(Source: National Review http://nrd.nationalreview.com/articl...mE4MzQ1OGFmZDA= )

The City of Brotherly Love shows America how not to deal with a crime wave

KEVIN WILLIAMSON
(Excerpted)
Philadelphia is famous for two things: cheesesteaks and murder.

It’s also well known for being — in Lincoln Steffens’s classic phrase — “corrupt and contented.” Philadelphia has one of the most backward and incompetent city governments in America, but its problems go beyond public administration. Philadelphia suffers from a combination of failed civic institutions, a deeply embedded racial paranoia that undermines law enforcement, and a local culture that has come to shrug at the urban chaos this produces. Philadelphia stands as a warning to other big American cities: This is how you drown under a crime wave.

In 2006, the one-or-two-a-day-and-a-dozen-on-weekends murder spree that earned “Killadelphia” its rap as an urban abattoir came to what everybody hopes was its guns-blazing peak, leaving 406 people dead. Another 392 were murdered in 2007. By way of comparison, Phoenix, which recently overtook Philadelphia as the nation’s fifth-largest city, had 238 murders in 2006. San Antonio, a city nearly Philadelphia’s size and sharing many of its economic challenges, had 119 murders. It’s clearly not all about poverty: Miami, America’s poorest major city, saw 79 homicides in all of 2006. In March 2006, more Americans died violently on the streets of Philadelphia than died fighting in Iraq — and March wasn’t the city’s worst month of that year.


Politics constantly hobbles the ability of the city’s capable police department to address crime. One illustrative episode involves the shooting of a 16-year-old student outside of Strawberry Mansion High School in West Philadelphia. The head of the school district went to the mayor pleading for more police patrols during the immediate after-school hours, which are the most dangerous time of day for students. But the proposal was scotched by Sandra Dungee Glenn, an African-American school-board member and former chief of staff to Rep. Chaka Fattah. Glenn argued that deploying extra police in the area would send the wrong message to students and make them feel “that we need to be armed against them.” Mayor Street chimed in that he wouldn’t trust “a cop with a Glock” in the schools. So black leaders, along with Philadelphia’s black mayor and its black police chief, directed its heavily black police force to leave black students vulnerable to black criminals, for reasons of racial politics. Sandra Dungee Glenn was subsequently named chair of the School Reform Commission. That’s Philly.

The problem is that Sandra Dungee Glenn was right. Black neighborhoods in Philadelphia would feel under siege if they received the police attention they desperately need. As one Philadelphia cop put it, “I can solve crime in these neighborhoods tomorrow. You put a cop on every street corner. But the neighborhoods will complain and the city won’t pay for it.”

THE PARANOID STYLE IN AFRICAN-AMERICAN POLITICS
The careers of mediocrities such as John Street and Sandra Dungee Glenn have been made possible by what might be called “the paranoid style in African-American politics,” the elevation of racial loyalty over citizenship. The hogwash proffered by Barack Obama’s mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright — AIDS is a government plot to kill African-Americans, the CIA peddles crack — is pretty mild compared to political discourse in black Philadelphia. Before the 2004 election, one black newspaper warned its readers to flee the city because President Bush was planning to suppress the inner-city vote . . . with nuclear weapons. This paranoid style is deeply embedded in the race-based politics of Philadelphia, and the police catch the worst of it.

This guy isn’t the kind of armed felon who makes the news in Philadelphia. On the morning of Not-Perry-Mason’s trial, the papers were full of the hunt for all-star fugitive Eric DeShawn Floyd, an armed robber with 17 priors and an appreciation for SKS semiautomatic rifles, one of which he and his crew had just used to murder Philadelphia Police Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski in the aftermath of a botched bank robbery. Three men, disguised as burka-clad Muslim women, were involved in the heist. The Philadelphia Daily News carried an info-graphic describing the SKS with the headline: “Should This Gun Be Legal?” There was no Daily News headline asking why a felon with 17 entries on his rap sheet was walking abroad in Philadelphia. Should that be legal?

It’s a question that needs asking, but Philadelphia’s news media, clergy, and civic leaders won’t start that conversation. Two of the three Philadelphia police officers murdered over the past two years were killed by convicted criminals. Most cop-killers have criminal histories. But the Daily News, like the rest of official Philadelphia, has learned the hard way that it’s easier to blame remote lawmakers in Harrisburg or Washington than to take an honest look at Philadelphia’s criminal realities. In 2002 the Daily News ran a front page carrying mug shots of 14 fugitive murderers wanted in Philadelphia and ran pictures of 27 more inside. Two of the fugitives were apprehended soon after their pictures were published, but the newspaper quickly found itself the subject of boycotts and protests because all of the fugitives whose pictures were published were black, Hispanic, or Asian. The Daily News didn’t racially filter the photos: There simply weren’t any white murder fugitives wanted in Philadelphia at that time. But the paper was nonetheless accused of racism, and some of its own staffers joined in the festival of denunciation. In the end, the newspaper knuckled under and apologized for publishing the truth. Since then, the city’s newspapers, like the district attorney, the mayors, and most of official Philadelphia, have found it much safer to blame Philadelphia’s bloodshed on distant bogeymen in Congress and rednecks at the NRA. Did I mention that the city government isn’t the only failed institution in Philadelphia?

But official Philadelphia cannot set intelligent priorities, and gun court is hobbled because the city cannot find an extra million or two in its bloated, patronage-packed $4 billion budget. Another program, Operation Safe Streets, put extra police officers on patrol in neighborhoods suffering the worst crime problems. But in true Philly style, the program was staffed through police overtime, which gets very expensive, instead of having its patrols built into regularly budgeted police duties.

A couple of years ago, National Geographic called Philadelphia “America’s Next Great City.” That motto is already fading on the side of a building near City Hall. Is Philadelphia on the road to recovery, like post-Giuliani New York — or is its future more like Detroit’s? The indicators aren’t good: Established businesses are fleeing, and they’re being replaced by casinos, thanks to the efforts of Ed Rendell and John Street on behalf of the gambling lobby.

There is something strangely antique in Philadelphia’s politics — its old-timey union bosses and unapologetic patronage, its sweetheart contracts for the mayor’s brother. But what really makes an impression isn’t the governmental incompetence, but the blasé acceptance of quotidian chaos on a scale that wouldn’t be tolerated in New York, Atlanta, or Houston. Philly is what you get when you combine San Francisco crazy with Trenton’s economy. Exhibit A: The raving homeless guy nicknamed Screaming Man, who comes careering out of an alley into ritzy Rittenhouse Row, ranting that he has AIDS and threatening to bite passersby. He screams, threatens, howls, and generally makes an urban spectacle of himself as diners at the nearby sidewalk cafes nibble on $16 Gruyère cheeseburgers and drink espresso. He’s been doing this schtick for years and years, without risking intervention from authority of any kind or even really commanding the attention of the rich guys coming out of Holt’s Cigars, who just step around him as if he were dog droppings. He’s part of the local color, like incompetent mayors and Stop Snitchin’ T-shirts, like leaving schoolkids vulnerable to criminals so as not to “send the wrong message.” Philadelphia’s City Hall, perhaps America’s most beautiful municipal building, is crowned with a statue of William Penn. But it might as well be Eric DeShawn Floyd or John Street, Not-Perry-Mason or Screaming Man: This is their city.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

2006 called - it wants this article back

double post

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– Brigadier General Julius C. Holmes
Allied Forces Headquarters
4 March 1943

Sometimes the truth hurts.

Seems to me the guy who wrote it has a pretty good picture of the problems. Also many of the issues raised apply beyond philly.

I'd bet there is enough money in the city budget to deal with a lot of the problems if so much of it weren't wasted on crap and nonsense.

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– Brigadier General Julius C. Holmes
Allied Forces Headquarters
4 March 1943

He's pretty spot-on. The "That's Philly for you" tone is right on target.

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The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? - Psalm 27:1

I think the above sentence summarizes the situation best. PHiladelphians have just become so used to the chaos on the city's streets as to not even care or demand better. It is almost a resignation.

Wow. Just WOW.

I've been criticized on here by the liberal elite for making statements that Philly is worse than Baghdad. They are against the war in Iraq and will feign horror and dismay at the death of our brave soldiers simply to support their political agenda. But the irony of it all is that they are living in Philadelphia. I'd like to see them show the same horror and dismay over the death of Beau Zabel.

Basically, if you are living Philadelphia voluntary, you can't make criticisms of the war in Iraq.

This is exactly why I and other are fleeing this city in droves. It's the tolerance of such behavior that made me realize that nothing is ever going to change. Living in the Filty allowed me to witness first hand why liberal policies are such miserable failures when applied to a population over 10 people. Most of those wine-drinking, Gruyere eating diners probably are themselves the typical wealthy liberal and felt bad for the guy. Meanwhile, their city has become the laughingstock of the nation.

Excellent article all around. I love how it completely debunked the myth that poverty and education are the ONLY explanations behind crime.

couldn,t have said it better myself.

I would have sworn Floyd was a couple months ago.

I guess it is the author's fault that Philly has a pattern outside of 2008?

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