By Patrick McNally
(From this week's edition of the News Gleaner)

It’s been a violent two years in Northeast Philadelphia. Three police officers have been
murdered in that time, with two retired cops killed.

On May 8, 2006, Officer Gary Skerski was shot and killed as he answered a robbery call at Pat’s Café in Northwood. Skerski was the community liaison
for the 15th Police District, which serves a large section of the Northeast.

On Oct. 4, 2007, retired police officers Joseph Alullo
and William Widmaier, then working as armored car
guards, were gunned down execution style as they serviced an ATM machine at Roosevelt Mall. Both men worked and became friends while working at the 7th Police District. Before moving from the city,
both were also local residents. The suspect was also a resident of Northeast Philadelphia.

On Oct. 31, 2007, Officer Chuck Cassidy stopped by a doughnut shop on his beat, before heading back to his district. The shop had been plagued by a rash of robberies, and one was in progress when Cassidy arrived. He was shot and killed. A nationwide manhunt traced Cassidy’s assailant to Florida, where he was apprehended. Cassidy lived in the Holme Circle area of Northeast Philadelphia.

May 3, 2008 saw another officer added to the list of violent deaths. Sgt. Stephen Liczbinski was called to a suspected robbery at a supermarket in Port Richmond. One of the three robbers shot and killed Liczbinski, then was shot himself, by police. One suspect is in custody, while the other is still at large.

“Your heart just sinks. This is hard on all of us,” Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey said to reporters on the day of Liczbinski’s murder.

“I ask that we rally around his family, wrap our arms
around them and keep them in our prayers,” said the Mayor, in a statement that day. The mayor also called for a 30-day period of mourning for the officer.

One local man believes that what many lifelong residents view as the safe haven of Northeast Philadelphia is no more.

“We are actually in a state of war, right here in Philadelphia, and in many big cities,” said Al
Taubenberger, president of the Greater Northeast Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. “It is absolutely terrifying what is happening to this city, to rob a
bank in the middle of a supermarket with a gun used for military operations.”

The gun used to rob the market and kill Sgt. Liczbinski was a Chinese manufactured SKS semiautomatic rifle. The gun was manufactured in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and was used by many Communist troops in Vietnam, Yugoslavia and East
Germany. Today, many sportsmen buy the weapon, which can be purchased legally in Philadelphia.

“The person that sold that gun to them is as guilty as the guy who used it,” Taubenberger said.

While stating that he supports Second Amendment
rights, Taubenberger wondered how such a powerful weapon could be purchased locally.

“Is there no law against machine guns? This is ridiculous. It’s insane,” he said. “If you can buy a machine gun in Mayfair, then we’re really out of
control here.”

Mike Cosgrove, a neighbor of the Liczbinski family who works at the Court of Common Pleas for Judge Chris Wogan, has another viewpoint.

“In some (Philadelphia) neighborhoods, they have no
respect for police,” he said. “That’s the mentality – that the police are out to get them. But most of them are good guys, and (Liczbinski) was a good
guy.”

The Firefighters and Police Officers Credit Union has started a memorial trust fund for the Liczbinski family. For more information, call 215-931-0300.

It has been a violent two years for the city as a whole, not just Northeast Philly, with too many of the city's citizens shot and killed during this time. There is no need to single out one section of the city. We are all affected and are all in this together. There no safe havens.

__________________
There's a place that I travel,
When I want to roam
And nobody knows it but me.

The roads don't go there,
And the signs stay home
And nobody knows it but me.

It's far, far away and way, way afar,
It's over the moon and the sea,
And wherever you are going,
That's wherever you are
And nobody knows it but me.

-Patrick O'Leary



It's not lacking any meat and thats what real women need.

It seems like whoever wrote that article is going out of his way to make the NE look bad. Everyone knows the city has crime issues and the NE is not exempt from them but cmon. Port richmond is not the NE. Cassidy's murder did not happen in the NE. McNally took a couple isolated events and a couple quotes and stretched that into a story of doom and gloom.

I thought a war is when you bomb a shopping market and then pick off the first aid responders with I.E.D's and sniper fire.


I am confused, what is a war agan?

Ever think maybe the writer is trying to get the point across that the victims/officers mentioned were NE residents?

And don't feed into Uly55es1, that poster only has one agenda when visiting the NE forum.

__________________
"Barack Obama has found his people.
But, unfortunately for his election prospects,
they're German, not American."
-The Guardian, UK

RE-ELECT DAVID OH COUNCIL AT LARGE 2011

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/

__________________
War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. ~John F. Kennedy

Tautenberger is an idiot. The sks is NOT a machine gun, and it didn't even qualify as an asault weapon under the 1994 assault weapons ban. The sks was never banned, despite all the sloppy news reports.

The 7.62 x 39 millimeter round used in the sks is balistically identical to the 30-30 round used in many hunting rifles. Any rifle round will easily penetrate police body armor.

Instead of parading around on camera with scary looking rifles and demanding that politicians "do something" about them, why not emphasize the criminal record of the perpetrators and the lenient sentences they received?

I guess they think if you make them they will come, but perhaps if you fry them for using it they will think before they come.

First line of article...
It’s been a violent two years in Northeast Philadelphia.

People who live in the NE die elsewhere and therefore the NE is violent? Ok, that makes sense.

Well if you want to nit pick 1/2 of the ones mentioned in the post did happen in the NE. And just because the act itself doesn't happen in a said area doesn't mean it's effects don't come to that area and to family/friends/neighbors. There's also been quite a few more violent acts then this article even mentions that DID happen in the NE but I wouldn't expect you to acknowledge that with your state of denial. Looks like it might be time to peek out between the blinds again.

__________________
"Barack Obama has found his people.
But, unfortunately for his election prospects,
they're German, not American."
-The Guardian, UK

RE-ELECT DAVID OH COUNCIL AT LARGE 2011

http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/