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| More than 100 neighbors turned out in the southwest Philadelphia neighborhood for a nonviolence rally where gunfire recently killed a mother of four and injured three others. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke) |
Congratulations Philly! You passed quite a milestone this weekend. Just in time for April Fool’s Day, police reported four more murders, bringing the total to 104 so far this year. Really though, the rampant violence is no laughing matter.
Last year at this time Philadelphia had endured 20 fewer homicides. Still, most Philadelphians hoped the epidemic had pinnacled last year with 406 deaths (a nine-year high up from 380 in 2005, 330 in 2004). Now, it actually looks like the City of Brotherly Love is headed for a new grisly record.
Meanwhile, the city’s leaders pontificate and the police seem impotent to silence the gunshots wreaking havoc on Philly’s streets. But they aren’t too toothless to silence another menace–Anthony Riley. Friday’s Philadelphia Daily News reported that Riley, a street performer and erstwhile American Idol hopeful, was arrested for disorderly conduct.
According to the Daily News Riley was singing in Rittenhouse Square around 9 pm when Officer Greg Wilkinson arrived and with about as much tact as President Bush at a G-8 summit ordered him to stop singing:
When asked, “Isn’t this America?” the officer allegedly replied, according to witnesses, “No. This is Afghanistan.”So Riley kept singing.
And when Wilkinson again threatened to arrest him, Riley held out his wrists.
Wilkinson slapped handcuffs on them and then called for backup.
While Wilkinson’s behavior is more likely the case of one bad apple in a basket of otherwise just and conscientious officers, it still creates quite a problem both for Philly’s finest and the citizens they’re sworn to protect. With the city on pace for another year atop America’s murder rate rankings, there is already a crisis of confidence. Behavior like Officer Wilkinson’s doesn’t help assuage the concerns of a city watching it’s youth being ravaged by gunfire while its police force seems powerless to stop it.
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April 3rd, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security.
Those who would sacrifice 104 people for the jailing of street performer deserve neither people nor street performers.
Those who would sacrifice Blogsbe for anything (a fertile harvest, etc.) deserve neither blogsbe nor anything.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
When will the city of Philadelphia learn that in times of crisis, there is only one place to turn: the teachings of fair Blogsbe. You sir, walk among mortals, but surely you are not one of us.