The clarion call has been sounded, both by the politicians in Philadelphia, and by the Philadelphia media, that the only way we’re going to prevent cop killings on our streets is to pass more gun laws. The Philadelphia media has spent precious few resources concentrating on the three pieces of human debris that were responsible for the shooting death of Sergeant Liczbinski. I have managed to obtain complete criminal records for all three of the murderers.
Howard Cain was the trigger man in the Liczbinski murder. You can see his fifteen page criminal record here. Let’s look at all the violations of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act that Cain has been arrested for. Keep in mind we’re only looking at gun charges, since that is what this blog concentrates on. Over Cain’s criminal career he had thirteen arrests for unlawfully carrying a firearm, that were listed “Nolle Prossed,” meaning the prosecutor chose not to bring charges. In a further eleven arrests for violations of Pennsylvania’s firearms laws, the charges were either withdrawn or dismissed. In only three cases was he prosecuted and either plead guilty or was found guilty. On weapons charges alone, he could have done 12 years in prison, in which case he would not have been on the streets to kill a police officer.
You can find Levon Warner’s criminal record here. His is only six pages. We are happy to see Warner facing three charges for being a felon in possession of a firearm, and for unlawfully carrying firearms, in his latest arrest for conspiring to murder a police officer, and we do hope Ms. Abraham’s office will make them stick this time. Previously, the Philadelphia DA’s office thrice declined to prosecute Warner for gun law violations. The Philadelphia judicial system chose not to try him for six other violations of Pennsylvania’s gun laws.
And last, but certainly not least, Eric Floyd. Again, hopefully this time, he’ll actually face weapons charges, in addition to the murder charges. But again, in 1994, he was arrested for robbery, and the prosecutors declined to prosecute him for carrying firearms illegally in two counts. Also in 1994, the courts declined to try him for two counts of carrying firearms illegally.
Now keep in mind, I’m only looking at weapons charges. The rap sheets of these scumbags total twenty six pages, and contains all manner of things that should have kept them off the streets for good. I think it’s time we had a serious discussion here in Pennsylvania about how absolutely and utterly broken the City of Philadelphia’s criminal justice system is, and talk frankly about things we can do to fix it. Gun control obviously is not a solution, since the system is currently not using the laws already in the books in prosecutions. The Philadelphia media must not continue to give the politicians a free pass on deflecting blame onto others, and shame on them that it takes bloggers to bring the criminals records of these scumbags into the public light. The citizens of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania deserve better, and they aren’t getting it from either their political leaders, or from the media.
Not possible. With all the laws regarding illegal firearms possession none of these 3 shitbags could possibly have had a weapon to use while committing a crime. It must be the fault of the tool. Or the “Tools”, Nutter, et al, in charge there.
It really is The Criminal Justice System in Philly as long as you don’t shoot a cop.
BTW, let me be the first to call you a racist for pointing this out. You know it’ll happen, so I want to be out front on this.
It is abundantly clear that failures in the justice system are resoundingly germane to this issue, while the failures and successes of gun control are merely a petty distraction.
Yet it is also clear that the media, as well as the Philly and PA governments, will not willingly discuss the failures of the justice system. In fact, they will do everything in their power to divert attention away from the real issues here. Unfortunately, that comes at our expense. It’s clear that criminal control is somewhat costly politically (to Nutter, Rendell, etc.). We just have to make gun control even MORE costly politically than criminal control. That might be the only way to win the upper hand in these issues.
Thus it’s up to you, Sebastian, and up to other gun rights activists, to bring these issues to the public’s attention. Education is key.
Good job on that. Get this story out there, far and wide, however you can.
great job at compiling this, sebastian!
Dear God. That’s worse than shameful. Does anybody down there get prosecuted for anything?
What would be the most productive approach to reforming the justice system in Philadelphia?
Is it even possible to hold the justice system liable for malpractice? In a nut shell, holding responsible whomever let Michael Cain walk out of jail?
It would appear if you commit armed robbery, they’ll prosecute you. They just won’t put you away for very long.
Sebastian… I am sure this is like beating a dead horse, but please send your posting to the Phiily Inquirer & Reading Eagle Ed. Dept!
I was thinking the same thing Carl did: When a criminal that is arrested for illegally possessing a firearm is allowed to walk on that charge, and later commits a violent crime *with an illegally possessed firearm,* is there ANY liability for the parties that elected not to press charges when they had the chance? Could the family of the slain, say, sue?
Cheers on the article and research; I hope many, many more people see this.
Same thing out here (Oakland,CA) Goons who should be in jail for firearms and other crimes; instead left on the street till they kill someone. Of course this is followed by more calls for gun control. If one were a cynic, one might think this isn’t and accident.
I emailed the news departments at Philadelphia TV channel 29, the Reading Eagle, Channel 10 and CNN with the information on the shooters criminal backgrounds etc, and the fact that NO local media evenmentioned any of this.
After 2 days, I have yet to get ANY response from anyone except the paper that published the article in the first place.
I’m not really surprised
mark
Well done dude. I have made it my “Post of the week” and cross posted you and linked you up as well. Great Job.
No, it is no coincidence such criminals walk Chicago & Philadephia streets. It’s called professional courtesy.
You have to understand that the Philadelphia media – and the mayor’s office and police commissioner – were more concerned about the beating some cops gave to some murder suspects.
Free muma
Room 237, If you are going to pine for the freedom of a convicted murderer, at least spell his name right.
To be clear, this is the same Philadelphia where the legal system is broken and the culture is dysfunctional? This is the same Philadelphia whose highest priority now is not to save an entire generation, but rather to HURT the Boy Scouts? Just in order to advance the gay agenda?
Neither the Philly media, Police Dept, or the Mayor are ignorant of the records and criminal histories of the folks who murdered the policeman. They are all experienced, seasoned professionals. They know the full story.
They just have an agenda.
Robert A:
Well, after all, Philly is the City of Brotherly LOVE.
The problem is the PROSECUTORS.
They have the tools and the power but they are too LAZY to use them. Oh my God, a defendant might plead “not guilty” and then we’d have to go to trial. A jury trial! Against a competent defense lawyer. Oh my God!
Plea bargain, bargain, bargain. Give ‘im a good deal. Avoid motions, avoid preparation, avoid trial. AVOID WORK.
Put ’em back on the street in a year. Who cares. I’ll be outta this job with a 100% record of “convictions.”
Plea bargain, bargain, bargain.
Lazy SOB’s have the power but won’t use it.
Nice work Sebastian – for a glimpse of the future should certain a political party come into further control and as Sprocket pointed out, many of our Democrat-controlled cities in Democrat-gerrymandered California operate in the same way.
To me room 237‘s post was flat-out LOL satire.
Intentional or unintentional, I could not say, as I don’t know “room 237”.
I’m not up on recent history, but I recall Abrahams complaining/passing the buck to the judges in Philadelphia often being reluctant to be tough against criminals. She famously opposed one Clinton appointment for the judge being soft on criminals.
Whether that’s a fair assessment or not I’m too ignorant to know.
A Philadelphian.
Philly is too busy with other priorities. I haven’t lived within the City limits since 1992, and I got sued last year for 30,000 because I supposedly owed them 400 bucks in taxes for 1993. I settled for 500 bucks because that is what it would have cost me to fly home. They hassled me like you would not believe.
The gun-grabbers will never get it. Danny Faulkner’s widow will be outraged when she reads this.
C’mon, you have to admit “Close the 20+ arrests for firearms violations loophole” just doesn’t have the same pizazz as “Close the gunshow loophole”.
“I think it’s time we had a serious discussion here in Pennsylvania…” Hahaha! Stop, you’re killing me!
Criminal Negligence.
I guess the trick is to get the city investigated by Federal Authorities. I would also think that this is good election year ammunition to use against someone.
Letting these guys go free all the time does benefit Democrats. These guys keep up the crime rate, which keeps people poorer, which makes the handouts that Democrats promise sound all the more attractive. It also enlists more into the world of crime which infects more families who then have a family member or members who might get put away if the Republicans ever come to power. You see, the Republicans aren’t promising to put criminals in jail, instead they are promising to jail dads, brothers, sons….
Great compilation, Sebastian. Of course it unnerves me to no end that the authorities continue to play these games, and the legacy media (“useful idiots” that they are) continue to stick their head in the sand. Of course, as some have stated earlier, if crime dropped then the cops would have a need to request all the neat new toys they are getting from the feds and elsewhere.
As sensible as even the NICS/Brady background check SOUNDS to even RKBA supporters it is demonstrably worthless but due to failure to show an essential need and prove its efficacy but more simply because it is NOT ENFORCED on CRIMINALS:
Less than 100 criminals are prosecuted each year for Brady/NICS violations — and the vast majority of these are because the authorities needed to arrest or prosecute a criminal but can’t make the real charge stick, or needs a “predicate felony” for a conspiracy or RICO charge.
Review of the ATF’s Enforcement of Brady Act Violations Identified through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) Draft Report: Review of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Enforcement of Brady Act Violations Identified through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. A-2004-001
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/ATF/e0406/final.pdf
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It’s really impossible to justify ANY “gun control” of the arms allowed to the individual infantryman or to our (para-military) police forces since none of the CDC, the National Academy of Sciences of Sciences, nor DoJ
were able to find that ANY gun control reduces VIOLENT CRIME,
SUICIDE or ACCIDENTS in any significant manner.
None. Not one.
Gun control has not been — and likely cannot be — shown to work.
What do you expect from “Little Africa”? The only difference is that Philly has a lot of buildings instead of trees and people who live on welfare instead of farms.
[ Because racism is so beneficial to the pro-gun cause! – Seb ]
William:
Can you please help keep this civil and objective? Many African nations have violent crime rates far lower than Philly, so your “Little Africa” comment really smacks of subjectivity, at very best.
So….who besides Fred Fry has a suggestion for what can be done to solve this problem? So much bitching and moaning won’t change a damned thing…
Mark, thanks for emailing the media. They didn’t respond? Email them again, and again. Then call. Then show up in person.
Sabastian
Glad to see there’s someone else who cares about Philly. I’ve been working in the area for 11 years and things seem to have been going downhill since Street took office and Timoney left. I’m sure that’s just my perception but I calls ’em like I sees ’em.
The Philly media is a joke. The only thing I read the papers for is the Eagles coverage; I gave up on the local news after they started naming winter storms.
Congrats on the Instalanche; I’ll add you to my regular reading “list”.
Regards,
Scott Kirwin
Delaware
http://www.therazor.org
Being that I live on the other side of the country I must say that I had not heard of this murder of a police officer. But this has to be the clearest case I’ve seen that liberal politicians believe the public is stupid, and that gun laws only affect the law-abiding citizen, not the punk-ass criminals that don’t follow the law in the first place.