Tag: Crime

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Frankford Civic Meeting

KatieRose keenan of the Northeast Times reports on last weeks meeting:

The heated debate concerning an increasing number of buildings being converted into recovery houses and rooming houses was still in full stride at the meeting.
“Frankford needs to get back to one-family dwelling homes,” said Liz McCollum–Nazario, president of the Frankford Business and Professional Association. “Most of these houses in Frankford were created for single families. Frankford is filled with churches, rooming houses, recovery houses and transitional houses. All these rooming houses are being sucked into one area of Frankford, and it is not what a viable community needs.”
The issue of the number of buildings bring converted was brought up when a zoning application to convert a three-story house to a six-family dwelling was presented to the civic association’s board. Residents are already living in the building.
Pictures passed around of the house showed several windows boarded up.
“The appearance alone shows a lot. It’s detrimental to the neighborhood and quality of life. But we can’t make decisions in one night and on appearance alone,” said McCollum-Nazario.

Read the entire story here.

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Town Watch

Mike, at the West Frankford Town Watch, forwarded this email to me tonight.

This is important,
We need everyone’s help.  Read this story that just came out today in the Phila Inq.  I spoke with Anthony Murphy and there is a huge press conference happening today.  It does not look good.
The statement I am concerned with is “Speculation is rampant in city government that the real budget gap is far bigger than the $450 million announced last month, and the list of potential budget victims includes city ice rinks and pools, Town Watch programs, new police hires, and $2 million in extra funding for Fairmount Park”.
We need to save town watch, we need to prove how dangerous this would be if it is cut.  Call everyone you know in the Mayors Office, City Council, State Rep, ANYONE NOW!  FYI people, they just took away our NETS Unit, our Burglary Unit and now possibly our 5 squad.  Where does that leave us – bare ass naked with tons of criminals laughing at us.
Let us flood these offices with calls today so they have NO idea what hit them!
Angel

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_top_stories/20081008_Nutter_restores_weekend_library_hours_for_now.html

Sometimes I think we focus too much on the crime in Frankford and not enough on the positive things going on.  Town Watch is a combination of the two things.  You have people volunteering for the good of the community.

The city will be under significant budger constraints due to the ongoing financial crisis.  The mayor has to look at every area to save money.  That is understandable and expected.  But the reality is that in the next few weeks decisions will be made and priorities will be set.  The criteria will be to cut expendable programs.  What is expendable?  Well if we can cut it and nobody screams then it is expendable.

The people of Frankford have been docile for too long.  If they want to cut something, tell them to cut it out of Chestnut Hill or Old City.  Call you councilperson and call the mayor.  Give them your opinion.

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Shooting Saturday evening near Pratt and Oakland

I think this is number 9 for this year.  From Philly.com:

In the 1300 block of Pratt Street, an unidentified 18-year-old male was shot once in the back. He was taken to Frankford Hospital-Torresdale Campus, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 8:15 p.m.

From the Daily News today:

About 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the city’s Oxford Circle section, Marquel Colbert, 18, of Akron Street near Pratt, was shot multiple times on Pratt Street near Oakland, around the corner from his home, O’Brien said.

Colbert was being driven to a nearby hospital when police pulled the car over, based on radio information of a vehicle observed leaving the scene, Wilkins said.

Once officers realized the victim was inside the car, a rescue transfer was called and Colbert was taken to Frankford-Torresdale Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8:15 p.m., police said.

An arrest has yet to be made in the case, but Wilkins said the shooting followed an argument.

This is a link to the murder map for this year.  Marquel Colbert graduated from Northeast High this year.

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Letter of outrage

Mike, of the West Frankford Town Watch, forwarded this to me and I have to pass it on to you.  It is by Angel Cianci-Hartman, Pres., of the Tacony Town Watch.

FYI Everyone:
So What the Hell Are We Suppose to Do Now???
You will not believe what I just heard and I am beyond anger with this that the City of Philadelphia could leave us, the taxpayers of the Northeast high and dry literally when it comes to our protection from drug dealers.
As a Community Leader I am throwing everyone under the bus that I can fit right now.  I am sitting on 7 narcotics complaints with detailed information provided by neighbors who are just down right sick of the narcotics sales, usage, distribution and packaging in our neighborhood.  I literally get sick when I am on patrol see the activity on the weekends and these dealers, suppliers, deliverers look at us like “who are you?”  And let us not mention the recent hookers we just got arrested for drug distribution.   Well everyone, let me tell you who I am.
I am resident of Tacony and have been for 40 years and I am sick of your little beady eyes, your offensive clothing and attitude and I want you OUT NOW!  We are not tolerating it anymore.  We can continue to hide all of this, we can continue to brush it under the carpets like it has been done for years; but we cannot ignore the fact that ignorance is debilitating our neighborhood and we have not only the City of Philadelphia to thank for it but I have my Tacony neighbors as well.  Yes, you TOO are at fault for sitting in your high mortgage and high tax homes with your televisions on and window dressings down and not caring about anyone but your home.  Your excuses about the cops don’t work for me anymore, they are just as sick of what is going on people.  It is frustrating and I am tired of hearing “it is tough all over”. Well is that acceptable?  Should it be?  Not for me. If it is for you then you are truly a sad person.
As for the City of Philadelphia, I ask both Commissioner Ramsey and Mayor Not a Thing Nutter what the hell are you thinking by taking away our 15th Police District NETS Unit.  ARE YOU NUTS Butter Nutter???  You never even bothered to come to one of our town watch meetings to hear the residents, that is sad.  Commissioner Ramsey I have emailed you personally and gave you my heart felt sympathy for the passing of our brother and sister in blue.  I can understand you are hesitant and want to put 2 man cars out on the street, I can understand you are being cautions but what about us?  What about our quality of life?  I in no way want to diminish the fact that Police Officers, Fireman, Paramedics and our Soldiers are at the top of my list but come on Commish why in the world are you letting the criminals win?  You have just basically said, you kill our cops we pull back.  And don’t think that is not what they are saying right now.  Butter Nutter wants to know how to resolve this, well I can tell you NOT THIS WAY!!  Get more police, bring in the National Guard, train the town watch and allow Citizens Arrest.  There are some negotiable ways but to pull our cops – WELL NOT THE RIGHT ANSWER.
I worried about submitting this Letter to Editor, I am sure there are functioning druggies out there that actually read the paper and now they know what is up.  Well, let me advise all of you – THE WORD IS OUT ON THE STREET ALREADY I HAVE 8 FOOT POT PLANTS GROWING IN ALLEY’S!!!!  So my letter is NOT going to bring out anything that is not already known.   What is will bring out is the fact that we are no longer safe from the drugs anymore because we are no longer protected.  Do you realize that a uniformed officer is a site officer, he can only make an arrest on what he/she see’s????  We all know that when a drug deal goes down, it is down quick and swift.  So by the time our little call gets dispatched they are long gone and probably on their 15th corner by now.  Most of the drugs seen in our area are seen by neighbors, community organizers or town watch.  But we cannot spend our time following these individuals and hope to meet up with an officer who will arrest them because again, they never seen the transaction and they are not allowed to ask them to empty their pockets.  Does the City of Philadelphia Police Department want you to know this NOPE!  But I am going to tell you.  This is how pissed I am right now.  And if it wasn’t for community involvement and town watch the last 5 arrests made within a week, BY THE NETS UNIT would have never been done.  I think, no I know they are worth saving.
At the same time Commish, you took away our Burglary Unit but you want to return Mounted Police?  Again, what in the world are you thinking.  Yes, I want to see Mounted Police again but the Burglary Unit gets disbanded?  You have left us with our hands tied behind our backs.  And those guys are the best and our town watch loves working with them on the weekends.  We all know that by the time the crime happens, whether a priority or not we won’t get a cop fast because they aren’t dispatched fast enough because of dropped calls, calls left for last out to clean up, the call taker fails to provide the correct information to the dispatcher so it is prioritized incorrectly or we just don’t HAVE ANY DAMN COPS IN OUR NECK OF THE WOODS!   I must add that Captain Bachmayer is the best of the best, I call him my Captain America.   But I am sure you control the reigns and decide what happens here.  Captain Frank knows first hand what information my town watch group provides for the three neighborhoods we patrol.  I cannot think for one minute he would say, “we no longer need NETS”.  That is just plain nuts and I won’t believe it for a minute.
I have NO problem bringing all this bureaucracy to light, I have no problem holding community meetings, I have no problem pissing anyone off.  What I do have a problem with is lack of service and lack of appropriate service.  SO this is the plan, I will make sure EVERY community leader is aware of this throughout the City of Philadelphia, every town watch which has well over 17,000 members and every politician all the way up to our Governor.  I will be more than happy to circulate petitions to force you to put our NETS and Burglary Units back on the streets out of uniform, indefinitely.  Until this is done, I am not done!  So deal or no deal?
Put the NETS and Burglary Units back out on the street and I encourage EVERY one who is reading this today to get involved.   I will be more than happy to supply the petitions.  You have no idea people how serious this is.  They will try to tell you it is better this way.  Take it from someone who knows and someone who has done this since she was 13.  It is not a bright idea, don’t let it be too late and we cannot change it.  If I do not hear that anything has been changed within a week of the distribution of the NE Times I will provide everyone with information on how to obtain the petitions from me.
One Pissed off Community Leader
Angel Cianci-Hartman
Pres., Tacony Town Watch, Inc
Founder, Holmesburg/Mayfair TW
15th PD/NE Division
Feel free to leave your comments.  Mayor Nutter, any comment?
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EveryBlock

EveryBlock is a news feed that targets specific cities and areas within cities.  They include us in their data and I have been reading the feed for usdful information of all sorts.  This is a link to the Philadelphia page.  You can then focus on a neighborhood, zip code, police patrol district, council district or a few other ways to filter the data.

The crime reports are always current and easier to lookup than on the PPD site.  Also the restaurant inspection reports are always interesting.  They also provide some information on the doings of City Council.  If you want to see what your Council Rep has been up to, check here.

Take a look.