(Originally appeared in NewsMax.)
The City of Brotherly Love is disappearing under a wave of virtually uncontrolled violence.
According to a report in The Philadelphia Inquirer, the city recently hit homicide number 500 in 2022. This marks the second year in a row is the second year in a row Philly has hit that dismal mark.
Not only are citizens killing each other.
The killings, together with all-around violence, is driving people and businesses away from one of America’s oldest and once-revered cities.
Philadelphia lost 1.7% (27,546 people) of its population between 2020 and 2021.
That means, in 2022, we’ll probably witness a similar loss, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Dozens of convenience stores have closed recently; guaranteed — they won’t be reopening. It’s not because they don’t have enough business to support them.
It’s that they don’t have enough paying customers.
Rampant crime in the city, particularly shoplifting, has become brazen.
Surveillance video of one recent incident showed five men entering a 7-Eleven wearing hoodies and ski masks.
They went behind the cashier counter and started ransacking the store while one of the men stood watch at the door. The cashier opened the register, and it was emptied. Other men started filling a trash bag with cartons of cigarettes.
When someone approached from outside, the men pushed the clerk in back office, went through his wallet, and then walked away.
“Right now, we have a lot of problems with the city of Philadelphia stores. We are closing left and right,” Manzoor Chughtai, the president of the Franchise Owners Association, told ABC 6.
“Robbers are coming in, they’re just robbing the place left and right.”
Violent crime is up more than 3% for the first 11 months of the year and property crime is up nearly 29%, according to police statistics. Now the politicians want to add one more thing for them to do to their plate.
The best the Philadelphia City Council seems to be able to do is to remove minors off the street at night in the hopes that it will both keep them out of trouble and out of danger.
It’s doubtful it will help. It didn’t help when the council tried it earlier this year.
The major problem is that the approach goes after the innocents and victims rather than the criminals, and that is never a formula that works.
The council recently approved another night-time curfew for miners to protect them from becoming victims of the surging crime in the city.
“The city council on Thursday approved a 10 p.m. curfew for teenagers aged 14-to-17 and a 9:30 pm curfew for children under 13, effective indefinitely. Kids can return outside at 6:00 a.m. under the rule,” according to National Review.
The council had imposed a similar curfew at 10 p.m. over the summer.
This was a time when teens were often outside later to enjoy their summer break from school. It expired at the end of September and doesn’t seem to have worked.
If the city truly wants to recover from this crime epidemic then Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner needs to start prosecuting the criminals the police catch.
He has been so bad at his job that a movement has started to impeach him.
A bipartisan committee in the Pennsylvania House released a reportthat painted “a scathing picture of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s utter failure to uphold law and order in the city of Philadelphia,” complete with “first-hand accounts of Krasner’s poor leadership decisions, eye-opening statistics and data analysis, and statements from crime victims.”
Crime can’t be fought by punishing the innocent and victims.
It can only be fought if law-enforcement officers are allowed to enforce the law.
Michael Letts is the Founder and CEO of In-Vest USA, a national grassroots nonprofit organization helping to re-fund police by contributing thousands of bulletproof vests for police forces through educational, public relations, sponsorship, and fundraising programs. He also has over 30 years of law enforcement experience. Read More Michael Letts reports — Here.
