Krasner posts alibis, not gun convictions

A picture is worth 1,000 words, they say.

So is a graph. Look at this one:

Radical reformer Larry Krasner took over the Philadelphia district attorney’s office in January 2018, promising sweeping changes and restorative justice, whatever that means.

Change we got, and it’s not good. While arrests for gun violations have soared, convictions have plunged more than a quarter, from 69% in 2014 to 49% in 2019.

To be fair, Krasner never once promised to be a serious crime prosecutor. After all, he was a lifelong defense attorney who sued the police department dozens of times. Despite that, with the help of $1 million+ of George Soros money, he beat six other Democrats in the 2017 primary with 38% of the vote. 

He then cruised to win the low-turnout general election, largely because Democrats have a 7-1 registration edge over Republicans in Philadelphia, one of the most blue cities in America. It also has the highest poverty rate among big cities.

At his election victory party, some of Krasner’s supporters chanted, “Fuck the police.” He is their D.A.

So is it surprising that when questioned about his miserable record of convicting illegal guns, first, he blames the cops, and then, astonishingly, he downplays the effect of having illegal guns on the street?

The Inquirer reports cops are making gun arrests at three times the rate of 2017, but they must be asking themselves why they bother.

Krasner blames the cops by saying they are submitting weaker evidence than in the past. He blames the courts. He blames society.

In an unusually revealing statement to the Inquirer, Krasner said, “Yes, enforcement is a small part of the story. The big part of the story is not that. The big part of the story is this city’s chronic failure to invest in prevention the community is crying out for. That is where we have to go.”

If Krasner believes enforcement is a “small part” of the job, the problem that critics have warned about becomes evident: He just is not into the job of prosecution, which is the centrality of his job.

While the community is crying out for prevention, it is crying out even more loudly for the criminals shooting up their community, and their sons and daughters, to be put in jail.

Krasner lays part of the blame for falling convictions on witnesses who don’t show up in court to testify. That is true for many crimes, the “no snitching” motto, but not in gun crimes where the arresting officer is the witness.

Another reason for the lousy conviction rate is put forth by Krasner nemesis Ralph Cipriano, who writes in BigTrial.net that the attorneys hired by Krasner are inexperienced and share his woke ideas that no one poor and/or nonwhite should be held accountable for anything.  

In one stat teased out of the data, the team of four journalists reported that of 1,400 people arrested in 2018, 19% have been arrested since for another crime.

That is almost one in five, and that is so far. 

It certainly leans toward us worrying about people carrying illegal guns. This may be their opening act.

Inspector Derrick Wood, who heads the department’s Southwest Division, flatly states the thugs “know there’s no consequence for carrying a gun.”

I wish every gun-hating person in this city could read this message.

Instead of making demands for more and more laws on top of the laws we already have, I want to hear them scream for enforcement, even if that means slowing down Krasner’s ideas of emptying the jails.

Some people belong in jail.

You can’t keep complaining about the mountain of gun crime and then refuse to put the guard rails, or jail bars, in place.

“I don’t care what programs you come up with,” said Wood, who is African-American, “what kind of money you put into prevention — if people are not held accountable, then people are going to keep carrying guns.”

And Krasner will keep carrying excuses.