A journalist and advocate who rose from homelessness and addiction to serve as a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable was shot and killed at his home early Monday, police said.
Josh Kruger, 39, was shot seven times at about 1:30 a.m. and collapsed in the street after seeking help, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Police believe the door to his Point Breeze home was unlocked or the shooter knew how to get in, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. No arrests have been made and no weapons have been recovered, they said.
Authorities haven’t spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding the killing.
Crime is pretty bad in Philadelphia, certainly not a place I would want to live. Though it does beat out St. Louis and Baltimore 3x over in murder rates.
He was shot 7 times. I’d bet this was personal, or that he was specifically targeted.
To be clear, I know nothing other than what I just read in the article, but someone had to really want him dead to shoot him seven times, and no one else i.e. not a mass shooting.
When investigating a crime, and there is overkill like this, it usually points to a personal motive.
I bet when they find the guy he will claim skydaddy told him to do it.
Yep, this doesn’t look like a robbery.
It takes a weekend to learn how to use lock picks to open a door in seconds. I know the police carefully frame it as “or knew how to gain entry”, but it’s not as high a bar as they make it sound.
Ahh, I see I’m not the only fan of the lockpicking lawyer.
Rural crime is pretty bad too. I’ve met literally like one person who was randomly attacked on the streets in Philly. The vast majority of crime is people killing people they know.
Philadelphia has over 3x the homicide rate as the country as a whole. Crime is quite bad in Philly.
TIL homicide is the only crime that exists
Even if we’re talking about violent crime (which, itself is a minority of crime), homicide doesn’t even make up a majority or plurality
It’s a pretty solid metric to start with as it is the hardest to fudge. Homicides will be discovered. Other crimes can easily fly under the radar if nobody reports them.
Can agree. Me and 4 of my friends all had our cars broken into in Houston.
None of us reported it because we felt like there would be no point.
Per capita. Red states are far worse when you look at an actual relevant statistic. Just Google it. Someone else in this thread even linked to the map.
Correct. Philly has over 5x the per-capita homicide rate as the nation as a whole. The city has a high crime rate.
Per-capita homicide rates:
US Average: 6.5
Philadelphia: 32.74
Bad faith, and your links prove it. Comparing apples to oranges and manipulating data to suit yourself. Your first link goes to the wiki for “crime in the United States.”
Look at any (legitimate) source that breaks down the top most violent cities in the US, and see where Philly is on that list. Here’s one (based on FBI crime statistics): https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-city-rankings/most-violent-cities-in-america
Hmmm that’s weird, I don’t see Philadelphia at all… Baltimore is the only city I see on there that’s in the Northeast. Huh.
Most of the cities in the top 20 are southern or Midwestern cities. Red cities and/or cities in red states.
My 2nd link is a Wikipedia list of cities by homicide rate, and Philadelphia is on it with a homicide rate 32.74. Did you even click the link?
As I said earlier, Philadelphia has over 5x the homicide rate as the US as a whole (a rate of 6.5). Philadelphia has a high crime rate.
Do you know what “per capita” means? And no, it’s not just a fancy word to make liberals’ statistics look good (yes, I’ve argued with someone who said that).
Why don’t you take a good honest look at a map of the homicide rate per capita and learn something.
If one were to assume you are actually correct about that number (which I don’t, I don’t buy it)… Over 3x the homicide, and over 1000x the people on average. Are you capable of understanding that basic math, or…?
https://ibb.co/ccBKjrd
This Wikipedia article visually shows the per capita homicide rate and it’s not anywhere near as extreme as the other dude implied. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate
It might not have been malicious though, because I see a lot of professional outlets talk about total numbers when per capita is more relevant.
Hmmm, sure is interesting where the hot spots on that map are… curious.
A large portion of it seems to be explainable by the usual suspect: poverty.
This is a similar map for poverty.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2018/comm/acs-5yr-poverty-all-counties.html
We wouldn’t want ya.
So, what causes crime to rise? What solutions do you offer?
More people means more crime. On the aggregate.
This person is ignoring the fact that per capita statistics are what’s relevant here. And those are very clear. People like this just pretend they don’t exist because it literally shows the opposite is true. That red, conservative, rural areas have far more violent crime and murder per capita.
Reduce wealth and income inequality somehow. There’s been no research on UBI reducing crime afaik and honestly I don’t know that it would work for that. People need to feel like they are doing valuable work.
Cops on foot patrol in neighborhoods NOT to punish anyone but literally just to get to know the community and make eye contact.
Access to training and education to promote moving into higher income and responsibility jobs.
Mental health support (although people won’t want help as long as they are Fighting against the system)
There need to be healthy, organic, non-crime non-drug non-gang groups for people to be part of. I don’t know what is are into these days. Basketball? Dancing on Tiktok? Anything social.
That’s not the whole story. Singapore is one of the safest countries in the world, and it has one of the highest gini coefficients (i.e. largest income inequality) in the world.
IIRC Singapore has a very specific and controlling demographic control system? Like regions have to have demographic breakdowns that approximate the national numbers or something?
There are a bunch of social engineering things you can do to reduce crime. But good luck trying to tell Americans where they can and can’t move. Probably easier to just tax the super rich.
You can also get executed for having weed.
I’m not sure what your point is.
Is a place truly safe if you can be executed for having weed?
If you believe the data, apparently. I’m guessing you don’t believe the data. I’m not for even scolding people for possessing or using any drugs, personally, but this doesn’t seem to be necessarily at odds with safety.
Yeah, I grew up in South Jersey, about an hour SE and there’s at least one news story about a murder that happened somewhere in Philly each night. Sometimes multiple separate shootings. Most of Philly is a shit hole.
Asshats like you certainly don’t help the Lou be better, you’re welcome to stay away forever while we enjoy our T-ravs
How dare one not want to live somewhere because of… checks statement… high crime rates.
The crime rates are only the downtown city of St. Louis which due to STL’s unique political city/county split makes it an inaccurate comparison to every other city in the nation. Combine our county of city of St. Louis and St. Louis county together, and we’re not as bad as everyone makes us out to be. Every other city gets to use their full city metro area, both they love using St. Louis as a boogeyman because we’re split differently and they can count only the city downtown area for crime
Atlanta doesn’t. The city limits only include about 1/10 the population of the metro area.
I don’t mean to diminish your point, but rather just to mention that we’ve got some of the same sorts of statistical anomalies, too.
Says who? I checked the FBI crime statistics. and they have rows for the STL MSA for 2016, 2017, and 2018, though not in the latest one from 2019, probably because they didn’t report the numbers to the FBI.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s