Guest essay: Love letter to Philly from a criminal

By Patty-Pat Kozlowski

I ride around Philadelphia with no car insurance. I have fake registration stickers and the police can’t pull me over for an expired inspection. You can’t pull me over if you smell pot coming from my car. And even if I match a description of a perp, there’s no way in hell you can stop and frisk me.

If I steal your identity, rob you, or get caught with marijuana with intent to deliver, I don’t have to make cash bail. I can steal your kid’s bike, punch your mother and take her pocketbook on the El, and rob the 7-Eleven, and I still won’t get a single night in jail.

I can walk into Target, Walgreens or any gas station and take whatever I want. I can load up my backpack and pockets, because any theft under $500 isn’t going to be prosecuted in Philadelphia. That’s why Wawa is leaving the city — we’re stealing too much from them. But who can resist free Tastykakes and M&M’s? Did you see what we did at Tyson and the Boulevard at that Wawa? Not one arrest.

I went apeshit in May of 2020. I destroyed Walnut Street’s shopping district in Center City. We pulled a white baby grand piano out of Jacob’s Music and set it on fire. We used bricks of dynamite to blow up as many ATMs as we could.

I looted Foot Locker of every hightop Nike and all the Adidas tracksuits and Puma handbags. I threw a trash can into the windows of the AT&T store and walked out with dozens of iPhones I then sold on Facebook Marketplace. We looted H&M, Urban Outfitters, and Apple. We broke into the Wells Fargo on Broad Street and threw all the bank records into the road. There weren’t any shoes left at Sneaker Villa. I took all the clothes from The Gap and Old Navy. My whole family got laptops and xboxes that week.

I hopped over the SEPTA turnstile with hundreds of others and took the EL to K&A, where we attacked the Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Forman Mills, Foot Locker and Five Below in Port Richmond. We ordered Ubers to pick us up because of all the TVs we had. Some of us even brought U-Haul trucks. How else were we going to take those washers and dryers from Lowe’s?

We busted the windows of a couple corner store pharmacies to get OxyCodone, too. The Philadelphia police were ordered to “stand down” and not touch us. They were told by the mayor and police commissioner to let us “peaceful protestors” rob, loot and set afire to whatever we wanted, all in the name of social justice. They weren’t allowed to touch us.

Everything was decriminalized. Everything. We shut down this city. The mayor enforced a curfew for law-abiding citizens and let us criminals go shopping! We spray painted slurs on police stations and threw bottles of piss at officers. We smashed police windshields and spit lougers in their face. They knew they couldn’t touch us. The mayor said so.

It doesn’t matter if I have priors. This district attorney ain’t holding anybody. I wasn’t jailed or held for court or given low/no bail. I was released because I pinky swore I’d show up for my court case.

I raped a woman in the Macy’s bathroom.

I shot and killed a 7-year-old boy who was playing on his porch in West Philly.

I executed four people in a West Philadelphia basement — all while I was on probation.

I killed Corporal James O’Connor as he served an arrest warrant to my drug trap house on Bridge Street. I should’ve been locked up for a prior murder conviction, but this is Krasner’s Philadelphia and I was out free, terrorizing the residents who lived near Bridge and Pratt.

I robbed a guy walking his dog near 22nd and Arch. Even though he gave me his wallet and phone, I still shot him in the chest, leaving him to die with his dog whimpering over his body.

And did you see what we did at Roxborough High recently? That was us, all on probation or out on free bail.

The carjackings — oh, the carjackings in Philadelphia are off the charts! We had 400 last year, but already this year we are over 1,000! We don’t ever have to buy a new car again.

Do you think we’re going to obey your orders? A piece of paper? A fine? A threat of more jail time? Do you actually think we’re going to listen to the law of the land?

 It isn’t just in the bad neighborhoods, either. We’re moving into the driveways of Northeast Philadelphia, and the gas stations, too. Did you see the guy we got in Germantown on Wissahickon Avenue? About five of us jumped out of a van with guns and took his Chrysler. We should have robbed the store too, but maybe next time. Under $500 and we’ll be free and clear.

Then we got a father and son in the Tacony Dunkin Donuts. And did you see that young buck ride up on a bike at six in the morning and pull a gun on a mom and daughter in a NE Philly cul-de-sac? That was a pure masterpiece right there — in their own driveway. The daughter dropped her coffee cup and ran!

Sometimes, carjackings go wrong. We shot a 15-year-old kid in Mayfair. He was carrying a case of water into his house, but we thought he had car keys. Then we gunned down that guy who was in his mother’s driveway up in Rhawnhurst so we could take his Rav 4.

So why, Mayor Kenney, do you think signing an executive order would stop us from carrying our guns onto playgrounds and rec centers? The bad guys don’t listen to you. Just look at your city and what we’ve done to it.

Do you think we’re going to obey your orders? A piece of paper? A fine? A threat of more jail time? Do you actually think we’re going to listen to the law of the land?

Look at your city: An inexperienced and inept police commissioner that cannot command, operate or engage a police force that has lost all respect for her. A cowardly City Council and state legislature that refuse to call out the criminals that turned Philly into a nightmare for fear of being canceled, or even worse, labeled pro-law enforcement. A spiteful and police-hating district attorney that purposefully drops charges due to “technicalities” to even the score in his social justice genocide of law-abiding citizens.

And a mayor who lost control of the city and doesn’t want to be the mayor anymore.

Ain’t nothing gonna stop us.

This is reprinted from Broad & Liberty.