Larry Krasner, Take A Bow! Philly Just Hit 300 Murders!

By Ralph Cipriano

for BigTrial.net

At 9:07 p.m. on Thursday night, cops in the 14th Police District responded to a call about a "person with gun."

When the cops arrived at the 6000 block of E. Wister St., they found a black female sitting in the front seat of a 2014 Ford Fusion suffering from a gunshot wound to the head. She was transported to Albert Einstein Medical Center in critical condition. Surveillance video from the crime scene showed that the woman was not caught in a crossfire, but was targeted for death. 

She died at 11:49 p.m. Friday at the hospital, as the city's 300th homicide of the year. Over the weekend, there were a total of 24 shootings, including four homicides, which boosted the city's total for the year to 302 homicides.

People are being murdered in the City of Brotherly Love at a rate 36 percent higher over this same time last year, when there were only 223 murders. At this pace, the city's murder rate, which totaled only 356 for all of last year, is headed for the highest number of dead bodies since 2006, when the city racked up 406 murders. The all-time record was in 1990 with 497 murders. 

You won't read this in The Philadelphia Inquirer, but the blame for the city's escalating violence rests squarely on the shoulders of one corrupt public official -- District Attorney Larry Krasner.

In an interview on Fox 29 last week, D.A. Krasner tried to deflect his guilt for the carnage in the streets by claiming that the city's surging murder rate was an "unprecedented national issue," for which he blamed "massive unemployment," "terrible poverty," and subpar schools.

In the interview with Good Day host Mike Jerrick, Krasner did everything he could to tap dance around the issue of his office letting so many violent offenders out of jail, so they could maim and kill again.

Sorry, Larry, but let's not forget that it was your office that was responsible for twice letting Razique Bumpas out of jail in the two weeks before he killed a 39 year-old pregnant woman. 

The cops issued arrest warrants on Feb. 8 and Feb. 15th on Bumpas, for allegedly making terroristic threats, after he pulled a gun on a woman in traffic. But the D.A.'s office twice declined to prosecute the suspect, asking for more information, such as the accused's phone number as well as GPS numbers that would have placed the suspect at the crime scene.

Way to go, Sherlock Holmes. 

Less than a week after his Feb. 15th arrest, on Feb. 21st, Bumpas once again pulled a gun in traffic, and this time he murdered a pregnant woman, as well as her unborn child, and he also shot and critically wounded another man.

It was Krasner's office that also was responsible for freeing the two accused killers of Corporal James O'Connor. Two years before O'Connor was murdered, the D.A. negotiated a plea with Hassan Elliott, who got caught carrying a firearm without a license. He got 9 to 23 months in jail, but walked out of court a free man after the judge accepted as his prison term the amount of jail time already served.

While on probation, Elliott was brought before a judge on three alleged violations of parole. But three times, rather than put him in jail, the D.A.'s office allowed Elliott to stay on probation. When Elliott was arrested on Jan. 29, 2019, for possessing a controlled substance, it was another direct violation of his probation. But the D.A. withdrew the drug charge, and designated it a "Limited Access" case so the press and public can't see it. Two months later, Elliott murdered O'Connor.

A second accused killer, Bilal Mitchell, was arrested twice in February for drug dealing, the month before the murder of Corporal O'Connor. At the time, Mitchell, 19, had three open juvenile cases and one previous arrest as an adult. He was supposed to be wearing a GPS monitor when he was arrested twice for drug dealing.

And what happened next? On Feb. 7th, it cost Mitchell $2,510 to get out of jail; on Feb. 20th, it cost Mitchell only $2,010 to get out of jail. On March 13th, O'Connor, attempting to serve an arrest warrant for murder, was instead murdered by Elliott and Mitchell, who were trying to shoot their way out of a jam.

Then, there's Krasner's pathetic record on prosecuting gun crimes, which amounts to a revolving door for armed and dangerous drug dealers who are presently shooting it out on the streets of Philadelphia for control of the local drug trade.

As previously reported, when Big Trial tracked the D.A.'s handling of 236 arrests for carrying illegal guns in July 2019, as of March 16th, the last day the courts were open in Philadelphia, 66 of those cases, or nearly 28 percent, had either been dropped, dismissed or lost by the D.A.'s office.

Of those 236 gun cases, only 37 defendants to date, or 15.6 percent, had been found guilty. And all 37 were the result of plea bargains where every defendant got a sentence well below state sentencing guidelines for gun crimes. Of the 37 plea bargains, 17 defendants either got parole and walked immediately, or they got credit for time served and walked immediately.

Of those 236 gun cases, not a single case to date has resulted in a defendant being convicted by a judge or jury of being guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Of those 236 gun cases, only two cases ever made it to trial, and the D.A.'s office lost both cases.

Meanwhile, the armed and dangerous thugs that Kasner is letting out of jail are wounding and killing kids caught in the crossfire. Such as 7 year-old Zamar Jones, who on Aug. 1st, was out playing on his front porch when he was fatally shot in the head.

"Here's what the media won't tell you about the murder of Zamar Jones," U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain tweeted. "The alleged shooter, Michael Banks, would have likely been off the streets had the DA's office not reduced a felony gun charge against him to a misdemeanor in 2019."

"By reducing the lead gun charge against Banks for no reason, the DA's office could then plead it out to nothing and Banks was immediately released -- and the rest is history," McSwain wrote. "The reason for the carnage is not hard to figure out."

Court records back up McSwain.

On Aug. 28, 2017, Michael Banks pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit retail theft, a third-degree felony that resulted in a sentence of two years probation. But on Oct. 23, 2018, Banks violated his probation when he was arrested for carrying firearms in public. 

As a convicted felon, Banks was barred from possessing a firearm. The D.A.'s office should have charged Banks with a felony for carrying the gun, an offense that carries as a maximum punishment a jail term of three and half to seven years. 

But what did Krasner's office do? They only charged Banks with a misdemeanor when he was caught carrying an illegal gun. Then, Krasner's office did a few more favors for the defendant when it came time for sentencing. 

On Feb. 13, 2019, before Judge Shanese Johnson, Banks was sentenced to 3 to 9 months in jail and two years probation on the gun charge. On April 3, 2019, Banks was sentenced to 12 to 24 months in prison for violating his probation on the conspiracy to commit retail theft charge. 

But the two sentences apparently were to be served consecutively. And rather than having to do any further jail time, on April 3, 2019, Banks got credit for time served and walked. So he was free to kill 7-year-old Zamar Jones.

On Monday, the cops reported 7 more shootings, one of which resulted in a murder. So, here's the latest statistics on gun violence:

-- Murders, 302, up 36 percent over last year at this time when the city had 223 homicides.
-- Shooting victims, 1,334, up 42 percent over last year when the city had 941.
-- Shooting incidents, 2,334, up 51 percent over last year when the city had 1,476 [where nobody is hit but shots are fired at someone].
--Aggravated assault by firearms, 2,278, up 34 percent over last year, when the city had 1,705.

[This year's murder count would even be higher except it does not include 111 dead bodies that the police have so far classified as "special assignments," which includes "suspicious" deaths.]

This is the sorry record that Krasner is doing everything he can to hide, with the cooperation of the local media. But here's the bottom of line of Krasner's so-called reforms of the criminal justice system -- Progressivism kills.