I ride around Philadelphia with no car insurance. I have fake registration stickers and the police can’t pull me over for an expired inspection. You can’t pull me over if you smell pot coming from my car. And even if I match a description of a perp, there’s no way in hell you can stop and frisk me.
If I steal your identity, rob you, or get caught with marijuana with intent to deliver, I don’t have to make cash bail. I can steal your kid’s bike, punch your mother and take her pocketbook on the El, and rob the 7-Eleven, and I still won’t get a single night in jail.
I can walk into Target, Walgreens or any gas station and take whatever I want. I can load up my backpack and pockets, because any theft under $500 isn’t going to be prosecuted in Philadelphia. That’s why Wawa is leaving the city — we’re stealing too much from them. But who can resist free Tastykakes and M&M’s? Did you see what we did at Tyson and the Boulevard at that Wawa? Not one arrest.
READ MORE — Paul Davis: Mayor Kenney’s latest order is a futile and stupid gesture
I went apeshit in May of 2020. I destroyed Walnut Street’s shopping district in Center City. We pulled a white baby grand piano out of Jacob’s Music and set it on fire. We used bricks of dynamite to blow up as many ATMs as we could.
I looted Foot Locker of every hightop Nike and all the Adidas tracksuits and Puma handbags. I threw a trash can into the windows of the AT&T store and walked out with dozens of iPhones I then sold on Facebook Marketplace. We looted H&M, Urban Outfitters, and Apple. We broke into the Wells Fargo on Broad Street and threw all the bank records into the road. There weren’t any shoes left at Sneaker Villa. I took all the clothes from The Gap and Old Navy. My whole family got laptops and xboxes that week.
I hopped over the SEPTA turnstile with hundreds of others and took the EL to K&A, where we attacked the Walmart, Target, Home Depot, Forman Mills, Foot Locker and Five Below in Port Richmond. We ordered Ubers to pick us up because of all the TVs we had. Some of us even brought U-Haul trucks. How else were we going to take those washers and dryers from Lowe’s?
We busted the windows of a couple corner store pharmacies to get OxyCodone, too. The Philadelphia Police were ordered to “stand down” and not touch us. They were told by the Mayor and Police Commissioner to let us “peaceful protestors” rob, loot and set afire to whatever we wanted, all in the name of social justice. They weren’t allowed to touch us.
Everything was decriminalized. Everything. We shut down this city. The Mayor enforced a curfew for law-abiding citizens and let us criminals go shopping! We spray painted slurs on police stations and threw bottles of piss at officers. We smashed police windshields and spit lougers in their face. They knew they couldn’t touch us. The Mayor said so.
It doesn’t matter if I have priors. This District Attorney ain’t holding anybody. I wasn’t jailed or held for court or given low/no bail. I was released because I pinky swore I’d show up for my court case.
I raped a woman in the Macy’s Bathroom.
I shot and killed a seven year old boy who was playing on his porch in West Philly.
I executed four people in a West Philadelphia basement — all while I was on probation.
I killed Corporal James O’Connor as he served an arrest warrant to my drug trap house on Bridge Street. I should’ve been locked up for a prior murder conviction, but this is Krasner’s Philadelphia and I was out free, terrorizing the residents who lived near Bridge and Pratt.
I robbed a guy walking his dog near 22nd and Arch. Even though he gave me his wallet and phone, I still shot him in the chest, leaving him to die with his dog whimpering over his body.
And did you see what we did at Roxborough High recently? That was us, all on probation or out on free bail.
The carjackings — oh, the carjackings in Philadelphia are off the charts! We had 400 last year, but already this year we are over 1,000! We don’t ever have to buy a new car again.
Do you think we’re going to obey your orders? A piece of paper? A fine? A threat of more jail time? Do you actually think we’re going to listen to the law of the land?
It isn’t just in the bad neighborhoods, either. We’re moving into the driveways of Northeast Philadelphia, and the gas stations, too. Did you see the guy we got in Germantown on Wissahickon Avenue? About five of us jumped out of a van with guns and took his Chrysler. We should have robbed the store too, but maybe next time. Under $500 and we’ll be free and clear.
Then we got a father and son in the Tacony Dunkin Donuts. And did you see that young buck ride up on a bike at six in the morning and pull a gun on a mom and daughter in a NE Philly cul-de-sac? That was a pure masterpiece right there — in their own driveway. The daughter dropped her coffee cup and ran!
Sometimes, carjackings go wrong. We shot a 15 year old kid in Mayfair. He was carrying a case of water into his house, but we thought he had car keys. Then we gunned down that guy who was in his mother’s driveway up in Rhawnhurst so we could take his Rav 4.
So why, Mayor Kenney, do you think signing an executive order would stop us from carrying our guns onto playgrounds and rec centers? The bad guys don’t listen to you. Just look at your city and what we’ve done to it.
Do you think we’re going to obey your orders? A piece of paper? A fine? A threat of more jail time? Do you actually think we’re going to listen to the law of the land?
Look at your city: An inexperienced and inept Police Commissioner that cannot command, operate or engage a police force that has lost all respect for her. A cowardly City Council and State Legislature that refuse to call out the criminals that turned Philly into a nightmare for fear of being canceled, or even worse, labeled pro-law enforcement. A spiteful and police-hating District Attorney that purposefully drops charges due to “technicalities” to even the score in his social justice genocide of law-abiding citizens.
And a Mayor who lost control of the city and doesn’t want to be the mayor anymore.
Ain’t nothing gonna stop us.
Patty-Pat Kozlowski lives and writes in the River Wards. yopattypat@gmail.com.
The only thing missing in this letter is the pledge to vote for Fetterman as many times as you can mail an absentee ballot.
Oh my God. This op-ed is simply profound. It says it all. Point by point.
Wow! Powerful stuff. We are in a sad state here in Philadelphia. I pray things get better very soon and that those in power do what is best for citizens rather than what is best for their reelection chances.
My city has been ruined. Really sucks to call this place home anymore.
When I moved to Bella Vista my neighbors had baseball bats next to their front doors. Sadly, 50 years later it seems a good idea to have one close by .
A baseball bat won’t do anything. You need a 9mm handgun near your front door, that you’ve purchased legally and trained to use effectively, loaded and ready.
A Brilliant Essay on Street Crime that is the Foundation for the Hundreds of Billions that continue to be extorted weekly by the Crime Masters.
You omitted the FBI Collaborators who conspire and commit the Crimes.
Then there is the “crime reporter” who loves to report Govt. Press Releases.
Keep voting democrat and don’t ever expect it to get any better. Philadelphia, you voted for this!
My comment is nothing you haven’t heard.. These are stories to what has happened. And what is society going to about it but complain. Folks turn they heads only when it happens to them. Oh they want justice. Either you on the ship or abandoned the ship. For what I noticed folks are just drowning and not swimming.. Who’s going to the Captains!!!
This is one of the best pieces of prose on the terrible siutation of crime in Philly I have ever read in a local paper. It surpasses the garble at the “Inky”. We can only hope that more come forward and begin to agitate for change at Broad and Market Streets and now, by any means necessary. Can we wait for change at the ballot box or take matters into our own hands?
We left Philly in 2020, right before the whole country was shut down. It is with great sorrow that I say we knew this was coming. I just never imago it would be that bad. My heart aches bec it’s happening all over the country.
This is so sad but true. I don’t understand how the people that voted Krasner in again is okay with any of this. I was born and raised in South Philly. Leaving Philly was never a thought for me, I was always proud to say where I was from. Not any more. People used to have good things to say about Philly. Now their first response is ‘aren’t you scared to live there with all the crimes happening’. Yes, I am scared. I hope the clown trio of Kenney, Krasner and Outlaw burn in hell for what they have done to Philly.
Patty – Pat is always right on target !!!
Only thing missing is the fact that the citizens of Philadrllhia will continue to pull the straight Democratic ticket come November 8th 😡
Please come to my neighborhood in PA, if you can find it. You will meet the most polite people. But bring bags, lots of bags. Not for the stuff you think you are going to steal but for your bodies…..all of them. Civil war battlefield will have seen less blood. We are good shots and you won’t see it coming. Some of you might not get sent back to your mommas but instead get used as bait.
ALL TRUE !!! The real problem is this letter will fall on deaf ears. People will still vote demoRAT and you get the same results, if not worse. We as a city need to do better. Philadelphia is no longer the great city it once was. VOTE for CHANGE. November 8th.
Real Pennsylvania is the Rural T-shape, the north half of the state, excluding Scranton, of course, and the center of the southern portion, SSE from Centre County on down. Philthadelphia ain’t Pennsylvania, it’s a cultural suburb of Newark, and is becoming New Jersey’s cross-border garbage dump. And “always vote Union Rustbelt Democrat, early and often” Pittsburgh ain’t Pennsylvania, either. That town’s more like in Illinois.
Patty-Pat, your letter to Philly is excellent.
I would like to add:
*I’m 10-years-old and am allowed by my “grown ups” to run around the streets of Philly in the middle of the night with hundreds of other young unsupervised kids to cause mischief and wreak havoc. My grown ups at home don’t care what I do.
Unfortunately, Patty was point for point on target. The criminals are laughing and mocking you. How do you like it? I was born and raised in Philly. I moved out 38 years ago. The changes I’ve witnessed from, the not so safe and secure anymore, Montgomery County has been nothing but a downward spiral. The lawlessness is spreading much like a cancer grows, and it is creeping out into the suburbs. For the life of me I can’t understand why or how the people of this once great city continue to vote in people who cultivate the same sick, lying, demented philosophies? Is there no one left in Philly with any common sense or are you so indoctrinated that you really do believe the BS being dished out to you? Believe me when I say the republicans aren’t much better. Both parties are nothing more than different sides of the same coin, however voting republican can’t be any worse than what the law abiding citizens are suffering through right now. Give it a try next election. If you’re not satisfied with the results you can always go back to the chaos you are already accustomed to.