Category: Philadelphia

… that eventually, they are going to run out of people in Philadelphia who are worth shooting. 251 and counting.   Meanwhile city council members have the energy to worry about what SEPTA is painting on their buses, and the time to stop off and hurl profanities in my general direction.

Eric takes the Inquirer to task for classifying a felonious violation of numerous state gun laws and laws against murder as a “road rage incident”.  Race is coming into the issue.   This could get ugly.

People might take this as a racially charged remark, but so be it: black males are shooting other black males on a daily friggin basis in the City of Philadelphia, and police are having a hard time getting anyone to come forward to finger who’s doing it, or cooperate in investigations.  A white guy shoots a black guy, and suddenly there’s outrage, and there must be justice.

Sorry, but if Philadelphia communities don’t start treating black-on-black violence in the city with the same energy and vigor as incidents like this, the body count will continue to increment.  Treating murder as a racial issue is the road to hell for the city.  Let’s not go farther down that road than we’re already going.

… to piss off politicians and community leaders who need to learn to mind their own god damned business.

Given all the problems the city has with, you know, murders happening at least once a day, most of the times more, you’d imagine city council didn’t have time to worry about this:

The ads for Colt 45 malt liquor are wrapped over two SEPTA buses, top to bottom. The buses are being deployed each day on different routes so they get to all parts of the city and suburbs.

Fine with me. I don’t drink the swill, but if it helps offset my tax dollars going to fund SEPTA, I’m all for it.

“People have been fighting these take-out beer delis for years now. And now, to reinforce it on a SEPTA route that this is an acceptable product and behavior, I don’t think is appropriate for a government agency to be doing.”

As someone who frequents take out beer delis, Councilman Kenney, you can go to hell. It’s already hard enough to get decent beer in this state. Plus, let me ask the Councilman this: if it was white people who liked to drink Colt 45, would you care? No? I wouldn’t want to accuse you of engaging in masked racism or anything.

Jim Kenney is another boneheaded politician who needs to stop pretending his constituents are children and unable to make their own decisions in life. I think Billy Dee Williams needs to come to Philly and personally kick his ass.

UPDATE: Councilman Kenney, or someone claiming to be him, at least, responds Philly style in the comments: “F*** you.”

UPDATE: It’s him.  The referrer comes from the Vitetta group, who Kenney is associated with, according to this post.  While I’m honored to have The Councilman come visit my blog, you’d think they’d be more concerned about the fact that their city is currently circling the bowl, than with whatever I’m saying :)

Philadelphia politicians are good at at least one thing: pretending to do something while in reality doing nothing. Philadelphia’s media culture, generally content to play along with these games, may be starting to get real:

Of course, no civic effort can work if law enforcement doesn’t do a better job of protecting witnesses who do try to help.

Political leaders have not been passive. City Hall points out that Mayor Street has hired 200 more police officers, opened five curfew centers, and organized mayors in cities throughout Pennsylvania to campaign for more gun controls.

At first. it seems they will fall back to the idea of blaming the cops for not doing their job, while the politicians fiddle, but then they surprise me:

All of that is good and necessary, but Street has failed to effectively use his office as a bully pulpit to rally residents around a public-safety crusade. He and Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson have not been the public leaders this city so badly needs.

Most of the killings fit patterns among victims and perpetrators that show where much more aggressive action can be taken.

Thirty percent of last year’s gun-homicide victims were in the middle of criminal proceedings when they were fatally shot. Many of the victims also have records. They are in identifiable groups of people known to authorities.

More parole and probation officers may be of greater service than more police for monitoring the felons who end up shooting someone or being shot. They can cut parolees’ access to guns.

They are completely correct to question Street and Johnson’s leadership. I’m glad to see them doing this! Where I disagree is that the city needs more probation and parole officers, rather than police officers. No! The city needs more criminals behind bars where they belong. If the justice system does not stop becoming a revolving door, that keeps putting dangerous individuals back on the street, this isn’t going to get better. Police are important, but police can’t do their job in the face of a criminal justice system that treats criminals as victims, to be coddled, rather than as miscreants, to be removed from society.

The Inky released a great article this morning detailing the cities problem with violence:

A new study by Philadelphia criminologists says that an increasing number of people shot in the city have had previous brushes with the law.

Twenty-four percent of shooting victims last year had pending criminal court cases against them at the time they were shot, according to a report by researchers with the Philadelphia Adult Probation and Parole Department. In 2002, 18 percent of shooting victims had “open bills” against them.

So, basically, the people getting shot and doing the shooting probably shouldn’t be on the streets. But the city politicians continue to blame the rest of the state’s gun laws for their problem.

While not wanting to minimize the killings, Kurtz said: “Many of these people were not choirboys on their way to church when they got shot.”

What a shocker.

According to Sherman, as many as three-quarters of the murders in Philadelphia may involve convicted or charged offenders who are under the supervision of the probation department or another supervision agency, such as the court’s pretrial division.

Sherman testified that adult offenders are seven times as likely to commit murder as the average city resident, and four times as likely to get murdered.

We need a 1.6 million dollar computer system to tell us that? For twenty bucks, you probably could have asked any cop, any paramedic, or emergency room responder.

Yep, those are two words.  Philadelphia city officials are moving ahead with their lawsuit against the Commonwealth for failing to let them pass gun laws:

Asked if he was aware of any Pennsylvania case of a similar nature, Bochetto said, “This would be a case of first impression. If you look at the legal definition of a state-created danger, we meet every standard. . . . There is empirical evidence that is unmistakable to demonstrate this.”

Bochetto said the suit also asks the court to reinterpret the state statute that gives the commonwealth control over gun laws to the detriment of local government.

This is a state created danger?   I’m pretty sure this is a criminal created danger.   These people are delusional.  The courts have already upheld preemption in Ortiz v. Commonwealth.  He can ask the Court of Common Pleas to reinterpret all he wants, there’s controlling precedent they are bound by, and the answer will be “no”.   This is just a dog and pony show designed to allow the city politicians to continue to deflect blame for their own failures.

If they were serious about fighting crime in the city, they could start by working to get judges like this off the bench.