Official Greater Philadelphia Area Crime Thread (Washington, Ardmore: hires, museum, recommend)

[henrychen]

Another carjacker got shot by an armed citizen - this time in the nice part of town - West Mount Airy. Good. What we're seeing is a (now don't grab your chests and pass out) monkey see, monkey do situation. These wanna be gangsters know there's a soft on crime mentality in Philly and that they get to walk around with their identities concealed, unquestioned, because of the pandemic. They must feel it's a win-win for them. The more that get blasted, the better. BUT, my concern now is that they'll shoot first, so the victim doesn't have the opportunity.

[MarketStEl]

The problem, unfortunately, is that many of these voters are dealing with the issue of reform by targeting the wrong office.

However, police chiefs aren't elected, and for good reason.

I know some of you following this thread dismiss the visual evidence provided by former Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins' ride-alongs, but both it and some highly publicized mishaps/acts of wrongdoing (the reason George Floyd's death got the reaction it did is because the act was so blatant) suggest to me at least that in the communities that want and need good policing the most, there remain trust and community-relations issues.

Most of these progressive DAs have spent a good deal of time fighting the cops — and of course, the cops return the favor...

...but they (and maybe more importantly, their union leaders) stand on shakier ground than they once did because of all these highly publicized incidents. The greater willingness of juries to convict cops in such cases is another sign of the sea change.

The "defund the police" crowd takes this too far, as voters in Minneapolis demonstrated. But the issue is now very much in play.

Speaking of police-community relations, has anyone here read stories about a crime spike in Camden this past year? I don't seem to recall seeing any.

[Tweb66]

Looks like it was on Upsal street. Upsal and Horter in W Mt Airy are super strange, beautiful houses but because that is how you get from Germantown to Lincoln Drive, the people that frequent those streets, well, not always the best. If you just looked at the traffic on those streets, you might confuse it with 15th and Diamond. As dramatic as it might seem in a supposedly "good" neighborhood, it isn't all that surprising sadly. I am on the other side of Lincoln drive towards Wissahickon Park so I think it is more isolated but still, not a whole lot of safe areas left these days...

[cpomp]

Originally Posted by MPK21

As suspected, it was a 5-year old who ignited the christmas tree with a lighter at 6:30am.
The little kid escaped as did another person, described now as only an ''adult''. This adult was a boyfriend of one the victims.

Of the (7) smoke detectors in this property, (6) were disabled as something like (4) were found in drawers, one broken lying on the floor, and another one in-place but the battery removed; the (7th) smoke detector, located in the basement, remained operational and did set-off as the smoke descended into the basement area, but obviously too late as the people on the 3rd floor were already dead by that time.

Removing or disabling smoke detectors would be the only ''crime'' here. Kenney did raise a correct point though, that, in the not too distant past, when people still had kids, families were crammed into row homes etc all over the city. It was common in blue collar, working class immigrant cities to have anywhere from 4-14 kids + parents grandma/grandpa in a home, maybe with an original 3 bedroom-1 bathroom home that would subsequently build-out an attic or basement for and additional bedroom or 2. Oh, and by today's bizarre knowledge of the past, this included white people. Smoke detectors were a thing of the future.

Many folks wanted the narrative of this tragedy to go another way for sure as they needed to portray this, for several reasons, as a ''black family in poverty'' living in a 1903 NYC tenement at the hands of the neglectful PHA; then again these folks also need to think we're generally living in 1922 Mississippi.

These daily articles (written young woke white people), are quite a reach in their attempts to blame PHA and the City for this tragedy... The latest (below) is full of contradictions. The best one is that the author suggests the fire could have been prevented if the home wasn't overcrowded, but then later states there is no well-established link between overcrowding and increased fire dangers.

PHA knew for years about overcrowding in home of Fairmount fire victims but didn’t move them

https://www.inquirer.com/news/philad...-20220114.html


Why are some reporters reaching so hard in the blame game? I guess for a paycheck?
This was an awful tragedy, can't we just leave it at that, and make sure the remaining family members are taken care of financially and psychologically? In the end, the several working detectors were altered by the residents, not the city or PHA. And attempts to blame PHA and the city for the absence of a sprinkler system, fire escape, and fire extinguisher (none of which are required by code in a rental rowhome) falls on deaf ears with me.

Do these reporters understand basic building codes, and the astronomical cost of installing a sprinkler system and fire escape in every 3 story PHA rowhome in the city? We are talking 10s of millions, yet PHA is supposed to full its years long waitlist in tandem? Where is this money coming from?

The tragic Quakertown fire was not equipped with any of the above, nor were the tenants (homeowners) given free smoke detectors. Why no exhaustive commentary?

[Tweb66]

I think thats a little overboard, comparing it to Quakertown. These were publicly owned buildings, there will of course be scrutiny to make sure our tax dollars aren't being spent on tinderboxes. Private residence is a totally different animal. Without getting into the specifics, I will point out a fire in public housing basically cost former British PM Theresa May her job, so it is a big deal.

[JamesJay64]

"From 2018 to last year, carjackings in the five boroughs shot up 355 percent — led by a staggering 4,400-percent jump in the NYPD’s Manhattan North borough command and increases of more than 400 percent in the Bronx and Brooklyn North commands, the statistics show.

So far this year, police have reported 20 carjackings, five of them in the two Manhattan borough commands, which are made up of precincts, the department said Thursday.

Cops reported 510 carjackings last year, compared to 112 in 2018. Last year’s number represents a 55.5 percent leap over the 328 carjackings in 2020."

Read this about NYC today. Their overall numbers are lower but it's still a similar trend. I don't think Philly is all that different from most other major cities right now, the problems are just exacerbated here due to the higher poverty rate - which to me means that when things start trending downward they will here too.

[selhars]

The fire was in no way the fault of PHA, in any way, no percentage. Period. That's it.
And PHA better stand by that.

[henrychen]

Originally Posted by JamesJay64

Read this about NYC today. Their overall numbers are lower but it's still a similar trend. I don't think Philly is all that different from most other major cities right now, the problems are just exacerbated here due to the higher poverty rate - which to me means that when things start trending downward they will here too.

Plenty of jobs available for the young males committing these crimes. Want a car - get a job. One of the would-be carjacking victims even stated as much.

[Tweb66]

Damn, thefts at Allens Lane and Greene? If that isn't safe, no part of Philly is. As someone who is looking to buy in the near future, gee, Ambler or Ardmore sure looks nice...


I think the only other area of town I'd live in is by the art museum. I looked at newer places a little further out, like Francisville, well, I am happy there is construction but its entirely charm free, no parking and not very safe. No thanks.

[henrychen]

Not to be outdone, a seventeen year old girl, who was not the intended target, got shot to death while sitting in a car on the 6600 block of Ross Street in East Mount Airy.
Who knows the whole story? But, you know the saying, "Lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas."
And what's with these so-called 'gangstas,' 'bad asses,' 'thugs,' etc, who just shoot into a crowd without thinking? Are they that stupid and emotionally-driven? Is their impulse control that weak?
Is it that hard to find someone when they're alone? I don't recall the Mafia killing civilians. If you're going to do it, do it right.
People like to think that it's 99% drug-related, it makes them feel better I guess. But a lot of these shootings are over silly things like words ... it's part of young, African-American street culture.