(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
I have written frequently about District Attorney Larry Krasner, the anti-police crusader that George Soros helped get elected in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia. Mr Krasner ran promising to completely overhaul the prosecutor’s office, to:
Stop prosecuting insufficient and insignificant cases
Review past convictions, free the wrongfully convicted
Stop cash bail imprisonment
Protect immigrants while protecting everybody
Reject a return to the failed drug wars of the past
Stand up to police misconduct
In his first week in office, Mr Krasner fired 31 prosecutors from the District Attorney’s Office, including both junior and career supervisory staff. Up to one-third of the homicide prosecutors in the office were dismissed. Those fired represented nearly a 10% reduction in the number of Philadelphia assistant district attorneys.
Friday, December 11, 2020
The
U.S. Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Pennsylvania released the below
information:
PHILADELPHIA
– United States Attorney William M. McSwain announced that an Indictment was
unsealed today charging four defendants with the murder of Philadelphia Police
Corporal James “Jimmy” O’Connor (seen in the above photo), posthumously promoted to Sergeant, and related
drug trafficking and firearms offenses. The defendants charged in the
Indictment are Hassan Elliott, a/k/a “Haz,” age 22; Bilal Mitchell, a/k/a
“Omar,” a/k/a “Walkdown,” age 20; Khalif Sears, a/k/a “Leaf,” a/k/a “Lil Leaf,”
age 19; and Sherman Easterling, a/k/a “Foot,” a/k/a “Foot on da gas,” age 25,
Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey couldn’t stand the thought of burying another one of his own.
It was March, and he had long been thinking of retirement, ever since Mayor Nutter had won reelection. Even then, he had been “95 percent sure.” His career was at an apex – there had been presidential appointments, and prominent positions on national policing boards, and an unprecedented drop in homicides in a city once dubbed “Killadelphia.”
When 2015 ended, there had been 280 homicides in the City of Brotherly Love, an unfortunate jump from 248 the previous year, but overall he presided over a sharp drop in murder. In 2007, the year before he became Commissioner, there were 391 bodies laying in the city streets. In Mayor Michael Nutter’s (D-Philadelphia) and the new Commissioner’s first year, homicides dropped to 331, and then to 302 the following year. 2013 saw 246 homicides, the lowest number since 1967.
One in an occasional series about Philadelphia’s unchecked gun violence. Every trip outside the house for Jackee Nichols brings a new reminder of the pain. Nichols is from a part of South Philadelphia that has been embroiled in a shooting conflict for as long as anyone can remember. In October 2018, that violence claimed her 15-year-old grandson. Police believe he was gunned down for living on the wrong block but, like most shootings in Philadelphia, no one has been charged in the crime. Now Nichols faces the daily torment of living among the people she suspects killed her grandson, Rasul Benson, leaving trauma to resurface in unexpected moments.