Tag Archives: #Philadelphia

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This is what happens when you don’t lock up criminals! At least three of the Burholme shooters were previously treated leniently, and learned the lesson that they'll always get away with crime.

As we reported in this comment, the Philadelphia Police had identified the fourth suspect in the Five Points mass shooting, and gave that suspect, a 17-year-old juvenile, until Wednesday morning to surrender to police, or they would release his name and photo. He didn’t surrender, and federal marshals did what they said they’d do.

 

Marshals identify 4th suspect in Burholme bus stop shooting that wounded 8 teenagers

Asir Boone, 17, is wanted on attempted murder and related charges in the March 6 shooting at Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues.

by Jesse Bunch | Wednesday, March 13, 2024 | 2:12 PM EDT | Updated: 4:53 PM EDT

U.S. Marshals released information Wednesday about the fourth suspect in the Burholme shooting that left eight high school students injured last week, as law enforcement officials urged the teenager to turn himself in.

Asir Boone, 17, is wanted on attempted murder and related charges, according to a statement from the U.S. Marshals Service.

A $5,000 reward is being offered for information leading to Boone’s arrest. The Marshals Service said that Boone frequents the Olney neighborhood and that his last known address was in Germantown.

Shockingly enough, the tweet with the suspect’s name and photo was published on the newspaper’s online story.

I stated three days ago:

The two identified suspects are just 18 years old, and no one has exposed any adult criminal records on them, but no one would be surprised if there are sealed juvenile records.

It was hardly a difficult prediction to make!

The photo of Mr Boone is a police mugshot, dated last year, so this fine young gentlemen had been arrested at least once previously.

Well, my good friend, Sgt Mark Fusetti did some digging!

Note that Sgt Fusetti only identified two of the accused, and only as Suspects #1 and #2. That leads me to suspect that these juvenile records were not officially released, but leaked by someone. I don’t know that, but it’s a reasonable assumption. And now we know that the fourth suspect, young Mr Boone, was also, to use the euphemism, ‘known to the police.’

So, “Suspect #1” had a 2021 charge, for which he received a diversionary judgement, so no criminal conviction. The following year he was caught with a stolen car, and received probation. Then, at some later point, he was charged with receiving stolen property, for which he has not yet been tried.

“Suspect #2” was arrested for receiving stolen property and a firearms charge, and was put on probation just six days before the Burholme bus shooting. It would seem rather obvious that District Attorney Larry Krasner and his minions’ lenient treatment of arrested juveniles hasn’t worked to, as he claims in his Twitter bio, “make us safer.”

We noted, about three weeks ago, that The Philadelphia Inquirer gave OpEd space to two activists, who claimed “Locking teens up won’t make our city safer. It will have the opposite effect, and here’s why.” Well, at least three of the four suspects were not locked up, after committing serious crimes, with two of them having possessed firearms illegally, and they (allegedly) worked together to shoot up a SEPTA bus stop, apparently targeting at least one person, and wounding eight, one very seriously. At least three of the four (alleged) Burholme shooters were not locked up when caught previously, and the police recovered at least one Glock with an extended magazine and a full auto switch modification.

And yet, too many people assume that the only solution to stop youth crime is to lock children up long term.

While there are times when detaining teenagers is warranted, it cannot be the first and only response if we really want to end violence, because it doesn’t address the reasons so many kids are committing crimes in the first place.

Actually, it can. The criminal who is incarcerated or not incarcerated is not the only one who is learning a lesson here. The criminal, teenaged or otherwise, who is not incarcerated, who is treated as leniently “suspects #1 and 2”, and Asir Boone, were, learns the lesson that he’ll always get cut a break; that’s not a lesson the article authors have contemplated.

It’s also the people around the malefactors who learn a lesson, the lesson being either that, hey, these guys got busted, but were let go, so I’ll get let off, too, or the lesson that, dang, my buddies got busted and drew ten years in the state pen. The teenaged delinquents the authors contemplate getting whatever services and education that they expect might get that, were they to get their way, but the kids around the leniently treated criminals won’t; they’ll only see that their buddies got away with it.

Mr Krasner and his liberal minions are responsible for the (alleged) shooters being out on the streets, but the District Attorney and his office are not the only ones responsible. The leftists like the two activists just cited, and thousands of other Philadelphians who excuse crimes — at least when those crimes don’t affect them! — and who voted for Mr Krasner are also responsible.
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Y’all in a heap o’ trouble, boys! These guys are as dumb as a box of rocks.

We have previously noted the two mass shootings at SEPTA bus stops being used by high school students to get home. It’s only taken the Philadelphia Police a few days to identify the (alleged) shooters in the second incident. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Two teens charged with Burholme shooting that injured 8 students at a bus stop

The arrests came as students from Northeast High School returned to class.

by Ellie Rushing and Ximena Conde | Saturday, March 11, 2024 | 1:09 PM EDT | Updated: 6:36 PM EDT

Two 18-year-olds have been charged with attempted murder and related crimes in connection with the shooting of eight Northeast High School students who were struck by bullets as they waited for a bus after school last week, police said Monday.

Ahnile Buggs (L) and Jamaal Tucker (R), mugshots via Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.

Jamaal Tucker and Ahnile Buggs were taken into custody over the weekend and have each been charged with seven counts of aggravated assault and related offenses. Buggs and Tucker were also charged with one count of attempted murder, conspiracy, and illegal gun possession after police said they jumped out of a car at Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues and started shooting into a group of kids Wednesday afternoon.

Eight students, ages 15 to 17, were injured in the gunfire. One 16-year-old was shot nine times.

Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said Monday that detectives believe Tucker and Buggs were among four shooters. Two others involved in the crime remain at large — a third shooter and their getaway driver, he said.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t include the mugshots of the (alleged) malefactors. I got those from Steve Keeley of Fox 29 News.

Commissioner Bethel wasn’t forthcoming on the details of the investigation, but stated that it may have been related to the first shooting, the one which killed Dayemen Taylor. Deputy Commissioner Frank Vanore said that evidence was recovered from the stolen car the (alleged) shooters used, which had been dumped in Olney. He also stated that a .40-caliber Glock 22 pistol with an extended magazine, laser pointer, and a “switch,” a small device that attaches to a semi-automatic gun and makes it capable of fully automatic fire, had been recovered.

Many of the kids shot were seriously injured — one 16-year-old who was shot nine times was intubated and only recently upgraded from critical condition and able to talk. Another 16-year-old was shot multiple times in the chest and was expected to recover, while a 15-year-old had a bullet lodged in his spine and faced a risky surgery and long recovery ahead, their families said.

So, what’s going to happen? The two mass shootings have outraged the Powers That Be in the City of Brotherly Love, and even the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, and softer-than-a-kitten-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, vowed that the perpetrators would be harshly prosecuted, though I believe that when I actually see it. The two identified suspects are just 18 years old, and no one has exposed any adult criminal records on them, but no one would be surprised if there are sealed juvenile records. It would be very interesting if we learn that one or more of the offenders could have been in juvie last week, but were given lenient treatment by the District Attorney’s Office.

If Messrs Tucker and Buggs were two of the shooters, then let’s tell the truth: they’re both idiots, just plain stupid, dumb as a box of rocks. We don’t yet know the motives for the shootings, but whatever Mr Tucker was taken into custody just two days after the shooting, and Mr Buggs the day after that. Both men are looking at possibly decades in prison, and for what? Just plain stupidity.

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In the wake of two shootings when students were boarding SEPTA buses, Jenice Armstrong wants fewer criminals put in prison

My good friend Daniel Pearson — OK, OK, we’ve never actually met, but we’ve interacted on Twitter, so that should count! — tweeted yesterday that he believed “the single most effective way to keep Philadelphia’s children safe would be passing common sense gun control measures.” An editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mr Pearson is a liberal Democrat, but he’s not the far-left whacko type, and you can peacefully and politely interact with him.

Mr Pearson’s tweet follows the news in the City of Brotherly Love as twice this week, as twice bullets rang out at SEPTA stops where students were catching bus rides home from school: the shooting at the “Five Points” intersection of Rising Sun and Cottman Avenues in the Burholme section of Northeast Philly left eight students from Northeast High School wounded, while Dayemen Taylor was killed, and four others injured at another bus stop shooting, this time on Ogontz, also in North Philly.

Naturally, all of the Powers That Be in Philly are upset, appalled, aghast, and spewing a lot of words. Philly’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney, Larry Krasner, said that the Ogontz shooting brought him to tears, and promised “swift justice,” saying, “This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted.” Yeah, uh huh, right. Odds are that, when the suspects are identified, it will be determined that they had previous ‘contact’ with the criminal justice system, and they suffered almost no consequences.

For now, police are focused on recovering more evidence and chasing down tips, (Deputy Police Commissioner Frank) Vanore said. Investigators believe the three shooters were likely juveniles, he said, which makes it all the more concerning that they each had a handgun.

In other words, those “common sense gun control laws” that Mr Pearson advocated were already being broken, in that it is already illegal for juveniles to possess and carry handguns in Philly. Given that they used a stolen, blue Hyundai Sonata, which was later abandoned in Olney, as their getaway car, and that they sprayed more than 30 shots into the crowd, it would seem that the malefactors really don’t give a damn about laws.

But today, Inquirer columnist Jenice Armstrong decided to tell us that the city shouldn’t be locking up people for gun crimes!

Philly program keeps gun offenders out of prison. I’m all for it.

Over the years, I’ve become more skeptical that incarceration is the answer to all our crime problems.

by Jenice Armstrong | Thursday, March 7, 2024 | 6:00 AM EST

I love a graduation ceremony, and the one I attended last month was no exception.

But this one was a little different. For starters, it took place inside a courtroom at the Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Center City. Also, there was no playing of the quintessential graduation song, “Pomp and Circumstance,” no wearing of caps and gowns. The graduates were dressed in hoodies, jeans, work boots, and other casual attire. There were few family members present, although one graduate carried a small daughter on his hip.

Each had successfully met the requirements for a new diversionary program called the Alternative Felony Disposition program. Created in 2021 by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, with input from the Center for Carceral Communities at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Work, the program allows people with no prior criminal record who have been arrested on illegal gun charges to avoid jail time. The current crop of graduates, who began the program in July, had been assigned social workers they met with regularly. They also had been expected to attend group sessions with other defendants.

There’s more at the original.

Miss Armstrong has forgotten one obvious thing: those who are locked up, for gun crimes as well as other offenses, are not out on the streets, stealing Kias and Hyundais to use as getaway vehicles from planned shootings.

I also better understand that crime is a complex problem — one that Philly can’t expect to arrest its way out of. I agree with officials who say the city’s focus should be on the long-standing structural and systemic issues that drive people to arm themselves illegally, such as underfunded schools, government neglect of impoverished and broken neighborhoods, and a bloated justice system that targets poor and Black and brown city residents.

Miss Armstrong just can’t seem to understand, or at least admit it if she does understand, that the criminal justice system “targets poor and black and brown city residents” because the majority of crime in Philly is committed by those ‘people of color.’ Perhaps ‘incarceration isn’t the answer to all our crime problems’, but it’s the answer to the vast majority of them.

It’s an interesting set of messages: Mr Pearson wants more “common sense gun control measures” to fight crime, while Miss Armstrong doesn’t want those who violate existing laws to be punished. How does that work?

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Hold them accountable! Larry Krasner is at least indirectly responsible for Dayemen Taylor's murder. The only question is: is he directly responsible?

Shootings and homicides have decreased in the City of Brotherly Love over the past two years, with 55 murders as of the end of March 5, as compared to 79 on the same date last year. But, as the aggregate numbers decrease, more attention gets paid to some of the individual cases. No one really cares all that much when one gang-banger kills another gang-banger, but when a seemingly innocent kid gets targeted and murdered, even The Philadelphia Inquirer takes notice.

The newspaper had a fairly long story, by reporters Ellie Rushing and Kristen A. Graham, on the apparently deliberately targeted Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old student at Imhotep Charter, an African-centered school with a science, technology engineering and mathematics (STEM) focus.

About 3:45 p.m. Monday, as a group of students boarded SEPTA’s No. 6 bus to head home, police say, two young men in hoodies and masks ran up from behind, guns in hand.

They fired indiscriminately at close range at least 40 times, police said, spraying bullets among the crowd of kids and through the bus windows. In total, five people were shot, including a 14-year-old boy and a 71-year-old woman.

As the shooters closed in on the group in Ogontz, in North Philadelphia, police said, they strode toward Dayemen Taylor, a 17-year-old Imhotep student, and shot him multiple times. He died minutes later — targeted, police said, for reasons detectives don’t yet understand. Taylor, they said, was a respected student with no prior contact with law enforcement. And while investigators are looking into whether a fight at Imhotep earlier in the day may have led to the shooting, the motive remained unclear and no arrests had been made, said Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore.

There’s plenty more in the story, much of it telling readers what a good kid young Mr Taylor was, which sadly reminded me of past Inquirer stories in which the innocent victims was, in the end, not quite as innocent as depicted. But I’ve grown cynical in my elder years, and I’ve heard no evidence that Mr Taylor was anything other than the innocent victim portrayed.

But what struck me the most were these two paragraphs:

The case brought District Attorney Larry Krasner to tears on Tuesday, and he vowed swift justice.

“This is an absolute outrage. It will be solved, and those responsible will be vigorously prosecuted,” he said.

Oh, Mr Krasner was crying, was he? He was outraged, and he vowed swift justice, did he? That stupid piece of [insert vulgar term for feces here] is responsible for much of the killing on Philadelphia’s mean streets, because he has refused to take ‘lesser’ crimes seriously. He doesn’t like to prosecute crimes involving firearm possession, his minions and he allow very lenient plea deals, especially to juveniles, and he’s proud that the incarcerated population has dramatically declined on his watch. He delights on getting previously convicted criminals released, and on charging Philadelphia Police Officers whenever he can. He is at least indirectly responsible for this homicide, because he has done more than anyone else in Philadelphia to enable a culture and climate in which crime has been enabled.

Is he directly responsible? We don’t know yet, because the killers have not yet been identified. But it would surprise no one if, when the murderers are identified, they are individuals ‘known to the police,’ guys who have been arrested before and given lenient treatment by the city’s softer-than-Charmin-on-crime District Attorney. It would surprise no one if it turned out that the two gunmen both could and should have been behind bars on Monday afternoon.

And if it turns out that they could and should have been locked up on Monday, then Mr Krasner is directly responsible for young Mr Taylor’s murder. When will he be held accountable?

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My White Privilege is nothing compared to Accredited Victim Group™ Privilege

If you check one Accredited Victim Group™ box, prosecution for crimes in the City of Brotherly Love seems to be reduced. If you check two Accredited Victim Group™ boxes, your chances of being prosecuted are further reduced. So, just imagine if you check three Accredited Victim Group™ boxes!

City LGBT official and husband arrested by state trooper will not face charges at this time, DA’s Office said

Celena Morrison and her husband were arrested by a state trooper after a traffic stop Saturday morning.

by Ellie Rushing | Sunday, March 3, 2024 | 10:55 AM EST | Updated: 1:54 PM EST

A top Philadelphia official and her husband who were arrested by a Pennsylvania State trooper this weekend have been released from custody and were not charged with any crimes, a spokesperson for the state police said Sunday.

“Celena” Morrison, from his city biography page, which is a public record.

Celena Morrison, the city’s executive director of the Office of LGBT Affairs, and her husband, Darius McLean, were taken into custody Saturday morning following a confrontation with a state trooper on the Vine Street Expressway. A video of their arrests, captured by Morrison, quickly circulated on social media and appeared to show McLean lying on the shoulder of the highway, begging the trooper to let him go.

“I work for the mayor! I work for the mayor!” Morrison yelled, before the trooper can be heard telling her to “shut the f— up.”

The trooper then turns to arrest Morrison and, as the video pans toward the sky, she can be heard saying, “He just punched me.”

There’s more at the original.

So, what boxes are checked? Miss Morrison is black, so that’s box number one. Miss Morrison is homosexual, so that’s box number two. And Miss Morison is actually Mr Morrison, a male who believes he is female, and thus checks the transgender box. Mr McLean is black, so that’s box number one for him, and he is homosexual, given that he is married to another male, so that’s box number two.

According to the newspaper, Mr Morrison was pulled over on the Vine Street Expressway, because:

  • the vehicle’s registration was expired and suspended;
  • the windows were illegally tinted;
  • the vehicle’s headlights were not illuminated in the rain; and
  • Mr Morrison was following too closely behind another driver.

Those are all important issues. If the vehicle’s registration was expired and suspended, that means that in any accident in which Mr Morrison might have been involved, even if the vehicle had insurance, the insurance company could refuse to pay any liabilities required. If the vehicle’s headlights were not on while driving in the rain, that created a safety violation, as other drivers would be less able to see the vehicle. And if Mr Morrison was following another car too closely, and had to stop quickly, he might not have been able to do so, especially on wet roads.

What was a city official doing driving a vehicle in that condition?

Mr McLean saw his “wife’s” vehicle having been pulled over by a state policeman, and decided to stop and interfere.

State police initially filed several misdemeanor and summary charges against the couple, but the charges were declined by the District Attorney’s Office “pending additional review,” said agency spokesperson Lt. Adam Reed. They were released from custody Saturday evening.

Jane Roh, spokesperson for the DA’s Office, said that no charging decisions have been made but that officials are investigating all aspects of the incident.

Translation: they’re going after the state trooper for doing his job.

At one point, McLean said: “Please just stop. It’s because I’m Black.”

The state trooper did not stop Mr McLean; he stopped himself. Given that the vehicle Mr Morrison was driving was cited for having windows which were illegally tinted, among other things, the trooper couldn’t really see that the driver was black.

The Keystone State ceased issuing annual stickers for license plates in 2018, and went to automated license plate scanners mounted in police cars. The state policeman did not need to run the plates on Mrs Morrison’s car; that was done automatically by computer, and the trooper was alerted to this in his vehicle. Pennsylvania only issues rear license plates, so the trooper was behind the grey Infiniti sedan when the plate was scanned.

There’s some real privilege being shown here, and it isn’t that dreaded “White Privilege” about which the left so frequently whine. If my wife, who is white, had been pulled over for the same infractions, and I proceeded to stop behind the police car, and pulled the same bovine feces Mr McLean did, I’d be in jail, awaiting a Monday morning arraignment to get bail set. Of course, my wife would simply have accepted the tickets, even if she was unhappy about it, and I wouldn’t be stupid enough to try to interfere with a law enforcement officer. But, then again, we don’t have Accredited Victim Group™ Privilege.

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Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts Is justice in Philadelphia a matter of the color of your skin?

We have used the headline, “Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts”, thrice before, and yup, here they go again.

The First Street Journal reported on this story at 12:07 PM EST today, which was 28 minutes after Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Ellie Rushing‘s story, but our sources were older. Fox 29 News reporter Steve Keeley published the accused’s mugshot at 10:02 AM, but he also published the (alleged) offender’s previous record, and the fact that he’d been released with a completely unsecured bond, at 7:42 PM yesterday.

The image to the left is a screen capture from the Inquirer’s website taken at 2:18 PM today; I thought it important to document it, with the newspaper’s timestamp visible.

You know what isn’t in Miss Rushing’s story, at least as published at 11:39 AM? There is absolutely no mention that Kenneth Rogers, the accused, was previously accused of attempted murder and first-degree aggravated assault last June, or that he was released with no bond in December, and, of course, the Inky used a stock photo rather than Mr Rogers’ mugshot. The newspaper seems to only publish photos of people accused of crimes if they are policemen.

Mr Rogers initial bond was set at $750,000, on June 3, 2023, requiring a cash bond of 10%, or $75,000. The accused was unable to post that bond, and languished in jail until December 15, 2023, without being convicted of anything, when he was finally released with his bond being unsecured, which means no money was posted.

Which brings us to the case of Cody Monroe Heron. As we reported on October 5, 2023, Mr Heron was charged with aggravated assault, the same charge that Mr Rogers faced last June, but he was not charged with attempted murder, as Mr Rogers was in June of 2023, and again today. District Attorney Larry Krasner and the DA’s Office requested that Mr Heron’s bail be set at $5,000,000, though it wound up being initially set at $2,500,000. We then reported, on October 16, 2023, that when Mr Heron’s attorney requested a reduction in bail, because there was no way Mr Heron could meet that $2,500,000 bail amount, it was instead increased to $4,000,000.

After four months and two days in jail, Mr Heron pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of an instrument of crime. He will be sentenced in June, and prosecutors stated that they intended to seek a sentence of three to six years in prison.

The obvious question becomes: why was Mr Heron effectively denied bail, by having it initially set more than thrice what Mr Rogers’ bail originally was, and why was it then increased by $1,500,000 while Mr Rogers was just set free? Mr Heron’s offense, while certainly serious, despite the fact that no one was actually injured, was one not likely to be repeated, while Mr Rogers’ offense was not only more likely to be repeated, and (allegedly) has now been repeated.

Miss Rushing’s story did conclude with the note that it was a developing story, and would be updated, but at least as of this publication, at 3:22 PM EST, it has not been.
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Update! There was an update to the story time stamped at 4:44 PM EST:

On Monday, Rogers was charged with aggravated assault, robbery, making terroristic threats, and related crimes. He is being held on $750,000 bail.

This is only the latest time Rogers has been accused of violence. In just the last three years, he has twice been charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing two people in separate incidents. And over the last decade, he’s been in and out of jail on robbery, theft, and drug possession charges, records show.

In June 2020, Rogers was arrested after police said he stabbed his cousin in the torso. According to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest, Rogers owed his cousin about $7,000, and the two got into a fight over it near Tioga and Jasper Streets. Rogers then stabbed his cousin in the chest, puncturing his lung, and vowed to kill him before a bystander intervened, the victim told police, according to the records.

Rogers was arrested and charged with attempted murder, but after the victim failed to appear at multiple court hearings, a judge dismissed the charges, records show. The district attorney’s office refiled the charges, records show, but a judge again tossed the case after the victim failed to appear four more times at scheduled preliminary hearings.

Then, in June 2023, Rogers was again charged with attempted murder after police said he stabbed a man multiple times at the Allegheny station on SEPTA’s Market-Frankford Line in Kensington, according to the arrest affidavit.

He was originally held on $750,000 bail. But the victim in that case, who was also unhoused, did not maintain contact with victim’s services and similarly failed to appear at court hearings, said Jane Roh, a spokesperson for the DA’s office.

Following those failures to appear, Common Pleas Court Judge Nicholas Kamau in December reduced Rogers’ bail to unsecured — meaning Rogers could be released without posting bail so long as he did not violate the conditions of his release. Rogers was ordered to house arrest with an electronic monitor following an agreement that he could stay at his mother’s home, Roh said.

So, will we find that the latest victim will choose not to appear?

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When The Philadelphia Inquirer tells us more than was perhaps intended Why does DA Larry Krasner oppose a special prosecutor for crimes on SEPTA when his office can't handle the cases it has?

As is the case with many newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer likes to use on-hand, stock photos to illustrate some of their online stories. This one greatly amused me.

Man died after falling on SEPTA tracks, getting electrocuted at City Hall

The man — who has yet to be identified — fell on the tracks before train service began at 4:40 a.m.

by Beatrice Forman | Monday, February 26, 2024 | 7:52 AM EST | Updated: 8:16 AM EST

A man died at SEPTA’s City Hall station after falling onto the tracks early Monday morning, the transportation authority confirmed.

The incident occurred before Broad Street Line service starts at 4:40 a.m. when a man “made contact with the energized third rail” and was electrocuted, said SEPTA spokesperson Andrew Busch.

The man has not been identified, and it is unclear what caused him to fall.

“All we know is that he was by himself,” said Busch. “No one else was there.”

So, no foul play is suspected. Considering how much crime has been reported on SEPTA and at SEPTA train stations, that’s actually a relief, not that a story about anyone being killed is somehow good news.

But, as the newspaper continually touts public transportation, I looked closely at the photo used, and there it was, shown through the open subway car door, a man (?) keeled over in his seat, doing what? Sleeping it off, drunk, keeping warm on a winter night, or just another junkie riding the rails while riding high. The Grateful Dead’s Casey Jones, “Driving that train, high on cocaine,” comes to mind.

A hatchet attack and a shooting at SEPTA stations this weekend continued a spate of high-profile violence

Two suspects are in custody after the separate incidents occurred within hours of each other.

Latest @PhillyPolice booking photo of Kenneth Rogers,28,arrested after police say he attacked man in @SEPTA concourse with hatchet while he had active arrest warrant for attempted murder. Detectives tell me “Hopefully a Philly judge won’t release him on unsecured bail again.”

by Jeremy Roebuck and Ariana Perez-Castells | Saturday, February 24, 2024 | 10:49 PM EST |Updated: Sunday, February 25, 2024 | 10:21 PM EST

Two attacks over the weekend at SEPTA stations in Philadelphia continued a recent spate of high-profile violent crimes that have plagued the transit system.

A 20-year-old was shot on a Broad Street Line northbound subway train that had just left the Hunting Park Station just before 9 p.m. Saturday.

Then, less than five hours later, a hatchet-wielding assailant attacked another rider on the subway concourse near the SEPTA station at 8th and Market Streets, police said.

That incident occurred just before 1:30 a.m. Sunday morning. The victim told officers his attacker had struck him six times with the hatchet and kicked him four times in the face. He suffered cuts to the back of his head and bruising to his face, according to police reports on the attack.

No, of course the Inquirer didn’t publish the (alleged) “hatchet-wielding assailant’s” mugshot; it was up to Fox 29 News’ Steve Keeley to do that!

The distinguished Mr Rogers was arrested and jailed on June 3, 2023, for several charges relating to an assault, including attempted murder and aggravated assault PA 18 §2702(a)(1) with an attempt to cause serious bodily injury with extreme indifference to the value of human life. That is a first-degree felony, which under PA 18 §106 has a maximum sentence of twenty years in the penitentiary. His bail amount was set at $750,000, with a 10% minimum cash bond.

On July 5, 2023, Mr Rogers was ordered held for court. However, on December 15, 2023, he was released on an unsecured $750,000 bond, which means, for all practical purposes, no bail at all.

The Eighth Amendment guarantees a right to reasonable bail for criminal suspects; Mr Rogers had, upon his arrest, been imprisoned for a crime of which he had not been convicted, and spent six months and 12 days behind bars, without being convicted. To release a criminal suspect, without bail, who has a bail which has been set at an amount which he cannot raise, can be argued to be reasonable.

The real problem is that, in the six months and 12 days Mr Rogers was locked up, District Attorney Larry Krasner and the District Attorney’s Office had not brought Mr Rogers to trial. This isn’t even an issue of Mr Krasner and his office having ridiculously lenient policies toward crime, but simply not doing their jobs at all, not bringing a criminal accused of a violent, first-degree felony, to trial quickly enough for him not to be released.

So now, just 72 days after he was released without any bail, Mr Rogers, who is apparently homeless, is once again accused of trying to kill someone.

The Powers That Be in the City of Brotherly Love have been going full speed ahead on promoting public transportation and SEPTA, but the first step is to clean out the junkies and criminals from the buses, trains and train/subway stations, and that can’t be done until Mr Krasner and his minions start doing their jobs!

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After six second chances, a Philadelphia thug does something which gets him stone-cold graveyard dead.

As we noted almost two years ago, when the Philadelphia Police Department tried to keep the identity of a police officer involved in a shooting which killed a common criminal, because then-Commissioner Danielle Outlaw claimed that the officer’s personal safety was at risk, The Philadelphia Inquirer put together its sources, and identified and published the identity of the officer.

Well, oops, they did it again!

Police are investigating a traffic stop that ended with an injured officer and fatally shot driver

A police officer shot Curtis Wallace Jr. on the Adams Avenue Bridge in Crescentville after he allegedly hit the officer with his car.

by Ellie Rushing | Friday, February 16, 2024 | 12:56 PM EST

Curtis Wallace, Jr, from a 2022 mugshot, via WTAE.

Philadelphia police on Friday continued to investigate an attempted traffic stop Thursday night that authorities said led to an officer being struck by a car, then pinned against a wall by the vehicle, before the officer shot and fatally wounded the driver.

Family identified the man who died as 36-year-old Curtis Wallace Jr. And while police declined to name the officer involved, multiple law enforcement sources identified him as 38-year-old Marckenson Smith, an eight-year veteran of the force.

So, when the Usual Suspects protest against this incident — they’ve even protested the police shooting of a thug who had shot an officer.

And, no, of course the Inquirer didn’t provide Mr Wallace’s old mugshot, but it didn’t take much searching to find it.

The incident began around 7 p.m. Thursday, when Smith attempted to pull over a white Ford Lincoln sedan at Roosevelt Boulevard and F Street in Crescentville, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel said outside Einstein Medical Center Thursday night.

Bethel did not say what prompted the traffic stop, and a department spokesman on Friday said that remains part of the investigation.

You can follow the link to the newspaper’s original, to read the details which have been published. To me, the interesting part is toward the end of Miss Rushing’s story:

Records show (Mr Wallace) has a history of prior arrests and run-ins with the law.

In March 2015, records show he pleaded guilty to theft and receiving stolen property, and was sentenced to two years’ probation. Later that year in December, he was charged with aggravated assault after police said he broke into a house, beat a man with a metal pipe, dragged him out of the property, and threatened to kill him. Wallace pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 1½ months to a year in jail, plus two years’ probation, and was released on time served.

Really? What kind of sweetheart plea deal was he given? Under Title 18 §2702, aggravated assault is, depending on a couple of circumstances, either a First-degree or Second-degree felony, which under Title 18 §106 has a sentence of over ten years (b)(2) for First-degree, or a maximum of ten years (b)(3) for a Second-degree felony conviction. Yet Mr Wallace released on time served in jail awaiting trial. This was after he was already on probation.

He continued to violate this probation over the years, records show. In early 2019, he was charged with indecent assault, violating a protective order, and strangulation, but the charges were later dismissed for reasons that were not immediately clear.

Most recently, in January 2022, he was convicted of theft and conspiracy for breaking into a woman’s car and stealing her computer, $900 cash, and Burberry coat, records show. He was sentenced to up to 23 months in jail, plus 30 months probation, though he was immediately paroled and ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution.

Just a few months later, he was arrested and charged with orchestrating a catalytic converter theft ring in Allegheny County. Records show he pleaded guilty to theft and was sentenced to one year probation.

Mr Wallace appears to have spent much of his past few years on probation, but, despite continual violations, never had his probation revoked and sent to prison. It’s obvious that previous probation sentences, previous second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth chances, didn’t turn Mr Wallace to the straight and narrow, didn’t get him to reform his life and become a law-abiding citizen.

Instead, he got let go and leniently treated, and shown just about every courtesy possible, right up until he did something which put him on a slab in the morgue. I have previously joked that that was District Attorney Larry Krasner’s — though the Allegheny County event is not on Mr Krasner — brilliant policy to reduce crime by releasing criminals until they do something which gets them off the streets permanently.

Perhaps my joking isn’t all that much of a joke. But if Mr Wallace had been treated according to the laws passed by the Commonwealth’s elected representatives, who (supposedly) reflect the will of the people, he’d be alive today, alive behind bars, but at least able to look forward to getting out at some point.

He won’t be getting out of that pine box.

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Once again, an otherwise detailed article in The Philadelphia Inquirer omits a pertinent fact. The newspaper just doesn't want to mention the crime angle

Perhaps it’s wrong of me to expect more in-depth coverage from The Philadelphia Inquirer, and my $285.48 annual subscription, but this one jumped out at me:

These Philadelphians got rid of their cars in the past year. They haven’t looked back.

“Now that I’m forced to walk, I’m seeing the city more than I did before,” said one newly car-less resident. She used to pay about $400 a month on her car payment and insurance.

by Erin McCarthy | Friday, February 9, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

Dajé Walker’s Hyundai Elantra was stolen from a Brewerytown parking lot in July, only to be found a week later on the side of a local highway.

The car that Walker had driven for three years was “in shambles,” Walker said, and the insurance company deemed it a total loss.

“I had that existential crisis moment where I was like, ‘Do I need a car or do I want a car?” she said.

Around the same time, Walker, 28, got a new, completely remote job as a project manager. The news sealed her decision: She took the insurance payout of about $15,000, putting some of the money in savings and using the rest to move from Brewerytown to Old City, and never looked back.

She no longer has to set aside $300 a month for her car payment and another $100 for insurance. When she recently moved to Old City, she didn’t have to worry about securing a convenient and safe parking spot, which can cost at least $250 a month at private lots.

There’s a nice photo of Miss Walker, with her dog, on the narrow, brick streets, streets wide enough for a horse-and-buggy back in 1776, in the historic Old City, a really nice area in Philly, if you can afford it.

But while Miss Walker was able to get a new, 100% work from home job, published at the very same time was the article “IBX’s (Independence Blue Cross) new in-person office policy has some workers feeling betrayed. Others are job-hunting. Senior employees say they are worried that their teams will quit to find more flexible or better-paying positions at other companies,” which was a follow on to the Groundhog Day article, “Independence Blue Cross changes its work-from-home policy, the latest big Philly employer to require more in-office days: The insurance company had been allowing most employees to work remote as much as they liked. Now, they’ll be required onsite a majority of the work week.”

So, more and more employees are being expected to do something really radical and actually come to work in Philly; won’t those workers need a way to get to work?

More people are back in the office, but commuters say SEPTA service isn’t back to pre-pandemic norms

SEPTA service isn’t back to 100%, but it’s still outpacing ridership, even as employers push more in-office time. Would workers be more willing to commute if transportation schedules bulked up?

by Lizzy McLellan Ravitch | Friday, October 6, 2023 | 9:18 AM EDT

On Wednesday morning, SEPTA sent 39 notifications of Regional Rail trains running at least 10 minutes late and warned of potential delays or cancellations on 18 bus and trolley lines “due to operator unavailability.”

“It’s a gamble” trying to catch the bus, said a Pennsylvania state employee from West Philadelphia, who asked to remain nameless out of concern for their job. “There were times I would wake up earlier to get an earlier bus, and that wouldn’t show up.”

SEPTA’s mismanagement by CEO Leslie Richards is famed far and wide in Philly.

They have taken a rideshare to work on multiple occasions because their bus route options were canceled or late. Walking to a further bus stop isn’t an option because they have a disability. A lifelong bus rider, they said the system was more dependable before COVID-19.

[Sigh!] In English grammar, properly understood, the masculine subsumes the feminine, meaning that the singular masculine pronouns are used to refer to one person, even when that person’s sex is not known or specified. Anything else is sloppy writing.

“You have to laugh to keep from crying,” the West Philly bus rider said. “People could lose their jobs” if they’re late for work.

Septa’s ridership is down 39% from 2019, the year prior to the panicdemic, though the bus service alone was back up to 75% last October.

Back to the first cited article:

After a surge in car-buying statewide at the height of the pandemic, there are signs that some Philadelphians like Walker have made the decision to do away with their cars in recent years, bucking larger trends.

In 2022, more than 638,000 passenger vehicles were registered in the city, about 24,000 fewer cars than were registered here a year prior, according to the most recent state data. That represents a 3.6% decline in registered vehicles over a period when the city’s population decreased 1.4%, the largest one year drop in 45 years.

Do all of these things make sense together? Car ownership is down significantly from the population decrease, public transportation ridership has significantly decreased, and more people are being required to return to their employers’ offices? We reported, just two days ago, that the newspaper did not report politically inconvenient facts about vehicle ownership, that while the Inquirer reported on the surge in automobile insurance rates, completely ignored was the possibility the city’s huge auto theft and carjacking rates had anything to do with that surge.

Well, here they go again. The newspaper has previously reported:

Philadelphia has seen a surge in plateless vehicles. Some are abandoned, but others are the result of drivers attempting to evade law enforcement, parking tickets, or toll-by-plate systems.

There was also this:

How rampant phony license plates are being used to get away with crimes in Philadelphia

Fraudulent temporary tags have flooded into Philadelphia from states with looser rules — like Delaware.

by Ryan W. Briggs and Dylan Purcell | November 18, 2022 | 5:00 AM EST | Updated: 12:11 PM EST

(F)ake license plates are an old tool of criminal trades, what’s new is the flood of fraudulent temporary tags into Philadelphia from states with looser issuance rules — like Texas and Delaware. These phony plates have shown up increasingly in police investigations into shootings, carjackings, hit-and-runs, and car thefts. (In addition to counterfeit plates, thefts of auto tags this year to date were 2,378, a more than 60% increase over the same period in 2018.)

How, I have to ask, is it good and reliable reporting to tell the newspaper’s readers that fewer people own cars without mentioning that the city has seen a surge in vehicles on the street which some people possess, though “own” might not be the proper word? There was not the first word in Erin McCarthy’s article to even hint that, Heaven forfend!, there might be more cars on the road possessed by scofflaws and criminals.

Miss McCarthy’s article was entirely upbeat, telling readers that there are good and reasonable ways to live in the City of Brotherly Love, that Philly “is known for being one of the best cities to live in without a car (though historically not all neighborhoods have the same access to public transit),” which, I would guess, will be something referenced in yet another article telling us that we must give up cars to save Mother Gaia.

William Teach reported, just this morning, that we are being told by Our Betters that the behavior of the public as a whole must be changed to fight global warming climate change, but at least Miss McCarthy’s article is trying to be persuasive rather than authoritarian.