for BigTrial.net
As the city surpassed the grim milestone of more than 400 murders, Mayor Jim Kenney was dour, petulant and on the defensive.
At a virtual press conference, Kenney served up plenty of excuses as to why his administration remains clueless about how to stop the bloodshed.
Meanwhile, Danielle Outlaw, Kenney's handpicked police commissioner, tried to put an optimistic spin on the record body count, but her top brass wasn't buying it, and neither should you.
At the virtual press conference, Outlaw also publicly lamented the "different priorities" of her "partner in law enforcement," D.A. Larry Krasner, like he was an unfaithful boyfriend.
And where was Krasner? The man most responsible for the carnage in Philadelphia was out holding his own press conference, and dispensing his own brand of Kool-Aid. According to Krasner, "We do not have a spike in violent crime." The D.A. would also have you believe that he's tirelessly working behind the scenes with his own partners in law enforcement to stop the violence. But the facts show that what Krasner's really up to is going soft on career criminals.
As the city remains in crisis, the dysfunction of its leadership was on full display last week. And so was the timidity of the local media. As the bodies piled up, the city's reporters repeatedly failed to do their job by holding Kenney, Outlaw and Krasner accountable for the bloodshed.
As far as Kenney was concerned, surpassing 400 murders was a "tragic milestone" that left him "heartbroken"and "outraged." Hizzoner even confessed that the night the city hit 400, it cost him a good night's sleep.
"We're taking this crisis very seriously," the mayor assured reporters at the virtual press conference convened last Thursday. "We're acting with urgency to reduce violence through many means."
"We're taking this crisis very seriously," the mayor assured reporters at the virtual press conference convened last Thursday. "We're acting with urgency to reduce violence through many means."
Next, the mayor had one of his aides talk about pork barrel legislation. The city is passing out grants starting at $10,000 and going all the way to up to $1 million, to create more social programs that hopefully will function as "interrupters to the cycle of violence," whatever that means.
While the aide was talking, the city displayed pictures of kids planting flowers, as if that was going to stop anybody from pulling the trigger.
Kenney blamed the murder rate on the easy availability of guns, and he pointed the finger of blame at gun manufacturers and dealers.
"It's frustrating, it's disgusting that some people are making a lot of money off this carnage," he said.
When a reporter asked Kenney what he would say to the grieving grandmother of a 24-year old murder victim who was the mother of two young children, Kenney snapped, "That question is insensitive because I care about all of these [victims]. They are all human beings and one [murder] is too many."
Kenney cut off another questioner who tried to ask in a polite way whether Kenney and Outlaw were the right people to turn this situation around.
The glaringly self-evident answer was no, but the mayor chose to change the subject. He just got through watching CNN, he told the reporter. And "Homicides are up nationally 33% so this is not just a Philadelphia-only problem."
Nice dodge, Mr. Mayor.
A retired senior police commander with decades of experience who watched the Kenney & Outlaw show gave it a bad review.
"All you hear is one excuse after another," said the retired commander who sought anonymity. "You see his [Kenney's] smirk and see how defensive he gets whenever there's a question asked about him not being responsible. Everything gets deflected."
The commander recalled that both former Mayor Michael Nutter and former Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey had a publicly stated goal, often repeated at press conferences, of keeping the murder rate under 200 bodies.
With Kenney and Outlaw in charge, we'll soon be topping 500.
"Kenney's a complete failure," the retired police commander said. "Here is an individual who will not take responsibility or ownership of the problem. The availability of guns is a false narrative. Someone's pulling the trigger. There's pure evil out there."
The retired police commander said he had nothing but admiration for the "men and women of the PPD who continue to do their dangerous jobs" in the face of constant criticism, vilification from the public and second-guessing and outright back-stabbing by the deadly trio of Kenney, Krasner and Outlaw.
But then she tried to put a Pollyanna-ish spin on the situation, by talking about the "steady decrease in the number of shootings, both fatal and nonfatal shootings in the past several months."
Really, Commish?
The city's murder rate currently stands at 420, an 18% increase over last year. At this rate, the city will set an all-time record of 588 murders. The old record, set back in 1990, at the height of the crack cocaine epidemic, was 500.
When Kenney and Outlaw gave their virtual press conference, it was on the last day of September, a month when the city racked up 55 murders. In the last 31 years, that's the third highest total in the history of the city.
According to the police department's statistical department, the most violent month in the city's history was last October, with 66 murders. Prior to that, in June of 1990, the city had 56 murders.
At the virtual press conference, Outlaw also tried to talk up the department's "Operation Pinpoint" program which targets the most violent offenders and the most crime-stricken areas. According to stats cited by Deputy Police Commissioner Ben Naish, shootings are up 11% city wide, but in Operation Pinpoint areas, the shooting rate is down 14%.
The retired police commander was unimpressed.
"You're responsible for the entire city, not just [the areas affected by] Operation Pinpoint," he said.
"Yes, she also said we are all doing a good job," one commander recounted. "She also said we are making progress for the mayor's Philadelphia Roadmap to Safer Communities. She was dead serious. We were all blown away."
"We were wondering how she said that with a straight face," the same police commander said. "She really lives in a little girl's fantasy world. She is truly demented. How can she believe what she says? She was showing us these meaningless statistics, showing how for a week or two, compared to this time last year, there was a slight reduction in shootings."
During the murder rampage, Deputy Police Commissioner Naish reported, police are taking guns off the street at a record pace. Last year, the cops recovered 4,989 guns used to commit crimes, a 17% increase. But this year, the police to date have recovered 4,475 guns used to commit crime.
If that rate keeps up, it will amount to a total of 6,050 guns recovered by this year's end, a 21% increase.
"That's an insane amount of guns that are on the streets of Philadelphia," Naish said. Many of the criminals caught committing gun crimes are repeated offenders.
As Outlaw said at the press conference, "It's a small amount of people that's driving a large percentage of the crime."
She praised the FBI because the agency "chose to be in alignment with us" when it comes to prosecuting drug and gun crimes.
But as for Krasner, Outlaw said, "It's been made very clear that fundamentally in the D.A.'s office that possession with intent to distribute [as well as possession of] Illegal crime guns, may not be a priority."
"And I don’t know what can be done to get everyone on the same page," Outlaw said.
During the press conference, Naish used 11 recent murder cases to explain what's been going on out on the streets.
But thanks to the criminal justice "reforms" of Larry Krasner, that's just where they wound up, free to commit more crimes.
Take Tyree Carthwright, 43, of the Tacony section of the city, who's just been arrested in connection with a double homicide. On July 1st, the cops got a call to investigate a car in Frankford that had a strong odor emanating from it.
Inside, the cops found two large trash bags containing the human remains of a 26 year-old black man and a 30 year-old black man, both of whom had been shot to death.
On Aug. 15th, Carthwright was arrested on an unrelated domestic incident and the cops recovered a 9 mm handgun that matched the ballistics of the bullets that killed the two murder victims.
Unfortunately, Cartwright had already posted bail and was released on Aug. 19th.
Four days later, warrants were issued for Cartwright on charges of two counts of murder, conspiracy, and gun charges. But unfortunately, Cartwright was no longer around.
"Mr. Cartwright remains a fugitive at this time," Naish said.
How he was out on the streets is a mystery that can only be explained by Larry Krasner's "reforms."
On Aug. 15th, Cartwright was charged in connection with violating a stay away order with aggravated assault, three gun charges, terroristic threats, simple assault, reckless endangerment, and resisting arrest.
Cartwright was a career criminal, dating back to his youth. In 1994, the year he turned 16, Cartwright was twice found to be an adjudicated delinquent, the equivalent of a guilty plea, the first time for carrying firearms in public; the second time for robbery.
In 1996, when he turned 18, Cartwright pleaded guilty to robbery and carjacking, carrying firearms in public, and conspiracy, and he received a 5 to 10 year sentence.
In 2003, he pleaded guilty to drug charges and conspiracy, and was sentenced to another 5 to 10 years in prison.
In 2017, the D.A.'s office dropped charges against Cartwright for a 2014 arrest that included attempted murder, aggravated assault, and gun charges.
In 2019, the D.A.'s office dropped three new gun charges against Cartwright stemming from a 2017 arrest.
In 2020, the D.A.'s office dismissed three more gun charges against Cartwright.
For his most recent arrest involving domestic violence, Cartwright's bail was set at $40,000 monetary, meaning he had to post 10%, or only $4,000 to go free.
"This is a very violent guy," a veteran prosecutor said. "His bail at a minimum should have been $100,000." And when bail was set at $40,000, the D.A.'s office should have filed an appeal, the former prosecutor said.
Instead, the D.A.'s office did nothing to protect the public.
Next up was in the parade of bad guys detailed by deputy police commissioner Naish was Freimy Rivera, 20, of Northeast Philadelphia. He was arrested Sept 20th on murder charges in connection with the May 24th shooting death of a 28 year-old man in the 300 block of East Indiana Street.
Rivera was another guy with a long rap sheet featuring 9 arrests for multiple felonies since May of 2019, including drug dealing, burglary, and a stolen car. Those arrests included five open cases, but Rivera was still out on the street, with the D.A.'s office unable to prosecute him on a second case.
Most recently, he was charged on Sept. 21st with murder, conspiracy, gun charges, and reckless endangerment.![]()
Before that, Rivera had enjoyed a string of three court appearances where the D.A.'s office withdrew a total of a dozen charges against him, including theft from a car, burglary, and assault.
Finally, on the Police Department's list of bad guys was Nathan Carbonell, 20, of North Philadelphia. He was arrested on Sept. 22nd, and charged with fatally shooting a 47 year old woman in head; a crime that took place on the 1800 block of East Tusculum Street.
Carbonell was charged with murder, conspiracy, gun charges, and reckless endangerment.
Court records show that the D.A.'s office had a few earlier chances to keep Carbonell behind bars.
But on May 6th, the D.A.'s office dismissed charges against Carbonell for aggravated assault, simple assault and resisting arrest.
On Aug. 31, the D.A.'s office withdrew charges against Carbonell in another case for drugs, gun charges and conspiracy.
Prior to that, Carbonell was arrested on July 2nd on two more gun charges.
In 2019, the D.A.'s office withdrew charges against Carbonell for drugs and conspiracy.
Meanwhile, when the city went over 400 murders, Krasner held his own press conference on Monday, Sept. 27th, where the resourceful D.A. sought to make the pitch that crime as actually going down in Philadelphia.
"We do not have a spike in crime; crime is actually down," the D.A. said.
"We do not have a spike in violent crime; violent crime is actually down as well," he said. But it's just this "terrible spike in gun violence [that] has us so rightly concerned."
Krasner then introduced Assistant District Attorney Carolyn Jamieson of the major trials unit to explain what Krasner stressed was a couple of success stories for the D.A.'s office, a couple of successful prosecutions done by a couple of his "very very capable prosecutors."
Jamieson, who got her law license in 2019, then explained how Yuseph Cross, 38, of Center City, was found guilty in a waiver [non-jury] trial of impersonating a police officer, and robbing and stabbing a man.
According to Jamieson, last October, Cross knocked on the window of two men who were asleep and pretended to be a police officer. He took a bag from one of the men, who tried to reclaim it. During a struggle, while another defendant held one of the victim down, Cross stabbed the man in the abdomen, Jamieson said.
The veteran prosecutor was amazed that Krasner would call attention to such a case, which he said was so routine that cases like it would be disposed of every day at the Criminal Justice Center.
"To highlight a case like that was ridiculous," the veteran prosecutor said. Krasner's office is so inept and prosecutes so few cases successfully, the veteran prosecutor said, that they had to highlight a case "that should rightly disappear into the dustbin of history."
The veteran prosecutor was also surprised that ADA Jamieson was in the major trials unit in only her second year as a prosecutor. For decades prior to Krasner's reign, every rookie prosecutor who joined the D.A.'s office began their careers by prosecuting trials in Municipal Court before graduating to handling cases in Juvenile Court.
But Krasner's office is so depleted that he's got veritable rookies like ADA Jamieson working in the major trials unit.
Secondly, the veteran prosecutor was amused that Krasner was presenting as a success the case involving Cross that's "proof of failure."
Like the trio of suspects that were discussed at the mayor's press conference, Cross is a career criminal who was on probation with a rap sheet featuring more than a dozen arrests.
Instead of being out on the street, Cross should have been behind bars.
On Oct. 17th, Cross was found guilty of robbery, assault, conspiracy, aggravated assault, gun charges, and impersonating a public servant.
He was charged with sexual assault but pleaded guilty in 2013 to indecent assault on a minor, corruption of a minor, and was sentenced to ll 1/2 to 23 months in jail, and five years probation.
In 2018, the D.A.'s office dismissed charges against Cross of failure to comply with registration as a sexual offender, failure to verify his address and failure to be photographed as required, in addition to being required to provide accurate information. He was also found guilty twice in 2019 of contempt of court.
In 2019, the D.A.'s office dismissed a drug charge against Cross. Later that same year, the D.A.'s office dismissed charges against Cross for theft and receiving stolen property.
On Feb. 28, 2020, the D.A.'s office withdrew charges against Cross that included theft and receiving stolen property, in exchange for a guilty plea on disorderly conduct. On that same day, Cross pleaded guilty in a negotiated plea to theft and receiving stolen property. He got probation for a maximum of nine months.
But according to court records, although Cross was still on probation for indecent assault, the D.A.'s office failed to revoke his probation on any of the new arrests or convictions.
In the light of giving numerous passes to career criminals such as Cross, it was hard to take Krasner seriously when he closed out his press conference by telling people, "We care; we care deeply and we are here to protect you."
But thanks to the media, and the silent complicity of Kenney and Outlaw, the D.A. continues to get away with his rank and cynical hypocrisy.