As Dead Bodies Pile Up, P.C. Outlaw Recites Meaningless Statistics

By Ralph Cipriano
for BigTrial.net

It was the equivalent of a major league baseball manger coming out while his team was suffering through an epic losing streak and saying hey, wait a minute, folks, there's a silver lining here. 

Our shortstop who bats ninth in the lineup has finally raised his batting average above .190. And hey, he's even looking a little more aggressive at the plate. So things are really looking up here.

But hey Skip, we've lost our last 23 games in a row, and you don't still don't have a stinkin' clue how to turn this thing around.

In the middle of a record homicide epidemic, beleaguered Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw called a press conference this morning to throw around some meaningless statistics in an attempt to find a silver lining. She did it in the midst of the latest outbreak of gun violence that featured a brazen execution in broad daylight yesterday afternoon in the Lowe's parking lot down in South Philly. 

While Outlaw conceded that the record number of dead bodies piling up in the streets was "especially shameful and sickening," she wanted everyone to know, "We are working very diligently and passionately toward the goal of a safer Philadelphia."

Toward that end, Outlaw cited "significant reductions in homicides" during a 28-day period from Sept. 7th to Oct. 4th, as opposed to the number of homicides that occurred during a previous 28-day period from Aug. 10th to Sept. 6th.

With a roomful of reporters dutifully recording her drivel, Outlaw wanted everyone to know that in the 24th Police District, homicides over those two 28-day periods had dropped a full 37 1/2%, from 8 homicides to 5. 

And in the 26th Police District, the homicide rate was down a full 50%, from 2 homicides to 1. 

And in the 35th Police District, homicides were down a full 66%, from 3 homicides to 1; etc. 

You get the idea. It went on and on as Outlaw quoted stats from seven of 21 police districts that were trending down in murders, leading to an overall 10 percent reduction in homicides citywide during the two 28-day periods. Of course, there was no mention of the police districts where the homicide rate was trending up.

"It's a short gain but it shows us that our efforts are working," Outlaw concluded in an embarrassing performance that went unchallenged by the local press corps, led by lead apologist Chris Palmer of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Meanwhile, between yesterday and today, the city of Philadelphia had 14 shootings, seven of which were homicides.

At 1 p.m. yesterday, a 21-year-old employee at Lowe's was shot nine times in the body by several assailants as he came out in the parking lot at lunch hour. The victim died at a hospital a short while later.

Police blamed the execution on a war between two rival South Philly gangs that have been shooting it out on the streets. The execution of the 21-year-old, police said, was in retaliation for the Sunday night murder of 15-year-old Omar Wade near the 2100 block of Jackson Street; Wade was shot in the head and left thigh, and subsequently died at a hospital. Another 18-year-old was critically wounded in the same attack.

Yesterday, a short time after the assassination in the Lowe's parking lot, there was another episode of retaliation, and yet another homicide --  a 27 year-old man was shot to death in the 1800 block of South Corlies Street. 

All three murder victims from the ongoing gang war were black, as were their suspected killers. But black lives only seem to matter when it's a white cop pulling the trigger.

The city's body count now stands at 364 homicides, a 44% increase over this time last year when the city had 255 homicides. 

The city is now on a pace to hit more than 400 homicides this year, the highest number in 14 years, when the city racked up 406 murders in 2006. The all-time record is 497 murders in 1990. 

There's also the question of whether the police department is cooking the books to hold down the number of homicides. To date this year, the police department has classified 121 dead bodies as "special assignments," including "suspicious" deaths that may actually be homicides.

Other alarming numbers that Police Commissioner Outlaw didn't mention at her press conference today:

-- Aggravated assaults by gun in Philadelphia are up to 2,783 to date, a 41% increase over this time last year when the city had 1,970 aggravated assaults by gun.

-- Shooting victims were up to 1,611, a 48% increase over this time last year when the city had 1,092 shooting victims.

-- Shooting incidents were up to 2,801, a 60% increase over this time last year when the city had 1,756 shooting incidents.

But instead of talking about those numbers, Outlaw talked about how VUFA arrests were up 13 percent this year, and that the number of hotspots targeted by Operation Pinpoint, the police department's computer crimefighting program, has risen from 21 to 44 hotspots.

Now they can add the Lowe's parking lot to the list. 

Outlaw says the department plans to hire 28 civilian crime analysts to assist with Operation Pinpoint. She also said that weekly shooting review meetings are still going on between the Philly P.D.'s brass and their "federal, local and state partners in law enforcement."

When a reporter asked Outlaw what VUFA meant, she didn't know, and a subordinate had to pipe up that it stood for a Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act.

But in the midst of the latest shooting spree, Outlaw was relentless in her optimism. We're beginning "to trend in the right direction," she asserted, before conceding, "Obviously, yesterday was a setback."

"We are only one component of the criminal justice system," Outlaw reminded reporters, and then she added that other "community stakeholders" are not absolved of their duty to participate in solving the gun violence crisis. 

The toughest she got was when she mentioned that she has repeatedly told her "prosecutorial" partners in law enforcement that there has to be "real consequences for those who engage in gun violence."

She couldn't quite get up the nerve to mention by name District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose progressive policies have guaranteed favors for every criminal caught on the streets of Philadelphia carrying an illegal gun, policies that amount to a revolving door for armed and dangerous drug dealers. 

"We are not giving up, we are not waving the white flag, and we are not taking our foot off the gas," Outlaw said in an attempt to calm the public with a stream of cliches. 

While Outlaw talked about VUFA arrests being up, she didn't mention these categories of arrests that are way down, such as:

-- Rape arrests, down 18%, from 337 this time last year to 275 this year.

-- Gunpoint robbery arrests, down 28%, from 604 this time last year to 434 this year.

-- Robbery arrests, down 30%, from 1,149 this time last year to 807 this year.

-- Aggravated assaults, down 19%, from 2,414 arrests this time last year to 1,949 this year.

-- Residential burglary arrests, down 23%, from 702 this time last year to 544 this year.

-- Theft from person arrests, down 23%, from 30 this time last year to 23 this year.

-- Theft from auto arrests, down 38%, from 469 this time last year to 290 this year.

-- Theft arrests, down 35%, from 681 this time last year to 445 this year.

-- Retail theft arrests, down 37%, from 2,048 this time last year to 1,288 this year.

-- Auto theft arrests, down 7%, from 1,039 this time last year to 966 this year.

-- Quality of life arrests, down 75%, from 199 this time last year to 49 this year.

-- Part two arrests [for misdemeanors], down 46%, from 14,116 this time last year to 7,675 this year.

-- Narcotics arrests of buyers by district cops, down 60%, from 2,180 this time last year to 868 this year.

-- Narcotics arrests of sellers by district cops, down 28%, from 2,213 this time last year to 1,590 this year.

-- Narcotics arrests of buyers by the narcotics bureau, down 65%, from 2,394 this time last year to 845 this year.

-- Narcotics arrests of sellers by the narcotics bureau, down 45%, from 3,119 this time last year to 1,708 this year.

-- Tow truck investigation arrests, down 62%, from 1,428 this time last year to 542 this year.

-- Curfew violations, down 76%, from 4,122 this time last year to 999 this year.

-- Vehicle investigation arrests, down 60%, from 318,400 this time last year to 129,039 this year.

-- Pedestrian investigation arrests, down 62%, from 65,389 this time last year to 25,117 this year.

Perhaps the sharp decline in all categories of arrests by the cops is due in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. Or maybe the cops in this city are all participating in an undeclared job action, not wanting to risk doing anything aggressive that may expose them to an indictment from our cop-hating district attorney, the aforementioned Larry Krasner.

These are the kind of negative performance statistics that could get a manager fired. But at her press conference, Outlaw didn't seem worried about that; maybe she has a blank check from Mayor Kenney, who was all about the optics when he hand-picked Outlaw for the job of police commissioner.

Instead Outlaw continued to talk in generalities about how "mindsets" need to change, and how the "culture of violence" needs to be addressed, before the city can vanquish gun violence. 

"It's all laid out in the plan," Outlaw said, touting her 37-page crimefighting plan that's been panned by three former high-ranking police officials as a "B- freshman sociology paper," and "crime-fighting lite."

Attention citizens of Philadelphia -- we are screwed. We have a district attorney who's emptying the jails so that gun-toting criminals are free to shoot it out on the streets.

We have a police commissioner who's in way over her head, and instead of calling out the D.A., she'd rather try to "collaborate" with Krasner.

And we have a Progressive mayor who gutted the leadership of the Philadelphia Police Department, let 756 protesters out of jail, and has no problem allowing armies of anarchists to illegally occupy public property on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway for the past five months, in brazen violation of the law.

We also have a newspaper of record where, because of their Progressive blinders, nobody will call out the mayor, the D.A., or the police commissioner because they're all playing on the same team. 

It's a perfect storm of progressivism, and it's only going to get worse. More people will be killed, and more innocents will be caught in the crossfire.

We could hit 500 homicides before the year is out.

 

This morning, Outlaw insisted she wasn't "holding this press conference because it's the thing to." But in the next breath, she conceded that "there's an urgency" to do something when the bodies are piling up.

Like calling a press conference to drop some cliches, recite some meaningless statistics, and refer everybody to her freshman sociology paper. 

"A complete embarrassment," said one cop who watched Outlaw's performance on live TV. "She's not only lost the department, she's lost the city."