Tag Archives: #PhiladelphiaInquirer

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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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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.

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Journolism: The credentialed media don’t exactly lie, but they conceal politically incorrect facts

We have said it before: the journolists[1]The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their … Continue reading of the credentialed media don’t outright lie to us, but they are very good at not mentioning politically incorrect facts. For instance, we recently reported that The Philadelphia Inquirer, our nation’s third oldest continuously published daily newspaper, made no mention at all of the murder of 19-year-old Nafiese McClain in a bodega on the corner of 55th and Master Streets on January 29th, nor of the arrest of a 16-year-old juvenile, Jahsir Walke, for that killing.[2]As of 9:28 AM EST today, site searches of the Inquirer’s website showed no returns at all for the names of the arrested, alleged killer or the victim, even though Fox 29 News had the story of … Continue reading We previously reported how the Lexington Herald-Leader concealed the sex of the victims of a female teacher, administrator, and coach in Floyd County, even though two of the known victims came forth publicly, and yup, they were girls.

Well, here the media go again. From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Philly has the largest jump in average cost of car insurance in the country in 2024

The average full-coverage premium costs in the Philadelphia metro area jumped 154% this year from $1,872 to $4,753.

by Ariana Perez-Castells | Wednesday, February 7, 2024 | 5:00 AM EST

Drivers in the Philadelphia metro area are spending a larger share of their income on car insurance than many in the nation, according to an annual report released this month from Bankrate, a consumer financial services company.

On average, Philly drivers are spending $4,753 on their annual car premium, 5.65% of their household income.

According to Bankrate, the average full-coverage premium costs in the Philadelphia metro area — which includes Camden and Wilmington — jumped 154% this year. It is the largest increase of any of the 26 metros examined by Bankrate.

Only drivers in the Tampa, Miami, and Detroit metros are spending a larger percentage of their household incomes on their car premium than those in the Philly metro area, according to Bankrate’s analysis.

Four paragraphs follow, telling Inquirer readers that premiums have increased nationwide, and then we get to this paragraph, below its own subtitle:

Why the large increase?

Insurance premiums are, for the most part, reactionary, Martin said, and a lot has happened in the last few years that has affected rates including inflation, an increase in the price of car parts, more fatalities when people got back on the road in 2021, and refunds insurance companies issued customers during the pandemic.

Sounds reasonable, right? But you know what is not mentioned in the article? Carjackings!

It’s not as though the Inquirer somehow missed all of that, given this story in that august newspaper:

  • DA Larry Krasner announces new carjacking unit: Carjackings hit an all-time high in 2022, with more than 1,300 reported, the Philadelphia Police Department told The Inquirer. That figure represents a 53% increase over last year. By Nick Vadala, Friday, December 29, 2022, 3:31 PM EST

More, Miss Perez-Castells is listed as one of the three authors of the article “Car thefts at the Philadelphia Airport have risen sharply since before the pandemic: So far this year, 112 cars have been stolen from the Philadelphia airport, a spike of 5500% from the same point in 2019,” published on Friday, October 13, 2023. She cannot have not known about the terrible car theft and carjacking problem in the City of Brotherly Love.

We reported on a worse-than-usual carjacking in South Philly, one which the newspaper covered, in which the carjacking victim was killed, but in a story in which the newspaper told us that the suspects three “young men, appearing to be between the ages of 15 and early 20s, dressed in dark clothing,” concealing that the suspects were three black young men.

There isn’t even the slightest hint in reporter Ariana Perez-Castells’ article that carjackings, or even auto theft in general, played even the barest part in automobile insurance premiums. If the report she cited stated specifically that carjackings and theft did not contribute to the increase in premiums, Miss Perez-Castells did not mention such.

So, the question becomes: did Miss Perez-Castells omit any mention of the possibility that Philly’s high automobile theft and carjacking rates could have contributed to the dramatic increase in full coverage insurance rates, or did she include it, only to have it blue-penciled[3]Blue penciled is an old copy-editing term, which shows how old I am! by an editor following publisher Elizabeth Hughes’ dictate that the newspaper would become an “anti-racist news organization,” and her promises that the Inky would be closely examining its crime reporting which “portrays Philadelphia (minority) communities, which have often been stigmatized by coverage that over-emphasizes crime,” and “includes countless stories focused on minor crimes and disproportionately affect people of color”? I don’t know the answer to that, but one thing is certain to me: such should have been included in the story. If the reporter didn’t include it, her editor should have noticed it and asked why it was omitted.

The non-inclusion of this very serious Philadelphia problem took a decent bit of reporting, and mostly trashed it. It’s difficult for me to believe that I’m the only subscriber who would have noticed that glaring omission, because it practically leapt off the page my monitor screen at me. The Inquirer has every right to omit that consideration from its story, for whatever reasons the writer and/or editors had; that’s part of the newspaper’s freedom of the press. But it’s also the right of the readers to notice, and take judgements on the newspaper’s journalism due to it.

References

References
↑1 The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias.
↑2 As of 9:28 AM EST today, site searches of the Inquirer’s website showed no returns at all for the names of the arrested, alleged killer or the victim, even though Fox 29 News had the story of the arrest two days ago.
↑3 Blue penciled is an old copy-editing term, which shows how old I am!
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What The Philadelphia Inquirer doesn’t tell us, tells us a lot How can you have a long report on the Philadelphia public schools without telling us how they are doing as far as actually educating students?

We have frequently mentioned the Edward T Steel Elementary School in Philadelphia, since then-mayoral candidate Helen Gym Flaherty used the school as a backdrop for telling voters how she ‘saved’ the school from ‘going charter,’ and kept it a public school.  In the still public Steel Elementary, which is ranked 1,205th out of 1,607 Pennsylvania elementary schools, 1% of students scored at or above the proficient level for math, and 8% scored at or above that level for reading. Maybe keeping it public didn’t work all that well? Continue reading →

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Well, of course he doesn’t! Will Bunch doesn't like people in authority being held accountable for what they said

I will admit it: despite paying too much for my subscription to The Philadelphia Inquirer, I only infrequently read hard-left columnist Will Bunch’s stuff, but Christine Flowers pointed it out to me this morning. The distinguished Mr Bunch, whose Inky bio states that he “the national columnist — with some strong opinions about what’s happening in America around social injustice, income inequality and the government,” waxed wroth that University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill will shortly be Penn’s former President:

Liz Magill’s ouster at Penn will help the worst people take down free speech, higher ed

Critics celebrating the scalping of Penn’s president won’t stop there. Free speech, and college itself, are in grave danger.

by Will Bunch | Sunday, December 10, 2023 | 11:44 AM EST

A band of raiders never stops at just one scalp. Just minutes after the University of Pennsylvania’s president Liz Magill pulled the plug on her stormy 17-month tenure, under intense pressure for her handling of antisemitism questions on Capitol Hill, her chief inquisitor — GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York — was back on the battlefield calling for more.

“One down. Two to go,” a clearly ebullient Stefanik posted on X/Twitter, urging on her dream of an academic Saturday Night Massacre that would also take down the two college leaders who testified last week along with Magill — MIT’s Sally Kornbluth and Claudine Gay of Harvard, which, in a controversy with more ironies than a Jane Austen novel, happens to be Stefanik’s alma mater.

I’m old enough to remember, back in the days of quill pens and parchment print-on-paper only newspapers how columnists were limited to roughly 750 words, but Mr Bunch’s rant was 1,663 words long, so prepare for it if you click on the embedded link!

But what Stefanik promised on Saturday night, and what her allies are cheering on, goes well beyond a few high-profile resignations. She promised the current crisis — over what constitutes antisemitism on college campuses, and how administrators like Magill have been handling it — will lead to more congressional hearings on “all facets of their institutions’ negligent perpetration of antisemitism including administrative, faculty, and overall leadership and governance.”

This one’s pretty long, so I’ve moved the bulk of the article below the fold. Continue reading →

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The Journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer

No, that’s not a typographical error in the headline: The spelling ‘journolist’ or ‘journolism’ comes from JournoList, an email list of 400 influential and politically liberal journalists, the exposure of which called into question their objectivity. I use the term ‘journolism’ frequently when writing about media bias. We have previously written about the journolism of The Philadelphia Inquirer, often enough that this is the fifth article with that title. The newspaper reported:

Haverford College holds vigil for Palestinian student shot in Vermont

Haverford students, alumni, and staff gathered in Founders Hall to light candles and offer support for Kinnan Abdalhamid, the West Bank-born biology major and member of the school’s track team.

by Max Marin and Ximena Conde | Tuesday, November 28, 2023 | 7:21 PM EST

Jason J Eaton, mugshot by Burlington Police Department and is a pubic record.

Haverford College held a vigil on Tuesday in support of a Palestinian student who was shot in what authorities are investigating as a potential hate crime in Vermont on Saturday.About 200 Haverford students, alumni, and staff gathered in Founders Hall around 4:30 p.m. to light candles and offer support for Kinnan Abdalhamid, the West Bank-born biology major and member of the school’s track team, who was one of three victims of Saturday’s shooting.

Abdalhamid remains hospitalized in Burlington along with his two friends, Hisham Awartani and Tahseen Ahmed. The three college students, all 20, were visiting Burlington for the holiday weekend when a man opened fire on them without warning.

Note the publication date of the newspaper’s article: Tuesday, November 28th, at 7:21 PM EST. The reporters let readers know that this is being investigated to see if it was a hate crime, referencing an article published the previous day at 8:58 AM, and updated at 6:56 PM, in which it was reported:

Given the unprovoked nature of the attack and soaring tension around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Murad said it was understandable to suspect hate-based motivations at play in the case, but urged the public to withhold speculation as the investigation continues among local, state, and federal authorities. “We still do not know as much as we want to know.”

Returning to the originally cited article in the Inquirer:

Haverford’s vigil was structured in the Quaker tradition where students held long moments of silence broken only when someone was motivated to speak. One Palestinian student broke down in tears as she addressed the room. As two friends flanked her for support, she said there was no doubt in her mind the shooting was a hate crime.

“Palestinians’ suffering has to be recognized,” she said. “We’re humans.”

Authorities said the men were walking to a relative’s house in Burlington after a family gathering when Jason J. Eaton stepped up onto a nearby porch and, without a word, fired four shots from a Ruger .380 pistol, injuring all three.

While the motive remains unclear, authorities noted the victims were speaking in a mixture of English and Arabic, and two of them were wearing keffiyehs. The U.S. Department of Justice is assisting with an investigation into whether the unprovoked attack was a hate crime. Eaton, 48, was arrested Sunday and pleaded not guilty to three counts of attempted murder on Monday.

OK, fine. But there is absolutely nothing in the Inky’s reporting to tell you that the suspect, Jason Eaton, was off his rocker, suffering from depression, coocoo for Cocoa Puffs, and mostly a political whacko:

Also see: Robert Stacy McCain, Suspect in Shooting of Palestin-ian Students ‘Strug-gled With Depression’

According to NBC, Eaton appears to have a YouTube account that has playlists with videos that include “Expose Fauci,” long COVID, economics, and how to use brain crystals for “psychic powers.” An Instagram account that appears to belong to him also shows him on a farm and cooking.

In an X account that appeared to belong to Eaton, he describes himself as a “radical citizen…patrolling demockracy and crapitalism for oathcreepers.” A 2022 archived version of that same account, which contains the same photo, has a more subdued bio that describes him as a Vermont dad and part-time farmer. The archived X account also provides a link to a Substack, with the “wandering ramblings of a reformed broker on the ADHD/ASD spectrum.” The Substack only has one post, which is an essay on how restaurants can retain dishwashers.

I guess that part wouldn’t fit Teh Narrative, but actual journalists, rather than journolists, would have included it. It should be noted that the published reports about Mr Eaton and his mental health issues are dated on the morning of the 27th, and updated at 7:07 PM the same day, fully a day prior to the Inky’s story.

The mugshot of Mr Eaton? The newspaper doesn’t usually publish them, despite mugshots being easily available from the Philadelphia Police Department, but when it comes to a blue-eyed, blond-haired white guy? While the photo credit notes that it came from the Burlington Police Department, I found it in this article in the Inquirer.

Did the Inquirer actually lie to its readers? Nope, there’s nothing that I spotted which was demonstrably untrue. But the newspaper omitted a lot of facts, enough to be called lies of omission by some, facts which would change the impression that the article was intended to give.

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Run her out of town on a rail! Rather than the $425,000 to which her $75,000 raise boosted her, Leslie Richards needs a $425,000 pay cut, and a SEPTA train ticket out of town.

If you were apprehended after shooting at a crowd of people in a Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority station, would you expect to simply be let go, even if you had missed everyone? I wouldn’t, but, then again, I’m not a 16-year-old girl.

A 16-year-old girl is facing arrest for a SEPTA subway shooting at the 15th and Market station

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office issued a warrant in the Nov. 19 shooting at the 15th and Market Street station.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Monday, November 27, 2023 | 1:00 PM EST

A 16-year-old girl who police say shot at a group of juveniles inside the SEPTA station at 15th and Market Street earlier this month — but struck no one — will be arrested for that crime, authorities said Monday.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said an arrest warrant had been issued for the teen in connection with the Nov. 19 shooting on the station concourse. The girl, whom authorities did not identify because she is a juvenile, is expected to face charges of aggravated assault and firearms violations.

The teen had been detained at the 11th Street station on the day of the shooting because she was wanted on a family court bench warrant for theft, the district attorney’s office said.

She is expected to be arrested for the shooting by the end of the week, authorities said.

The language on this story is unclear, to say no more. Was she already locked up on the bench warrant? Will she be arrested while already behind bars, or is she out on the streets? Normally, one would expect an apprehended shooter to have been arrested on the assault and firearms charges right away. Were the police waiting to see if uber-permissive District Attorney Larry Krasner would want to take any action since the shooter was a 16-year-old girl?

The teen girl opened fire on a group of juveniles who were following her out of the station and up the exit stairs, the district attorney’s office said in a statement. Video obtained by investigators shows the teen shooting from the steps, fleeing, and then throwing a backpack into a trash can in the concourse, the statement said.

A handgun was recovered from the trash can and matched the live rounds and shell casings found at the scene of the shooting, the district attorney’s office said. When the teen was detained on the bench warrant, authorities said, she was wearing clothing that matched what the shooter was seen wearing on surveillance footage.

There’s more at the original, but it’s about SEPTA’s negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Transit Police Lodge 109, who have been working without a contract since March 31st. The union postponed a strike date of November 20th, until a decision on December 13th:

The transit police officers are asking for a pay increase amid a staffing shortage and a rise in antisocial behaviors — like smoking and turnstile jumping — but not violent crimes.

Is shooting up a subway station not a violent crime if the shooter never hit anyone?

But I have to laugh at that last quoted paragraph for other reasons: reporter Rodrigo Torrejón listed “smoking and turnstile jumping” as the antisocial behaviors, but for some reason declined to mention the biggest “antisocial behavior” plaguing not just SEPTA stations but the city itself: drug addicts littering the stations and the tracks with used needles, and junkies passed out on the streets and in the stations and even the train cars.

The (supposed) marathon bargaining session scheduled to begin on October 23rd obviously didn’t solve anything, and SEPTA has only been surviving on federal deficit spending aid due to the COVID-19 panicdemic.[1]No, that’s not a typographical error, but exactly how I see the government response to the virus. Now CEO Leslie Richards, who has presided over worsening service yet got a $75,000 raise earlier in the year, a plethora of bus and trolley accidents, and train stations littered with the homeless and drug needles, with the transit service plagued by delayed service and accidents, with chronic shortfalls in essential staff wants more money from the taxpayers to subsidize SEPTA passengers. Just yesterday, a day in which SEPTA had a whopping forty routes cancelled or delayed due to ‘operator shortages,’ a man on the system stabbed three people at the Walnut Locust station before being shot by a SEPTA police officer.

But, things have improved today: only 21 routes cancelled or delayed due to ‘operator unavailability.’

The Philadelphia Inquirer, not exactly an evil reich-wing site, described the SEPTA trains:

The Market-Frankford Line has its own incense: a combination of cigarette, weed, or K2 smoke. People in the throes of opioid addiction are sometimes frozen in a forward lean in train cars and on platforms. People experiencing homelessness might use a couple of seats or a station to seek rest away from the cold and the heat.

To me, that’s a bit more serious than “smoking and turnstile jumping,” but yeah, I’m an evil reich-wing Republican! I’m the kind of man who would have used the word “junkies” rather than “people in the throes of opioid addiction,” and “vagrants” rather than “people experiencing homelessness.”

Miss Richards will have to somehow hammer out a contract with the SEPTA police officers, and will have to do it in the face of reduced revenues, from a lower number of riders and the loss of Federal dollars as the Covidiocy spending ends.

At a time when the left want to push people out of their cars and onto public transportation, Miss Richards has overseen a real decrease in the quality and service of one of our nations larger public transportation systems. Rather than the $425,000 to which her $75,000 raise boosted her, she needs to get a $425,000 pay cut, and a SEPTA train ticket out of town.

References

References
↑1 No, that’s not a typographical error, but exactly how I see the government response to the virus.
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Even now, Jayana Webb is catching a bit of a break

On March 25, 2022, we reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer tries to ramp up sympathy for the drunk driver who killed three men how our nation’s third oldest continuously published newspaper tried to ‘humanize’ Jayana Webb, to let readers know that it was not just the three men she killed but her own life which was now so negatively impacted.

Miss Webb had been pulled over by State Troopers Brendan Sisca, 29, Martin Mack,33, for doing 110 MPH in a 50 MPH zone of southbound Interstate 95. She got away with that, because the Troopers were suddenly called to a man trying to jump median barriers near Lincoln Financial Field. The Troopers let Miss Webb go, and found Reyes Rivera Oliveras, a 28-year-old electrician, around the median barriers.

Miss Webb, a very fortunate woman for getting away with that speeding and reckless driving stop, then headed south herself, and struck Messrs Siska, Mack, and Oliveras, so hard that she tore the doors off the State Police vehicle, sending the Troopers flying over the median divider, and the three men all to their deaths.

Unfortunately, reckless did not translate into wreckless.

    Webb, who prosecutors said admitted to drinking Hennessy cognac that night, proceeded south on I-95 and crashed into the three men at such a speed that the impact ripped the doors off their stopped state police SUV and sent the troopers flying over a highway divider.

The troopers and Mr Oliveras were in the left hand median; to have struck them, Miss Webb had to have been driving down the “hammer” lane, the left-hand passing lane. She got away with speeding, and she was speeding again.

Webb now faces three counts of third-degree murder and potentially decades in prison. Her friends are reckoning with how a popular and promising young entrepreneur ended up in jail without bail over the deaths of three men.

“(A) popular and promising young entrepreneur”, huh? Here the Inquirer was trying to humanize her, to make her sympathetic character, not a killer, not a murderess, but just some poor thing who happened to make a mistake.

Image of tweet, via Fox29 News. Click to enlarge.

By the time Webb’s mugshot hit national news, she had already shown indications of reckless driving. Tweets from before the crash quickly emerged in which she bragged about drinking and driving. One January post read: “If you ask me, I’m the best drunk driver ever.”

Some in her social circle, meanwhile, were in shock. How could Webb — a track-and-field star with no past DUIs and a hair-braiding business — be responsible for the deaths of three people?

Jayana Webb perp walk, via Fox29 News. Click to enlarge.

Some said Webb deserves what’s coming. Others, sometimes posting under the hashtag “#TeamJay,” said Webb made a terrible error, egged on by a pervasive culture of casual drunk driving.

“What she did was not right,” said a friend, who spoke to the The Inquirer on condition of anonymity due to the high-profile nature of the case. “But at the same time we’re all human and we all make mistakes.”

There’s more at the original, and it’s utterly disgusting. The Inquirer let us know what a wonderful person she really was, someone who just happened to get caught up in a culture of drinking, partying hearty, and driving drunk. Remember: the Inquirer also tried to make a martyr out of 12-year-old Thomas Siderio, Jr, who fired a shot at Philadelphia Police officers, and wrote about the killing of 13-year-old Marcus Stokes as though he was an innocent kid just walking to school, when he was not.

It’s really not her fault, you know, she just made a mistake.

A mistake that left three men, three men with families, three apparently hard-working men, stone cold graveyard dead.

Well, she has now been sentenced.

Pregnant woman faces up to 60 years in prison for DUI crash that killed two state troopers and a civilian

Jayana Webb, 23, will start her prison term of 27.5 to 60 years in prison early next year, after giving birth to her child, her attorney said.

by Rodrigo Torrejón | Wednesday, November 22, 2023 | 2:26 PM EST

A Montgomery County woman will serve between 27.5 and 60 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to driving drunk and fatally striking two Pennsylvania State Troopers and the civilian they were assisting on I-95 last spring.

Jayana Webb, 23, of Eagleville, pleaded guilty to three counts of third degree murder, three counts of homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, and one count of DUI for fatally hitting Troopers Martin Mack III, 33, and Branden T. Sisca, 29, along with Reyes Rivera Oliveras, 28, with her car on I-95 in the early morning hours of March 21, 2022.

As part of the terms of her guilty plea, Webb, who is seven months pregnant, will be allowed to remain out of custody until she gives birth in February, her attorney Michael Walker said. After she gives birth, Webb will be allowed some bonding time with the child before she reports to prison, he said.

This is the part that really pisses me off annoys me. She should go to jail, go directly to jail! She was out on bail, at least long enough to go out and get knocked up, and now, even after her sentencing, gets time before having to report to prison to have the baby, and then additional time to ‘bond with’ the unfortunate child. While the Commonwealth cannot force her to give up her baby for adoption, she should still go to prison immediately, be released to the hospital when she is ready to be delivered of the child, and then go immediately back to jail, to let whomever is going to care for the baby to bond with the child, not with Miss Webb. If she is going to serve a minimum of 27½ years, the child will be well into adulthood when his mother gets out of the slammer.

In a statement, District Attorney Larry Krasner called Wednesday’s guilty plea and sentencing by Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott a “just resolution” to “one of the most shocking incidents of vehicular violence in recent memory.”

A “just resolution”? Will Messrs Siska, Mack, and Oliveras have come back to life in 27½ years? Will they be walking and talking and enjoying life with their families in the sixty years which constitutes her maximum sentence?

The newspaper was still trying to drum up sympathy for Miss Webb. The original title for the story, as I read it in the ‘tab’ in my browser, was “Drunk driver sentenced after killing 3 people in 2022,” but an editor changed it to “Pregnant woman faces up to 60 years in prison for DUI crash that killed two state troopers and a civilian”, just so readers catch that she is pregnant.

The newspaper also reported that Miss Webb’s blood alcohol level was 0.211, when tested sometime after the crash, so it must have been higher than that when the crash occurred. She also tested positive for marijuana use, though that test does not measure active marijuana intoxication at the time taken.

27½ years means that Miss Webb will be somewhere around 50 to 51 years old when her minimum sentence has been served; if she has to do the full 60, she wouldn’t get out until she’s 83 or 84. According to the state Department of Corrections, a prisoner must serve the entire minimum sentence before becoming eligible for parole.

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Being taught about white privilege, by The Philadelphia Inquirer

It has been pointed out countless times on The First Street Journal that The Philadelphia Inquirer only cares about individual homicides when the victim is an ‘innocent,’ a person already of some note, or a cute little white girl.

And so it has been with the killing of Josh Kruger. Continue reading →