Paul Davis: Biden lets Philly murderer Kaboni Savage off of death row
President Biden’s parting gift to America was to pardon or commute the sentences of scores of violent criminals. One of the criminals whose death sentence was commuted to life in prison was Kaboni Savage, a major Philadelphia drug dealer who ordered multiple murders, including the murder of four children.
Retaliating against a former criminal associate-turned FBI witness, Kaboni Savage ordered from his prison cell the firebombing of the witness’s home in 2004. Killed in the fire were the witness’s mother and her fifteen-month-old child, as well as three other children aged ten, twelve, and fifteen.
The FBI later caught Kaboni Savage on tape in his prison cell laughing and suggesting, “They should stop off and get him some barbecue sauce and pour it on them burnt bitches.”
A jury sentenced Savage to thirteen death sentences. But President Biden overturned the jury’s decision and commuted this mass murderer’s death sentence to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
I reached out to veteran crime reporter George Anastasia, the author of several true crime books about the Philadelphia-South Jersey Cosa Nostra organized crime family, including “Blood and Honor,” which the late Jimmy Breslin called the best organized crime book ever written, and “The Goodfella Tapes,” in which he quoted a FBI recording of a elder mob guy who explained to a potential mob litigant “that goodfellas don’t sue goodfellas. Goodfellas kill goodfellas.”
George Anastasia covered the Kaboni Savage case as a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, so I asked him what he thought of Kaboni Savage.
“He was a monster,” Anastasia replied. “He was a very despicable individual. The firebombing of that house underscored all that and afterwards the feds bugged his cell, and he was joking about it. That’s horrible.
“Here’s the thing; he was pardoned but all that means is he’s going to spend the rest of his life in prison, and you could argue that’s a fitting punishment. He’s not coming home. He is going to spend the rest of his life in horrible confinement. He’s going to be caged up like an animal and that’s exactly what he was, the way he comported himself.”
True. But in my view, I said to George Anastasia, the death penalty is justified for criminals who commit heinous crimes, such as the ones Savage was convicted of. So I think he should have been executed.
“He got commuted to life without parole,” Anastasia pointed out. “It’s not like he’s walking out the door. Should we have a death sentence? That’s a legitimate argument. But what’s your definition of a heinous crime and what’s mine?
“The jury decided Savage’s crimes were heinous and they sentenced him with the death penalty,” I said. “President Biden overturned the jury’s verdict.”
“That’s the way the system is set up. The system also allows for the commutation of sentences,” Anastasia said. “Here is a horrible individual, probably more violent and more despicable than any mob boss I ever wrote about. One of his famous sayings apparently was ‘no witness, no crime.’”
I asked Anastasia if Savage will be placed in a federal prison’s general population, or will he end his days in a “supermax” prison, locked down 23 hours a day alongside the cells of cartel drug lords and terrorists.
“The last time I looked he was in Florence, Colorado, which is a supermax. It’s a grim existence.”
As a reporter, Anastasia covered Kaboni Savage’s trial and provided extensive and excellent coverage of the murderer, so I asked him what he was like in court.
“He appeared to be a fairly intelligent guy and almost low-key. Savage was a sociopath. There was a contrast between who he was being portrayed as opposed to who was sitting at the table. And then they started playing those horrific tapes. You can’t get around those tapes. He buried himself.”
Who was Kaboni Savage and what crimes did he commit?
“Kaboni Savage was a North Philly boxer and then a drug dealer. He was very heavily involved in the drug trade, and he had his own organization. One of the intriguing things about the drug underworld of Philadelphia is that it was never monolithic. It’s not like the mob. You have different neighborhoods and different organizations. He rose up in that particular area of North Philadelphia and he had an organization around him, and they were involved in drug dealing. He was a terribly violent individual.
“One of the first stories I wrote was about Tybius Flowers, who was going to be a witness against him. Kaboni Savage had him killed, again from prison. He put a hit out on him and that case disappeared. That’s where “no witness, no crime” came from. He walked out of jail,” Anastasia explained.
“The last couple of years I was at the Inquirer, I spent more time writing about the drug underworld than the traditional underworld. If you look at it, those guys had more of a negative impact on the city of Philadelphia than the mob ever did. They literally destroyed neighborhoods, they killed one another, and anybody who got caught in the crossfire. They had no concern for human life. Kaboni Savage epitomized all of that.
“When he was on the top of his game it was a horrible, horrible existence for a lot of people.”
I support the death penalty for heinous crimes, but as Anastasia points out, an argument can be made that in a supermax cell for the rest of your life with restricted access to the outside and no hope of release is a more fitting punishment than a swift execution.
Paul Davis, a Philadelphia writer and frequent contributor to Broad + Liberty, also contributes to Counterterrorism magazine and writes the “On Crime” column for the Washington Times. He can be reached at pauldavisoncrime.com.
Pretty awkward criticism coming from the folks who pardoned not one but HUNDREDS of felons on day one in power, including the most violent thugs who were caught on video in broad daylight savagely beating POLICE officers skulls in with fire extinguishers, inducing heart attacks in other police officers with stun guns, and dragging still others face first down stair cases. Despite the ridiculous “back the blue” virtue signalling, we get their message loud and clear that it’s open season on police as long as you’re waving a maga flag while you assault them. We all know Kaboni Savage would be given a full pardon and a slot on fox news if he had been wearing a maga flag and pledged allegiance to Dear Leader while committing his crimes.
To be specific;
1500 were pardoned
600 of them assaulted or interfered with police officers
140 used weapons against police officers including clubs, stun guns, and pepper spray/mace
Trump also pardoned two police officers. One was convinced of 2nd-degree murder because he engaged in an unauthorized pursuit. The other police officer was his supervisor who covered it up.
Kaboni Savage will never leave prison alive. He is confined to a 7×12 concrete cell 23 hours a day and the exercise area is not much bigger. He has limited contact with guards and has to be in leg irons and handcuffs outside of his cell. Everything he does is monitored.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/25/us/dzhokhar-tsarnaev-supermax-prison/index.html
Your description of the violence is a bold faced debunked lie. None of that happened. 5 people died. 1 cop from suffering 2 strokes later after “possibly” being sprayed by pepper or bear spray, but no proof of that – in fact the medical examiner officially ruled it natural causes. The other 4 were Trump supporters – 3 who had ongoing health issues or drug use history, and one, an Air Force veteran who was murdered by a lackey DEI capitol policeman who previously had left a loaded firearm in a public restroom in the Capitol. You TDS INFECTED LOSERS trying to hold on to your lies are pathetic. Why did serial liar Schiff and the J6 committee get pre-emptive pardons? Because they’re guilty of inciting a disaster and lying about the whole event. 29 undercover agitators from the FBI were there. Pelosi left those Capitol police vulnerable and undstaffed ON PURPOSE The American electorate saw right through it and handed Trump a landslide victory over the destructive imbeciles that were installed back in 2020.
“an Air Force veteran who was murdered by a lackey DEI capitol policeman” – A mob broke through a wire-reinforced window, that protected a high-security zone. Ashli Babbitt forced her way through the window, entered the high-security area, and she was repeatedly warned by police to turn back. She should have complied.
Please make sure to wipe the spit off the screen of your computer.
There was no reason for that lackey to discharge his firearm. Dozens of surrounding police assessed that situation correctly. Quickdraw Mc Loser panicked. This will be revisited and he’ll be fired and/or locked up, and Babbitt’s family will be paid. Sounds like you’re used to wiping your screen off. I don’t scream while I type. Kaboni Savage should be fed into a tree chipper. Biden and whoever’s arm is is up the back of his jacket operating his mouth are leftist morons.
“There was no reason for that lackey to discharge his firearm.” – She refused to follow a lawful order from a police officer. MAGA Republicans talk about how they support the police and law and order. Until it’s inconvenient for them.
Americans saw what happened on January 6th when Trump and his associates incited a mob, which forced its way past two manned police barricades, breaking down the doors and windows of the Capital Building, forcing their way into Congressional offices and Congress. Which was recorded on cell phones of insurrectionists, security cameras, and the media.
Believe what you want, facts have shown you are wrong.
I thought pro-lifers would be relieved to hear that these individuals are no longer on death row.
I was more than fair in offering George Anastasia’s view against the death penalty.
For the record, I also don’t approve of President Trump’s pardons of the January 6th yahoos.
And pro-life people are for saving the life of innocent lives.
Kaboni Savage and the other criminals (including a radical who murdered two FBI agents) are hardly innocent. They are murders.
“Kaboni Savage and the other criminals (including a radical who murdered two FBI agents) are hardly innocent. They are murders.” – Where did anyone say Mr. Savage is innocent? The death penalty has proven to be ineffective in preventing crime and is far more expensive than keeping someone in prison for the rest of their life.
Life in prison in “supermax” prison? Until the next Biden type decides to grant clemency for “humanitarian reasons.” All that is really needed is for an activist group to be organized and that ceaselessly agitates for release for “humanitarian reasons,’ such as sickness and/or old age. Didn’t know that BLM was a MAGA organization, BTW, I thought term “pro-life” had to do with full term and post partem abortions and not crime and punishment.
The Air force veteran being discussed here was a middle-aged woman who was unarmed. The policeman in question shot her in the face with no warning and without any sign of her causing great bodily harm. Such bravery defending a Democratic talking point. The justification for the January 6th committee is disgusting, it is the kind of justification for the creation of the Star Chamber, along with Acts of Attainder in 17th century England. The conditions under which some of the mobs were held qualifies as bad treatment used to get revenge and teach a lesson of compliance and control. You can bet that if it were a Republican Committee, and the mob Democrats, the yells of outrage would still be reverberating throughout Washington. The Jan 6th event wasn’t even a good riot much less an “insurrection.” If you want to see a really good insurrection, check out the storming of the Bastille and the subsequent Reign of Terror. Closer in time, Try the October Russian Revolution and the subsequent “permanent revolution” with Joseph Stalin in charge.
“The policeman in question shot her in the face with no warning and without any sign of her causing great bodily harm.” —-“Despite multiple warnings not to proceed, Babbitt attempted to climb through a shattered window beside a barricaded door into the Speaker’s Lobby and was thwarted when she was shot in her left anterior shoulder by a United States Capitol Police (USCP) officer.”
“The Air Force veteran being discussed here was a middle-aged woman who was unarmed.” – If you are a middle-aged woman, a veteran, and the police repeatedly warn you not to enter a barricaded security area where a violent mob has broken through a wire-reinforced window. You do not need to obey the police. If she had complied with police instructions she would still be alive.
Your TDS infected pea-sized brain still can’t comprehend that there was ZERO need to shoot. Stop with the justification of this. At least 10 cops on the other side of that door could have easily subdued and taken her into custody. The facts and the truth have NOT come out about this since the kangaroo court proceedings of the J6 committee were a whitewash. If your theory of law enforcement were true, then the protestors that cornered Senators in the elevators at the Kavanaugh hearing should have been machine gunned.
There were ten cops on the other side of the door. There was also a violent mob behind her that had broken through two police barricades, broken through the doors of the Capital Building, and assaulted 108 police officers. They were trying to enter an area where members of Congress were being protected. Ashli Babbitt failed to follow the orders of a police officer, she should have complied.
Unless of course, you are a ANTIFA or other radical rioter, then violent civil disobedience is perfectly acceptable, based on the performance art displayed during those riots, urging the killing of policemen gives you “street cred,” and is well within today’s leftist acceptable behaviour. I am willing to believe that you would not be issuing a “should have complied” to the ANTIFA rioters for getting pushback.