Street and Johnson miss the whole point of how and why a Bohannon is running around the city shooting kids in the neck. 10,000 men can't prevent it, unless they are 10,000 cops.

In "Volunteers for patrols stepping up," Dave Davies writes that 1,000 men have "stepped up" to organize 9,000 more men in two weeks to patrol neighborhoods. OK, unlikely, but OK. These are neighborhoods that Street says "they can just be a presence in a neighborhood that needs to see men."

But there are plenty of men in these areas with high crime. Most are law abiding hard working, but ya know, it only takes a handful of sociopaths to wreck things. This is where Street's and Johnson's emphasis on opening up the prisons and reducing those numbers because they are so high nationally makes no sense. Here in Philly, the numbers of people who need to be in prison are obviously too low.

But Street, Johnson, and Gamble all belong to an extreme school of thought. In fact:

1. All the men in these neighborhoods are NOT in prison.

2. Criminals are small majority in the worst neighborhoods, but a higher percentage than in better neighborhoods. Philly just lets suspects out to wait for trials that they never show up for. This sounds like Bohannon's story. He was waiting to go to trial after he even already had a long rap sheet. But the city won't collect property taxes or even them up across town to pay for putting these guys in the pokey while they wait for trial. Under the pretense of "housing" the "poor" the city is letting people get killed off.

3. The crime response can't be based on magical thinking. "I'm not talking about just getting 9,999," Street said "There is something to the number of 10,000." Street is starting to sound more and more like Louis Farrakhan, who has a numerological focus in his foamy speeches such as the one he gave at the Million Man March where he rambled about Egyptians, numbers, the magical order of the universe, and got a little crazy on stage.

4. The "Uhuru" response to crime isn't evidence based. The response to crime doesn't have to be based on entirely one race. "Johnson and record-industry mogul Kenny Gamble, a key organizer of the effort, said the focus is on the black community because that's where the city's violent crime is concentrated -- 'This isn't happening in the Irish community. It's not happening in the Italian community, and it's not happening in Chinatown,'Gamble said. What are aspects of safer communities are contributing to safety? More men in the street?

Or is it because Philly's communities are not all one race or income as much as before? Diverse, genuinely diverse communities enrich each other. Where there is all one low income group, whatever the race, crime is concentrated. We have to allow the private market to build there.

5. The campaign is part of the Million Men More Movement, an offshoot of the original Million Man March where I saw Farrakhan speak as though he has just smoked crack cocaine. Any quasi-religious/political organization isn't using crime fighting as their primary goal. Any response that isn't primarily formed as a response to crime is doomed to fail in its response to crime. It's definitional. What's the real point of this?

6. Kenny Gamble needs to clean up his own house. Universal owns tons of vacant lots and shell properties, as does Gamble's wife's business, Salaam Enterprises. Far from creating safe communities, this vacant stuff is where the dealers hang and sell. Should the RDA take this property back for violating the redevelopment agreement of building within a certain time, retroactively? That would drive crime almost entirely out of Hawthorne and Point Breeze.

7. Gamble's little ventures also pay much less in property taxes, if they pay them at all, to cover schools and services such as police, parole/probation officers, reducing wait time to get to court, etc. Sorry Gamble, pay your fair share according to the BRT, not me.

Reassess them to the market values that the surrounding properties are assessed at. The city needs THAT more.

This is the reason for this great show of concern over crime. It's to appear to do something so as to be able to ask the city to not tax failed affordable housing builders who are friends of the outgoing mayor as much as other owners. This would be mistake which would cement a crime status quo.

The marketplace will clean up crime tremendously, and raise the boats of everyone. But the afro-socialism of the Street era where the city gives property to pals who are generous is a huge part of why crime stays in place. Blight attracts crime. Far from being the go-to guy on blight, Street just gave RDA property to people who sometimes built, and sometimes didn't. There was no follow up.

Bohannon couldn't hide if he lived in a neighborhood where the middle class newcomers were interspersed with the old timers making their way.

We have to rethink the assumptions of the Street administration about housing and poverty to address crime at the root.

Why not use the uncollected property taxes (ranging in estimates from $500 million per Hallwatch.org to $700 million per Mark McDonald) and use this to pay for an appropriate response to crime?

That response would include funding the police to the level they were funded by the temporary COPS grants from the federal government.

Now we are lobbying to get that federal money back again, some %56 million. But we actually could simply step up to the plate ourselves.

Great comments here, gang.

fuck you ali...do you deserve to be shot for being a dipshit. You scare me, and you scare everyone else....good luck with that

whoops I thought I saw someone thinking that shooting someone was a good idea.....take all the damn guns away from everyone. Nobody wanted this guy,they found him in georgia with crack in his pocket taking a piss behind a gas station. And now the kkk is latching on to this story. racism makes me sick.
Fact you'all are freaking corrupt and on the take, city hall, the "landlords", Kenny Gamble and his ilke. I've seen it from the inside and out and you do this to our citizens, criminal and victim alike.

matter of fact take racism out of it its classism. all you'all better start drinking alot because your mind must be full of bad feelings. cheating the poor out of opportunities. filling your pockets, and laughing all the way to the bank. I want a patriot act x1000 to keep your crooked asses in jail so young men stop shooting each other. I want a patriot act that puts w in jail forever for crimes against humanity. We got the highest murder rate because of the landowners and what they do to there naighborhoods. And because nobody is gonna give a young man a job when he messed up once or twice. you are all going to rot in hell and the pope is not going to save you. Nor your sunday prayers. or your deathbed prayers. and I don't even believe in your god, because your god obsolves you of your stupidity. go move down to florida and root for tampa bay jeb will take you. crooked ass white coller criminals with your sqeaky clean books and your loopholes. how do you sleep at night knowing your empires are built with the blood spewing from young mens wounds.

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