Former Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter criticized current District Attorney Larry Krasner’s recent remarks about whether Philadelphia is experiencing a crime crisis, by saying that those were ‘some of the worst, most ignorant, and most insulting comments he has ever heard spoken by an elected official.
Krasner told reporters: “We don’t have a crisis of lawlessness, we don’t have a crisis of crime, we don’t have a crisis of violence.”
Nutter said: “It takes a certain audacity of ignorance and white privilege to say that right now. As of Monday night, 521 people***, souls, spirits have been vanquished, eliminated, murdered in our City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection, the most since 1960. I have to wonder what kind of messed up world of white wokeness Krasner is living in to have so little regard for human lives lost, many of them Black and brown, while he advances his own national profile as a progressive district attorney.”
He believes that Krasner should apologize to the families of victims, saying that “he has ignored the pain of the living and insulted the memory of the dead.”
The former mayor also said that Krasner should use his words to send a message to the shooters, murderers, and criminals by committing to prosecuting them, suggesting he not coddle or make excuses, reduce or drop charges. He should commit to locking them up for carrying illegal weapons or shooting people.
And if Krasner does not have the fortitude to do it, then Nutter says he should resign and let someone else do it, who is not trying to sell people on the false choice of having either public safety or police reform, adding that people in Philly “can have — and deserve — both.”
In 2013, Philadelphia experienced the lowest number of homicides since 1968, and reduced the prison population by about 2,000 people, while also reducing the number of police officer-involved shootings.
“But under Krasner’s anti-police narrative, most of that work has been reversed,” according to Nutter.
Meanwhile, Krasner says tourists shouldn’t be scared to visit Philadelphia while an older man was attacked in broad daylight in a bathroom.
*** UPDATE: this number has changed since Nutter’s op-ed. Follow Philadelphia’s crime rates at this link.