We noted, on Thursday evening, that the George Soros-sponsored, police-hating, softer-on-crime-than-Charmin District Attorney, Larry Krasner, wants to get Act 40, establishing a special prosecutor for crimes committed on or near SEPTA property, declared unconstitutional, because, in my opinion, he wants to cripple the law enforcement arm of Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker Mullins’ plan to shut down the infamous open-air drug market and clean up the homeless — read: junkies — encampments on the city’s streets in the Kensington neighborhood.

And here we go!

Two teens charged with shooting 16-year-old at City Hall SEPTA platform

Prosecutors said they intend to charge a 18-year-old and 16-year-old with the shooting.

by Ellie Rushing | Friday, January 12, 2024 | 9:31 AM EST | Updated: 3:44 PM EST

Two teens have been arrested and will be charged with shooting a 16-year-old boy in the head after police said they fired into a crowd of young people waiting for the subway at City Hall’s SEPTA station on Thursday night.

Around 9:25 p.m. Thursday, as a group of teens stood on the westbound platform of the Market-Frankford Line, prosecutors said, 18-year-old Quadir Humphrey, with a 16-year-old, fired multiple times as the train approached. As the crowd fled in a panic, police found the teen lying on the ground, shot in the head.

Actually, that would be 17 years and 363 days old Quadir Humphrey, and those two days before he turned 18 make a real difference.

Officers scooped him into their arms and rushed him to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he remained in critical condition Friday. Police said the young man was from the Northeast, and was carrying his high school identification card.

Prosecutors said transit police were on the platform when the shooting erupted and used surveillance cameras to quickly identify the shooters. Humphrey and the other teen, whom officials have declined to name until he is formally charged, were arrested at the scene. A weapon was recovered. . . . .

The 16-year-old victim did not appear to have been targeted, said Capt. James Kearney, head of the Police Department’s non-fatal shooting unit. He said video shows the shooters standing together, before the 16-year-old pulls out a gun and Humphrey wantonly fires it toward a group of young people. He said the 16-year-old was a bystander with no previous contact with law enforcement, and that he may have been struck by a bullet that ricocheted off the wall behind him.

There’s some unclear writing in that last paragraph, because both the victim and one of the assailants are described as “16-year-old”.

NBC 10 News reported:

Police used surveillance video to hone in on two suspects, Krasner’s office said. “Police recognized the shooter, who attempted to flee, and co-defendant.”

Translation: the shooter was, to use the frequent euphemism, “known to the police.”

SEPTA Transit Police Chief Charles Lawson spoke on camera about the shooter, telling us:

The offender in this case was arrested two years ago for a weapons offense. Didn’t stop him from reoffending. He was arrested again last year for unauthorized use of stolen vehicle. Didn’t stop him from reoffending. Didn’t stop him from continuing to carry a firearm, illegally. It’s frustrating.

Law enforcement has a role in this. To deter crime to the extent that we can. I had three transit police officers on the platform when this occurred. On the platform. Didn’t deter it. And if we can’t deter it, to make an arrest. And we did again, for a third time. Now if we’re assuming that this offender only committed three crimes in his life — and we don’t know that — he was locked up all three times. Something has to give. We’ve got to get our hands around pattern offenders in this city. The issue in this city is not first-time offenders. We’ve got to figure out how to stop reoffending. Law enforcement is doing its job.

In other words, District Attorney Krasner had this fine young gentleman in custody, twice, on June 4, 2021 on a gun charge, and again on March 4, 2023, on a stolen car charge, yet Mr Humphrey was still out on the streets, free as a bird, not quite two weeks into 2024. What, exactly, did Mr Krasner and his office do to Mr Humphrey?

Of course, Mr Humphrey was a juvenile at those times, so his record will have been sealed.

Now Mr Krasner and his office are going to charge Mr Humphrey with,

• Title 18 § 2702(a)(1): Aggravated Assault, a First-degree Felony
• Title 18 § 903: Conspiracy
• Title 18 § 6106(a)(1): Carrying a Firearm without a license, a third-degree Felony
• Title 18 § 6108: Carrying Firearm in Public in Philadelphia
• Title 18 § 6110.1: Possession of a Firearm by a Minor
• Title 18 § 907: Possession of an Instrument of a Crime with Intent, a First-degree Misdemeanor
• Title 18 § 2701(a)(1): Simple Assault, a Second-degree Misdemeanor
• Title 18 § 2705: Recklessly Endangering another Person, a Second-degree Misdemeanor
• Title 18 § 5104.2: Evading Arrest or Detention on Foot, a Second-dgree Felony

However, if the reports I’ve seen on Twitter are correct, the victim has a “non-survivable brain injury” and is “now brain dead,” so the charges will surely be upgraded to murder.

As soft-hearted — and soft-headed — as Mr Krasner is when it comes to criminals, I believe it’s reasonable to ask: did the District Attorney and his minions do Mr Humphrey any favors? He was caught with a gun as a minor as well as being charged with ‘theft by unlawful taking’, just 15 years old, but that case is still, according to the newspaper, still “pending in juvenile court”. At age 17, he was caught with a stolen car, and charged with theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and unauthorized use of a car; that case is also pending. Then, ten months after that, he was on the streets again, and for whatever stupid reasons he had, he started shooting into a crowd.

What’s going on that 2½ years after he was caught with a gun as a 15-year-old, his case hasn’t been adjudicated? How is it that a 17-year-old caught with a stolen car and a pending gun case from 21 months earlier wasn’t locked up?

What if he’d gotten just a year in juvie for the stolen car, just a year? If he’d gotten a year, then on the evening of January 11^th he’d have been safely locked up, looking forward to getting out. His current attorney is listed as the Defender Association of Philadelphia, the organization which represents indigent defendants in the City of Brotherly Love, but I do not know if the Defenders Association represented him for his juvenile offenses. But, however things have worked out between the District Attorney’s Office and his defense attorneys, none of them really did Mr Humphrey any favors.

Now? He’s looking at spending decades in prison.

Because he (allegedly) committed his stupidity while he was still 17 — his 18^th birthday is Saturday — neither a death sentence nor life without the possibility of parole are sentences he can receive if convicted, but, if the victim dies, he’s looking a life sentence — with, sadly, the possibility of parole — dead in the eye.
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