With homicides in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania reaching a new record high this year, Gov. Tom Wolf (D) has renewed his call for gun control, leaving progressive law-enforcement officials like Philadelphia’s infamously lenient District Attorney Larry Krasner (D) unmentioned.
As of December 29, 557 murders took place in Philadelphia in 2021, a 10.4-percent increase over the 499 murders that occurred during 2020—a year that itself saw 143 more murders than the previous year. (Homicides in Philadelphia have not numbered as many as 500 since 1990.) Gun robberies, vehicle theft and retail theft have all risen significantly.
African-Americans have overwhelmingly suffered from these phenomena: Last month, city police noted that 82 percent of murder victims and 85 percent of shooting victims in Philadelphia were black.
The response to the violent-crime surge from Philadelphia’s top law-enforcement dignitaries has been varying levels of denial. In an interview with 6ABC Action News this week, Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw answered affirmatively when asked if her city is “safe,” reasoning that not every neighborhood in the municipality is dangerous.
“People want to say—or want to hear me say—‘No, it’s not safe,’” Outlaw said. “You’ll never hear that from me because there’s a lot of places all over the city—all times of the day, all times of the night—where we can go about and be human beings.”
Earlier this month, Krasner himself declared, “We don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence.” He later walked back those comments, judging them insensitive. He did not walk back his support for lighter sentences, less extensive pre-trial jailing or milder bail policies nor his longstanding hostility to Philadelphia police officers.
In a tweet Thursday, Wolf placed his focus on the Keystone State’s moderately permissive firearm laws.
“Pennsylvania saw an increase in gun violence in 2021,” the governor tweeted Thursday. “We must resolve to better protect residents in 2022. Legislators, are you with me? Let’s improve safe storage, close background check loopholes, ensure reporting of lost firearms, and keep guns away from dangerous people.”
State Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa (D-Pittsburgh) echoed the governor’s sentiment in a comment on Wolf’s Twitter post.
“You can count on this Senator to fight for gun violence prevention in 2022, for as long as it takes,” the lawmaker wrote.
But while Pennsylvania’s gun laws have remained largely static over recent years, Krasner’s presence as the chief prosecutor for the commonwealth’s largest city only began four years ago. He followed a series of fairly aggressive, pro-police district attorneys.
From 2015 through 2017, total homicides in the city of Brotherly Love hovered around 300. They jumped to 353 in 2018, the district attorney’s first year in office and have since skyrocketed past 500. Philadelphia’s cumulative annual murder rate in 2021 surpasses those of far more populous New York City and Los Angeles.
Krasner’s record has even drawn the ire of liberal former Mayor Michael Nutter, who saw violent crime fall under his eight-year administration which ended in 2016.
“…Under Krasner’s anti-police narrative, most of that work has been reversed,” Nutter wrote in a December 7 Philadelphia Inquirer op-ed. “Krasner portrays himself as the Great White Hope for Philadelphia’s Black and brown communities, but if he actually cared about us, he’d understand that the homicide crisis is what is plaguing us the most.”
The district attorney’s softheartedness for arrestees has been frequently on display, lately exemplified by the apprehension of 17-year-old murder suspect Latif Williams, who had an extensive prior arrest record for carjacking and other offenses. Krasner had repeatedly dropped charges against Williams.
Krasner’s far-left orientation caught the attention of like-minded bigwigs as he was readying his bid for the district-attorney spot. Enamored of the lawyer’s progressivism, far-left billionaire George Soros contributed nearly $1.7 million to his primary campaign against six other Democrats in 2017. Krasner went on to defeat Republican Beth Grossman handily that November and to win reelection against primary challenger Carlos Vega and Republican Chuck Peruto earlier this year.
Neither Gov. Wolf’s office nor the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office could be reached for comment.
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Bradley Vasoli is managing editor of The Pennsylvania Daily Star. Follow Brad on Twitter at @BVasoli. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Gov. Tom Wolf” by Governor Tom Wolf CC BY 2.0. Photo “Larry Krasner” by DA Larry Krasner.
