Happy Turkey friday...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/nyregion/23murder.html

NYC is on track to have fewer than 500 murders this year, and fewer than 100 by people who don't know each other.

NYC has 8 million people.

There is no such thing as unmanageable, there is only failure to manage.

I hope Mr. Nutter gives Rudy and Mike a call!!

Happy Turkey friday...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/23/nyregion/23murder.html

NYC is on track to have fewer than 500 murders this year, and fewer than 100 by people who don't know each other.

NYC has 8 million people.

There is no such thing as unmanageable, there is only failure to manage.

I hope Mr. Nutter gives Rudy and Mike a call!!

"NYC murders at a 40 year low" -- see BBC article here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7109893.stm

What caused the high murder rate previously, in a nutshell?

"The soaring murder rate of the late 1980s and early 1990s was largely a result of turf wars between gangs running the crack cocaine trade."

Take home message:

"The turnaround in violence from the early 1990s was attributed to the city's zero tolerance policy, which saw police crack down on minor offenses and drug dealing."

It's not celebrity marches, BBQs, guys walking around with pan-African themed shields as symbols on baseball caps, or one set of people claiming they need to "do it on their own." It's simple police work, and a city that won't tolerate 10,000 outstanding warrants at a time because they only have 9,000 county prison slots and those are all full.

What if the issue is not guns but family stability created by marriage?

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/columnists/20071123_Michael_Smerconish___WHAT_IF_ITS_MARRIAGE__NOT_GUNS_.html

I don't think Philly is doing enough to promote marriage, even if it's just an advertising campaign about the statistics showing that children raised in married families do better in life as a general rule.

What is a convicted murderer doing out on parole? He went right to another vulnerable victim whose life he took, while nearly killing her teenage son. This after she took him in but wouldn't give an able bodied man any money.

Life in prison without parole would have been a more appropriate sentence in this case.

PS: the guy is on the lam and presumed to still be in Philly. Why haven't I seen a single photo of him in the Ink or DN? I know you guys are run ragged, but this one is going to do what he does best -- kill again.

"Murder suspect sought -- According to police, an argument over money prompted the deadly stabbing of a woman, while her teenage son was sliced across the chest."

By Lorraine Gennaro South Philly Review
November 22, 2007

"A convicted felon on parole allegedly stabbed his girlfriend to death and cut her teenage son inside the home the three shared on the 2000 block of Mercy Street, police said.

Jerome Finch, 44, was on parole after serving almost 20 years for a March 15, 1988, homicide in the 17th District, according to court records.

The victim in Saturday’s attack, Deidra Burkett, 42, was stabbed several times in the chest and pronounced dead by a medic at the scene at 11:25 p.m., about 10 minutes after police arrived at the home.

“The motive was money,” Homicide Sgt. Bill Gallagher told the Review, adding Finch had asked Burkett for cash — for what and how much, police don’t know — and then slayed her in an ensuing argument. Investigators did not recover the blade.

The victim’s 15-year-old son was slashed across the chest when he tried to intervene; he was treated and released from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Monday, the sergeant believed Finch was probably still in South Philly. In addition to murder and related offenses for Burkett’s death, an attempted murder charge and related offenses will be tacked on for the son, Gallagher said.

To report information, call the Homicide Division at 215-686-3334/5."

Compare the early release of Finch to the outcome below:

Posted: Monday, 26 November 2007 2:40PM

"Federal Law May Put Phila. Robber in Prison for Life"

by KYW's Kim Glovas

"A career criminal who attempted to shoot four police officers at close range during a store robbery in West Philadelphia last year is now facing life in prison.

Greg Robinson was arrested in April 2006 after trying to rob the Wishing Well Market at gunpoint. During the robbery, four officers entered the building and Robinson shot at them, but no one was hit.

US attorney Pat Meehan:

"This is important for all Philadelphians, particularly those on the street wearing a badge, to let them know that we have their backs. And to those who would commit a crime like that, we're going to work with our local partners to bring the stiff federal penalties and assure that anybody who even thinks about pointing a gun at a police officer will be looking for as much time and potentially face the rest of their lives in jail."

Robinson was classified as an armed career criminal under federal law because of a lifetime of violent crime, including an unrelated third-degree murder charge."

This is not just important for those wearing a badge, it's important for all of us. Career criminals need to be in jail for life.

If the still on the loose murderer had been kept in prison, there would be a mom still alive, and a son who has a mom and not a slice across his chest where his mother's killer left a reminder.

All of us have to demand that the rights of law abiding people to live means that murderers and career criminals are kept out of society.

I think Philly was more peaceful than the DC area, both city and metro. DC had numerous shootings, drug murders, and a horrible national news making domestic whole family homicide/suicide of five people.

So good job Philly for calming down for turkey day.

Rarely do I agree with Elmer Smith, but in today's piece (11-27-07), Smith is dead on.

So what if the career juvey criminal is lilly white and a tall blonde? Judge Satterthwaite erred entirely when he just have this kid probation one more time after several.

Ditto for the perve Strawbridge, who needs to be in prison. Just like a drug user, we have to attack the problem at both the supply and the demand.

Who cares of Strawbridge might have to "adjust" to the realities of prison?

Far from being the dens of iniquity that journalists and even judges think they are, PA state prisons are clean, orderly, and not places were sexual abuse and rape occur often. If such a crime is committed in prison, it is prosecuted fully. Apparently, an in prison crime is treated MORE seriously than one on the outside.

Inmates know that this adds hard time, so they tend to be the best behaved of anytime in their lives.

The take home message is that for the first time, inmates have prompt, full consequences for their actions.

Anyone who doesn't get that this is needed for toddlers just like an inmate (toddlers get time out or the naughty chair, inmates get a more restrictive berth) is creating criminals.

That means Andy and Tammy Reid, soft judges who change the rules arbitrarily, John Street and his triflin' relatives, Sylvester Johnson and his anti-cop rappin' spoiled son, as well as, sadly, Ellen Robb, who didn't throw the book at her husband for his first offense against her, before he got the impression that he could beat her face in.

Consequences, even if hard, have to be by the book. Elmer is right that changing the rules on the wing tends to allow bias in the sentencing.

That's why I prefer mandatory minimums. Sure the jails get full, but if you are white, you get the mand min like anyone of a darker appearance.

Mand mins affect crime rates downward because the actual repeat criminals get put away for real time.

Yes, it's sad when Mrs. Perzel cries. Yes it's hard when a talented economist goes away for 20 years. Yes it's awful when your two heroin addicted babies get to detox on the inside for real, have to go to NA or AA, and have to work a program or get privileges taken away.

The criminal of any race has to be made to realize what a privilege his freedom was, and what a privilege is good food, fresh air, your own clothes. Sleeping in. Working at minimum wage, instead of the inmate rate. Simple religious ideas. Family. Community.

Taking that chip off the shoulder makes them, finally, into human beings.

Human beings who can respect others sometimes only learn that lesson inside the brick walls. The sooner, the better.

No one helps any criminal, no matter if rich, poor, white, black, no one, if they let them off the hook.

Everytime probation is used in lieu of jail time where a crime really was committed, often several times over, you send the worst possible message to the criminal -- it's really just OK, daddy can always get you out of it and you can get lots of his attention, laws don't matter.

Our judges are not helping these families by being soft.

People on the inside are on their best behavior (after quarantine, intake, and detox).

You think they are fine, the social workers recommend release, and bang, here's what happens:

"Naked swimmer drowns in Brandywine R., ran naked on Interstate 95"

The Associated Press

"WILMINGTON, Del. - Wilmington police say a man who was arrested for running naked on Interstate 95 last week plunged naked into the Brandywine River Monday and drowned.

Master Sgt. Steven Barnes says the body of 26-year-old Ardonas Gilbert was found Monday afternoon. Police received reports of a suspicious man and an officer saw the Chester, Pa., man before he went under the water.

Authorities found his body after a two-hour search in dense fog under a train trestle. Police haven't found his clothes or determined how he died.

Police say Gilbert was released from the Young Prison hours before he drowned , a week after Delaware State Police arrested him.

Police say Gilbert caused three accidents on I-95 just north of Wilmington about 10 p.m. Monday and assaulted two citizens who tried to help him."

The moral of the story is: judges need to be putting people in for the time the law indicates. Respect that lawyers and great minds worked hard to get the laws as they are, so one judge giving probation instead of time, or shaving time off for no real reason except pity for family or an idea that the person can't take prison subverts the law.

If you show a criminal that it is OK to subvert the law due to your independent judgment, what do you think he is going to turn around and do?

Yes, be his own judge. Subvert the law. Use his own independent reasoning to say, yeah, I need to smoke crack, go crazy, drink, strip naked, and go for a swim.

Thanks to Jill Porter for taking on Sylvester Johnson's contradictory statements about stop and frisk.

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/local/20071128_Jill_Porter___Stop_frisk_critique__Top_cop_cheap_shot_.html

Johnson is "against" stop and frisk, even though numerous officers, including one who testified before city council states that this is standard procedure.

Now Johnson has "back pedaled" after the election, saying he's against "illegal" stop and frisk, as though implying that Nutter's proposal is illegal.

This is the kind of politicking that discredits the police commissioner of a large US city. Johnson is clearly trying to spin the issue.

It's obvious that stop and frisk has a role in police work, and a key point in legal challenges to it underscored that the reasonable cause includes odd behavior out of keeping with the weather -- heavy coats in 90 degree heat, for example, or the context of the stop -- ie a known drug area.

It seems to me that Johnson is afraid to stop and frisk in known drug areas, also the areas of highest drug violence. His own Nation of Islam sponsored 10,000 man (cut off a few zeros) walk around Morris and 26th avoided the well known "Box" of drug activity shown obviously by Comp Stat or even by the 2007 murder map of South Philly.

Why?

If I was a member of a political-quasi religious indigenous movement with a history of high involvement in black organized crime, I would need a front group of legits to tout action. That way business can continue as usual.

That really is the only explanation as to Johnson's oppositional defiant disorder. He's not stupid. He's not mental. I'm forced to accept that he's part of a movement of extremists who are protecting their political core. Some members of that generous political members of Philly identity politics are now doing time for extorting drug dealers in the name of black betterment to give to John Street's top secretary for life, Connie Little.

The FBI stated when Ali was mentioned on the tapes of drug dealers and Connie Little was mentioned as a recipient of a quick five thousand dollars, the FBI agents "thought they had a top drug dealer."

The press can't keep overlooking the transcripts of real investigations that landed people in jail, and the odd membership of these members with local questionable pols and police heads who are seemingly unable to address crime in a standard way. Johnson's job is not as chief social worker.

It's Chief of Police, the enormously effective, when properly deployed, PPD.

The most troubling account of the most likely explanation for Johnson's peanut butter hand syndrome is his membership in the political organization of the Philly NOI, recently chastised by Chicago leadership.

A devastating, fascinating account of Philly politics, the NOI, and black organized crime can be found in Sean Patrick Griffin's "Black Brothers, Inc.: The Violent Rise and Fall of Philadelphia's Black Mafia."

Members of black organized crime, I submit, just regrouped for the next inevitable chapter of what will have to be Griffin's multi-volume encyclopedia.

Street is still at it -- he wants us to ignore the need for prison space and "use the money for mental health services." He posits that Nutter will have to cut social and mental health services to pay for more cops and the corresponding increase in the need for prison space.

Not so. A false assumption, Mr. Street. Nutter only has to collect the long overdue property taxes of some $500 million or more to pay for new prison construction, and high quality mental health programming for inmates and the general population.

Why this eludes Street is a mystery. He only just announced that he plans to upgrade collections of overdue taxes by sending the debt to foreclosure to get about $250 million, half of which goes to schools.

The neighborhoods that owe the most, or have the most owners who owe big back taxes, are the very neighborhoods that need the money the most:

http://www.hallwatch.org/proptax/about/redelinq/stats/delinqbyzip/index_html?skey=pcent&rkey=pcent

I really wonder why the neighborhoods that have the largest open air drug markets, the most drug murders (yes, Sylvester, they are "not getting along" and "lack civility" John Street) are the neighborhoods with the most owners who are not paying property taxes.

Why does the city tolerate this? It's well known that if you turn houses over at auction or sheriff sale, it create new housing momentum, and a new property tax base.

So why try to create real estate market stasis in the worst neighborhoods in Philly?

It seems like the Street administration has orchestrated that the neighborhoods stay as receptive to the drug trade as possible.

I hope Nutter won't fall for the tactics of compromised pols who want to not collect property taxes needed for schools, police, prisons, and social services programming just to keep certain zip codes in double digit percentage of scofflaw nonpayment of property taxes.

I'm still confused as to why Street feels that certain zip codes should not have to have owners that pay on time and in full their fair share.

I'd be very interested to know the real answer, since these neighborhoods have the worst schools, the highest crime, the most murders, and the largest open air drug trade on the east coast.

Is it because when outsiders buy those houses and move in, they shut down the drug trade around their most important investment?

Yo David, what have they done with you? Glad to see that they have finally put your blog back up on the page. Even Osama Bin-Laden issues a video on occasion, what's up with your disappearance?
We miss ya!

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