homicides in the year, and there were still 72 days remaining in 2021.

Well, the move into fourth place didn’t take long:

    Three men killed, four people wounded, including a 14-year-old boy, in separate shootings in Philly

    The fatal shootings occurred in West Oak Lane and North Philadelphia.

    by Robert Moran | Thursday, October 21, 2021 | 8:49 PM EDT

    Three men were killed and four other people, including a 14-year-old boy, were wounded in separate shootings late Thursday in Philadelphia, police said.

    Around 3:45 p.m., a 25-year-old man was on the 1500 block of West 65th Avenue in West Oak Lane when he was shot once in the neck. He was pronounced dead at the scene by medics. Police said they recovered a gun and had a person in custody.

    About 5:50 p.m., a 28-year-old man was on the 900 block of Cambridge Street in North Philadelphia when he was shot several times in his torso. He was transported to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:22.

    The 14-year-old was shot four times at the same location and was taken by police to Temple University Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition. Police reported no arrests in that case.

There’s more at the original.

Three people dead, plus a 21-year-old man shot five times in North Philadelphia, and a 20-year-old woman shot thrice in Hunting Park, listed in critical condition. Anyone want to bet that Mr Moran’s story won’t be found on the main page of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website on Friday morning?

This story posted at 9:45 PM EDT on Thursday, October 21st, and will be updated on Friday morning.

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Update! Friday, October 22, 2021

Did someone recover from being dead? The Philadelphia Police Department reported on Thursday that 443 homicides had occurred as of 11:59 PM EDT on Wednesday, October 20th. Robert Moran’s article cited above tells us of three homicides in the city on Thursday, but the morning report from the Police Department this morning states that the homicide total as of 11:59 PM EDT on Thursday was 445.

It’s possible that one of the previous homicides has now been ruled self-defense, and subtracted from the total, but I do not know.

Nevertheless, 445 is still ‘good’ enough to push 2021 into fourth place all time, with 71 days remaining in the year. At 1.5136 homicides per day, Philadelphia is on pace for 552 homicides for the year. At the current rate, Philly should tie the all time record of 500 in 36 days, on November 26th, appropriately enough, ‘Black Friday.’

A thorough scan of the Inquirer’s website main page at 8:18 AM EDT this morning verified what I had already guessed: neither Mr Moran’s, or anyone else’s story about the reported murders yesterday were visible on the site. Mr Moran’s story is still available at the embedded link in his headline above, but if you just read the Inquirer through its website in the morning, you’d never see it. But, as I’ve said many times before, black lives don’t matter to The Philadelphia Inquirer, unless, of course, they are taken by a white police officer.

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The witnesses who sat by and did nothing should be publicly identified and publicly shamed A woman is raped on a SEPTA train, and not one other passenger had the courage to stop it or even call 911

My good friend Robert Stacy McCain is incensed:

From the New York Post:

Passengers do nothing as woman is raped on Philadelphia train, cops say

By Eileen AJ Connelly | October 16, 2021 | 2:39 PM EDT Updated 5:06 PM EDT

A homeless man raped a woman this week on a commuter train in suburban Philadelphia in full view of other passengers –who cops said didn’t lift a finger to help, or even dial 911, reports said.

The attack at around 10 p.m. Wednesday was captured on surveillance video that showed other people in the train car, according to Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt of the Upper Darby Police Department.

“Were they watching? I don’t know. Again, we’re still going through the video but there was a lot of people, in my opinion, that should’ve intervened. Somebody should’ve done something.,” Bernhardt said, Philadelphia’s CBS-3 reported.

“It speaks to where we are in society; I mean, who would allow something like that to take place? So it’s troubling.”

Bernhardt said it was a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority employee who called the cops to report that “something wasn’t right” with a woman aboard the train.

SEPTA police waiting at the next stop were able to “apprehend the suspect in the act,” an agency spokesman said in a statement, according to NBC-10 Philadelphia.

They arrested Fiston Ngoy, 35, who is believed to be homeless, the station reported.

Ngoy was charged with rape, aggravated indecent assault and related counts, police said.

He remains behind bars in lieu of 10% of $180,000 bail, Philadelphia’s ABC-6 reported.

Bernhardt said he is known to both SEPTA and Upper Darby police.

The woman, who did not know her attacker, was taken to a hospital. Bernhardt called her an “unbelievably strong woman” who provided police with a lot of information, The Associated Press reported.

“She’s on the mend,” Bernhardt said. “Hopefully she will get through this.”

SEPTA issued a statement calling the attack a “horrendous criminal act.”

“There were other people on the train who witnessed this horrific act, and it may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911,” the authority said.

Or maybe it would have been stopped sooner if people had the courage to intervene physically. Were there no men on that train at all? We may eventually find out that there were some males on that train, but it’s obvious that none of them were actually men.

The Philadelphia Inquirer had an article on the assault, but, of course, the Inquirer would never publish the (alleged) rapist’s mugshot:

SEPTA reports rape on Market-Frankford Line, says no one called 911

A rape occurred Wednesday night but riders did not report it, SEPTA said.

by Stephan Salisbury | Saturday, October 16, 2021

A woman was raped on the Market-Frankford Line on Wednesday night in a car with other passengers but none called 911.

Their failure to do that was noted by SEPTA in an unusual statement — and condemned by the police chief in Upper Darby, where the attack took place.

“There was a lot of people in my opinion that should have intervened, somebody should have done something,” Police Superintendent Timothy Bernhardt said. “It speaks to where we are in society and who would allow something like that to take place. So it’s troubling.”

In the statement Friday, the SEPTA agency said that “anyone witnessing an emergency” needed to report it immediately.

Report it immediately? How about take action to stop it?

Frank Herbert, in Dune, noted fear, and how fear had to be overcome. But our governments, federal and state and city, have spent the last year and a half trying to instill fear into the public, and it looks like they have succeeded: a train car full of people, and no one of them had the courage to intervene, to stop a rape being perpetrated right in front of them.

“The assault was observed by a SEPTA employee, who called 911, enabling SEPTA officers to respond immediately and apprehend the suspect in the act,” the agency said. ”There were other people on the train who witnessed this horrific act, and it may have been stopped sooner if a rider called 911.” . . . .

Bernhardt said the assault was caught entirely on surveillance video. Bernhardt said they are reviewing the footage, in part to look at the passengers.

Good, and I hope that tape is revealed, and every passenger, especially every male passenger, in that railcar is identified, by name and by photograph, and their information published, widely published, so that everyone knows who they are, and what they were too cowardly to do. I noted that neither story indicated that the (alleged) assailant was armed, with a knife or a firearm.

All it would have taken was one man, just one, to rally the other passengers to intervene and stop the assault, but no one did. Those people need to be publicly shamed, publicly humiliated, and the men males divorced by their wives.

The alleged assailant had been previously convicted of drug possession in 2015, and had been arrested both last year and this in both Philadelphia and Delaware County on charges that included public drunkenness, resisting arrest, and scalping tickets. The Defender Association of Philadelphia, which provides lawyers for people too poor to hire one, had been providing him with representation on the ticket scalping charge.

This crime happened not in Philadelphia, but in Delaware County, and if there’s any good at all in this, it’s that Mr Ngoy won’t be prosecuted by Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, who would give him a serious, serious! slap on the back of the hand, and maybe even a stern talking to.

There was a time in which, had this occurred then, the other men on that train would have rushed to the victim’s defense and beaten the assailant to a bloody pulp. But fear, fear! was upon them, upon a population cowed into masks and isolation and indifference.

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Killadelphia

The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page is only updated Monday through Friday,[1]With Monday, October 11th being a government holiday, Columbus Day, it is possible that the website will not be updated until Tuesday. during “normal business hours,” so it still states that ‘just’ 427 people have been murdered in the City of Brotherly Love so far this year, but The Philadelphia Inquirer has the story of the killing of at least the 428th:

    A 13-year-old boy was fatally shot on his way to school in North Philly, police say

    The victim, whom police did not immediately identify, was shot once in the chest on the 3100 block of Judson Street just after 9 a.m., police said.

    by Chris Palmer and Anna Orso | Friday, October 8, 2021

    A 13-year-old boy was fatally shot on his way to school Friday morning in North Philadelphia, according to police and School District officials — another bleak example of how the city’s ongoing gun violence crisis is leaving a record number of young people dead or wounded.

    The victim, whom authorities declined to identify, was shot once in the chest on the 3100 block of Judson Street just after 9 a.m., police said. He was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he was pronounced dead about 20 minutes later.

    Chief Inspector Frank Vanore said detectives believe the boy and several other young people had been sitting in a car parked on the block when at least one gunman walked up and fired shots into it.

    Lunette Ray, 86, heard the shots — at least 10 — right outside her house. She peered out the window and saw several boys jump out of a vehicle and run away. One was severely bleeding and fell in the street. She called 911.

There’s more at the Inquirer’s original. A photo in the article shows a maroon PT Cruiser sitting parked on North Judson Street at the intersection with West Clearfield Street, with bullet holes in the windshield. However, the Inquirer’s headline, that the victim was “on his way to school” appears to be misleading:

    Vanore said some neighbors said the car had been parked on the block for “quite awhile,” so it was not clear if any of the people inside had been able to drive it.

If the victim was shot “just after” 9:00 AM, it would seem that he wasn’t actually on his way to school. The Rhodes Elementary School website states that “All students must be in homerooms by 8:45 am each day.”

This was a targeted killing, though it is entirely possible, and perhaps probable, that the murdered boy wasn’t the intended target, that someone else in the vehicle was.

We have frequently noted that the inquirer only covers homicides when the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a ‘somebody,’ or a cute little white girl. At least someone in that vehicle wasn’t exactly an innocent, but I have to ask: just what were “several” young people doing sitting in a parked car, at 9:00 AM on a school day? Many things could be speculated, which I will leave up to the reader.

Chris Palmer and Anna Orso, the article authors, perhaps accidentally, stepped away from the Inquirer’s position that it’s all about guns:

    Carl Day, an antiviolence advocate and pastor whose church is two blocks from where the shooting took place, said, “We should be stirred up right now, all of us.” The killing is a mandate for adults in the community, he said, to reach out to more children and teenagers and provide alternatives to violence.

    “We in this community and in this zip code need to put all hands on deck,” he said. “We have to let our youth know this doesn’t have to be life. This world is so much bigger than what they think they see in front of them.”

Pastor Day spoke a truth that the #woke of the Inquirer’s newsroom don’t want to hear, that the problem of homicide in the City of Brotherly Love isn’t about guns, but about bad people, about people who think that killing others is perfectly OK, that killing other people is a reasonable and logical thing to do, for whatever reasons they have. The current generation of kids in Philly have already been lost; it’s going to be up to the next group of parents to start bringing up their children in a manner in which they don’t see killing as a reasonable thing to do, and don’t see drugs as a smart thing to take.

It’s a pretty sad thing to note that murder and death are common risks for 13-year-olds like the victim in this story, but the reality is that they are, and they are due to the aggregate behavior of other teenagers in neighborhoods like North Judson and West Clearfield Streets. The victim in this story may or may not have been doing anything wrong, but enough of his peers have been, and are, that the danger is created for all of them.

References

References
↑1 With Monday, October 11th being a government holiday, Columbus Day, it is possible that the website will not be updated until Tuesday.
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Philly vaccine mandate delayed, but not ended Get vaccinated or starve, city health commissioner says

We have previously reported on Acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole and Philadelphia’s vaccine mandate:

    Cheryl Bettigole, MD, from her Twitter biography.

    Many Philadelphia health workers remain unvaccinated two months before shots will be required

    by Laura McCrystal | Wednesday, August 18, 2021

    Acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole said many institutions have applauded Philadelphia’s new vaccine mandate for health care workers, but noted that many employees remain unvaccinated.

    More than a dozen long-term care facilities in Philadelphia have less than 50% of their staff vaccinated, she said.

    ”If you’re more committed to not getting the vaccine than to the safety of your patients, it’s time to do something else,” she said at a Wednesday news briefing. “Health care is not for you.”

Let’s tell the truth here: health care employees at all levels have been exposed to constant, continuous education and pleas to get vaccinated. If they actually wanted to get vaccinated, they would have by now. One might ask why, in a city which gave 81.44% of its votes has so many unvaccinated people.

Like so many on the left,[1]Given this tweet of hers, I think there’s sufficient evidence to associate Dr Bettigole with the political left. Dr Bettigole not only knows what’s best for other people, but insists that it’s her way of the highway. The problem with that is that many, who have already resisted the months’ long pressure to take the vaccines, are going to continue to refuse. What will happen to health care facilities in our nation’s sixth largest city if, say, 25% or 35% of the workforce has to be discharged because they have refused to be vaccinated?

We noted the difficulty in hiring people, and that trained and licensed or certified people, such as nurses, nursing assistants and other hospital technicians, can’t just be replaced by people off the street.

And now, reality has bitten:

    Philadelphia extends vaccine mandate deadline for health-care and higher-education workers

    The change came after many employers requested more time to get their workers fully vaccinated.

    by Laura McCrystal and Erin McCarthy | Wednesday, October 6, 2021

    Philadelphia is extending its deadline for health-care workers and higher-education students and employees to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, acting Health Commissioner Cheryl Bettigole announced Wednesday, citing concern from employers that they would be unable to meet next week’s deadline.

    “My goal is to get everyone vaccinated and not leave our health-care and higher-education systems shorthanded,” Bettigole said.

    Instead of being fully vaccinated by the end of next week, staff of hospitals and long-term care facilities, along with higher-education students, faculty, and staff now must receive at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by Oct. 15 and a second dose a month later.

    Bettigole announced an even longer extension for all other health-care workers, including those who work as home health aides and in behavioral health settings — which she said have the lowest vaccination rates. Those workers now must receive at least one dose of the vaccine by Oct. 22 and a second dose by Nov. 22.

So much for her statement, “If you’re more committed to not getting the vaccine than to the safety of your patients, it’s time to do something else. Health care is not for you.” Now her concern is having enough people in health care!

But, notice the timeline here. Instead of “being fully vaccinated” by Friday, October 15th, which would mean that a person would have had to have received his last dose by Friday, October 1st, Dr Bettigole and the city are saying that nurses, nursing assistants, radiology technicians, etc, must take their first dose by next Friday.

This can mean only one thing: not only did a lot of such students and workers not begin to comply with the city’s demands back in August, but a lot didn’t try to comply later, either.

The extension requires that the employees receive the first dose by October 15th, and the second a month later. Does this mean that, after next Friday, an employee who does not present proof of having gotten the first shout will be suspended or discharged? Work schedules for hospitals and nursing homes, which are open 24/7, are, in most cases, already completed for well after mid-October; next Friday could be scramble time!

Getting vaccinated takes only a few minutes per dose, most of that dedicated to filling out the paperwork. Hospitals could have set up vaccination rooms in which staff could have walked down during a mid-morning or mid-afternoon break to get the jab, and return straight to work, without missing any time. With the vaccines now in plentiful supply, and a lot of medically trained personnel in the workplace who could administer the shots, anyone who was willing to take the shots could have gotten the shots.

Under the city’s mandate, exemptions were possible. Exempt personnel would be required to wear masks — something to which hospital personnel are already accustomed — and be tested twice a week. Given that even those fully vaccinated can contract, and spread, the virus, one would think that they would have to be tested as well, right?

As we have previously reported, the Philadelphia School District tests everybody once a week, and will now test the unvaccinated twice a week. The ‘incentive’ to get vaccinated is simply to halve the number of tests to which employees must submit. The original, August mandate, issued appropriately enough on Friday the 13th, required the unvaccinated to be tested at least once a week. The city is doubling up on that, using the punishment of physical discomfort, in an attempt to force compliance.

Have you ever had a COVID test? It involves a nurse sticking a cotton swab on a long stick far up your nose, to collect material from within your sinuses. It’s hardly fatal, and leaves no (known) lasting damage, but, then again, neither does waterboarding prisoners at Guantanamo. If that comparison seems strained, remember, the purpose is the same: to force compliance from someone who does not wish to go along with your demands.

Dr Bettigole stated that she does not intend to extend the deadline again:

    We’ve seen from other places that have implemented vaccine mandates that they work, that workers do step up and get their vaccines despite lots of anxiety before the deadlines.

Well, it didn’t work last time, to the extent that the deadlines had to be extended, or too many personnel would be lost. Considering that the first deadline didn’t work, if we assume that those who didn’t comply were the most strongly opposed to vaccination, might this extension have even less success?

Dr Bettigole’s phraseology is repugnant. She stated that, with the mandates, “workers do step up and get their vaccines despite lots of anxiety.” Translation: they had to choose between taking something in their bodies that they did not want, or losing their jobs. How is that different from a supervisor saying that you have to have sex with him or get fired? But Dr Bettigole sees knuckling under to coercion as “step(ping) up.” Utterly vile and repugnant, but authoritarians rarely see their dictates as being for anything other than the betterment of society.

References

References
↑1 Given this tweet of hers, I think there’s sufficient evidence to associate Dr Bettigole with the political left.
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They can’t handle the truth! Philly Inquirer won't tell you that city's murder rate is higher than Chicago's!

This site has been hard on The Philadelphia Inquirer and how that august newspaper pretty much ignores the homicides in its hometown unless the victim is an innocent, someone already of note, or a cute little white girl. In a city in which the vast majority of murder victims are black, you wouldn’t expect that “anti-racist news organization” to have that kind of skewed coverage, would you?

Screen capture of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, at 8:15 AM EDT on Tuesday, October 5, 2021. Click to enlarge.

Well, another innocent person was killed, and the Inquirer is all over it, as we noted on Monday.

    Nursing assistant gunned down by coworker at Jefferson Hospital left behind three children

    The Elkins Park homeowner was also a part-time barber whose “legacy was his kids.”

    by Marina Affo and Juliana Feliciano Reyes | Monday, October 4, 2021

    Anrae James used to tell his younger brother Armond, “If you treat people nice, you’ll always be blessed.” Armond looked up to his brother always and knew he could count on him being present, no matter the endeavor, he said.

    Now the phrase will serve as part of James’ legacy and a bittersweet reminder for all who loved him.

    The 43-year-old nursing assistant and part-time barber, whom many called Rae, was identified by his family on Monday as the victim in an early morning shooting at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. Those who knew him described him as a “family man” who worked two jobs to support his three kids and a jokester with a talent for bringing people together around his barber’s chair.

    “One of the best [barbers] in Uptown,” said his friend Lyndell Mason. “That’s what we called him.”

There’s much more at the original, most of it telling readers what a great guy Mr James was; it was at least as much a human interest story as a crime report. The importance that the Inquirer gave to this story is contained in a footnote to it:

    Staff writers Barbara Laker, Chris Palmer, Anna Orso, and Rob Tornoe contributed to this article.

That’s six reporters covering the story, and two more, Jason Laughlin and Erin McCarthy, wrote and contributed to another article, Jefferson shooting is the latest example of workplace violence in health care: Health-care workers said the threat of violence is a too common part of their professional lives.

But Mr James was not the only person murdered on Monday. The Philadelphia Police Department’s Current Crime Statistics page noted, as of 8:35 AM on Tuesday, October 5th, that 420 souls had been sent early to their eternal rewards, two more than the previous report, but I could find nothing at all in the inquirer about it.

Over the last 28 days, which excludes the Labor Day holiday weekend, 57 people have been murdered in Philly, 57 people in four weeks, or 2.0357 per day, and the Inquirer paid almost no attention to it. The city is up to 1.516 homicides per day for the year, meaning that, if that rate continues, 553 or 554 — the actual calculation is 553.430 — people will spill out their blood in the city’s mean streets.

If the last four weeks’ average was maintained, that would mean 179 more homicides, for a total of 599, but surely, surely! that rate won’t be maintained!

Will it?

On Friday, December 11, 2020, Helen Ubiñas published an article in the Inquirer entitled “What do you know about the Philadelphians killed by guns this year? At least know their names.”

    The last time we published the names of those lost to gun violence, in early July, nearly 200 people had been fatally shot in the city.

    Just weeks before the end of 2020, that number doubled. More than 400 people gunned down.

    By the time you read this, there will only be more.

    Even in a “normal” year, most of their stories would never be told.

    At best they’d be reduced to a handful of lines in a media alert:

    “A 21-year-old Black male was shot one time in the head. He was transported to Temple University Hospital and was pronounced at 8:12 p.m. The scene is being held, no weapon recovered and no arrest.”

    That’s it. An entire life ending in a paragraph that may never make the daily newspaper.

Of course, Miss Ubiñas got it slightly wrong: the Inquirer no longer specifies the race of victims. I have inferred that this was the result of a deliberate editorial decision, but it could just as easily be that the Philadelphia Police no longer report that information to the paper.

Perhaps I should be kinder to the Inquirer. After all, with 420 homicides so far, tied for the 13th bloodiest year in history, even with 88 days remaining in 2021, if the newspaper covered every murder, it might be my-eyes-glazed-over boring.

But it is also misleading journalism. Yeah, everybody knows that Philadelphia is a bloody town, but if the Inquirer’s coverage is the measure, that carnage seems to be just, well, unimportant. The Inquirer likes to concentrate on “gun violence,” as though those inanimate objects somehow levitate and shoot people completely independently of some bad person pulling the trigger. When publisher Elizabeth Hughes told us that her newspaper was “Establishing a Community News Desk to address long-standing shortcomings in how our journalism portrays Philadelphia communities, which have often been stigmatized by coverage that over-emphasizes crime,” she was telling us, inter alia, that the Inquirer would not report something really radical like, oh, the truth.

And the truth needs to be told. Due to news coverage, we often see Chicago as our most murderous city, and in the sheer body count, it’s pretty awful. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, 624 people have been murdered in the Windy City so far this year.

But homicide rates are calculated correcting for population, and Chicago’s population of 2,746,388is more than a million people more than Philly’s 1,603,797. Chicago’s annualized homicide rate[1]The annualized homicide rate was calculated by taking the number of current homicides, dividing by the number of days elapsed in the year, 277, and multiplying by 365, to get the projected number of … Continue reading is 29.930 per 100,000 population, while Philadelphia’s is 34.481 per 100,000! Philadelphia is worse than Chicago, but you won’t find that reported in the nation’s third oldest newspaper!

It was absolutely reasonable for the Inquirer to report on the murder of Anrae James. But the newspaper failing to cover, other than in the briefest of ways, if at all, of the vast majority of the other 419 people who spilled their blood in the city’s streets, is journolism[2]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, not journalism, because it obscures the truth, for political reasons.

References

References
↑1 The annualized homicide rate was calculated by taking the number of current homicides, dividing by the number of days elapsed in the year, 277, and multiplying by 365, to get the projected number of murders at the current daily rate, then dividing that number by the population in hundreds of thousands.
↑2 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.