Murder Mysteries: Don't Move to Philadelphia!

[Kate]

Murder Mysteries
By Tina Moore
Inquirer Staff Writer

The fatal shooting of Richard Johnson, an honors student at St. Joseph's Preparatory School, generated a flurry of news stories for a few days this summer - until his funeral.

Then, the media moved on to fresher mayhem and 17-year-old "Rick" became a statistic - another chalk mark in Philadelphia's most deadly year since 1997.

Johnson, who was headed to St. Joseph's University on a full academic scholarship, was felled by a bicycle-riding teen gunman who was angry about a dispute that had nothing to do with his victim.

As homicide rates in many large cities are dropping, the number in Philadelphia has increased 11 percent since 2004 - one of the sharpest jumps in the United States. In 2005, Philadelphia police recorded 380 homicides.

Prior surges in the homicide rate had easy explanations. Gangs. Crack. The economy.

Not this time.

"I don't think anybody could just give an instant answer," said State Rep. Dwight Evans, a Philadelphia Democrat who has been leading antiviolence efforts.

Experts find clues in police statistics. Seventy percent of Philadelphia's homicides involved young men in arguments. Some argued over drugs, but many feuded for far less.

"If you look locally and nationally, all the change and trends in homicide really have to do with young males," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "They tend to be trigger-happy and tend to be willing to pull the trigger even over trivial issues."

The city's killers prefer guns. Eight of every 10 victims died from bullet wounds - a percentage higher than in most other cities. Eighty percent of 2005's victims were black men, and about 40 percent were younger than 23, police statistics show. Forty-five were 18 or younger.

In many ways, Rick Johnson was typical of those lost: young, black and shot to death over an argument. The argument, however, involved two other teens.

Johnson was killed on July 9 after his cousin, Christopher Little, 17, and another teen bumped one another at a corner store.

" 'Watch where you're going,' " said the other teen, Alante Manigault, according to Little's testimony at a preliminary hearing in September. Little said he answered, "Watch where you're going."

Little said he threatened to punch his rival. Manigault told him, "I don't talk, I play with guns."

Little said that, minutes later, as he and Johnson walked down Tasker Street, he turned to see Manigault stop his bicycle and open fire, according to his testimony before Municipal Court Judge Teresa Carr Deni.

Ten to 15 bullets hit Johnson in the back and head. He collapsed, two blocks from his South Philadelphia home, and died in the hospital the next day. Little was injured.

In the months that followed, Johnson's mother, Catherine Young, spoke at a CeaseFirePA news conference in the Capitol rotunda in Harrisburg, calling for stricter gun laws.

"My prayer is that my son didn't die in vain," she said, after celebrating her son's 18th birthday without him. "I hope his life touches other people."

She lays much of the blame for surging violence at her neighbors' doorsteps. She is angry at parents who lose control of their children to the thug lifestyle, she said.

Young, 43, said she kept strict rules for all four of her children.

"Why can't my neighbors do that?" she asked. "Why do they drop the ball?"

Nationally, the homicide rate increased by 2.1 percent during the first six months of 2005, according to preliminary FBI figures.

Many large cities bucked the trend. Killings in New York and Chicago have plummeted to 1960s levels. But the 71 killings last year in Boston are more than double the city's toll in 1999, when experts were holding up Boston's anti-gang Operation Ceasefire program as a national model.

From 1990 to 1997, Philadelphia averaged 435 homicides a year, with a high of 503 in 1990. Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said he wasn't making comparisons with other cities or other years.

He and other antiviolence leaders are attacking the homicide problem with proposals to limit handgun purchases, increase the number of police officers on the street, and involve the community in social programs.

Johnson promoted 75 detectives and hired new officers who will be used to beef up patrols and launch more in-depth investigations sooner. The strategy is credited with helping to abate killings in Los Angeles.

"These detectives will go immediately to the scene to interview the witnesses, interview the complainants and try to get these things resolved right away," Johnson said.

The department will also work with courts, probation and parole departments, and the U.S. Marshal's Service to speed arrests of thousands of Philadelphians wanted on outstanding warrants.

Seventy percent of the city's killings happen between midnight and 8 a.m. Johnson said he would also assign more officers to the overnight shift.

"We are putting a new initiative in place, sometime in the very near future, that's going to be city-wide, that's going to attack the hot spots in the city of Philadelphia," Johnson said.

Some of those "hot spots" bear visible wounds.

A mural on a corner store at Seventh and Courtland Streets in Hunting Park memorializes 21-year-old Mark Cruz. He was shot to death on April 27 during a fight over his gold chain and Jesus amulet.

His mother, Wendy Maldonado, 38, said Cruz had gone to the corner store for a sandwich but encountered two men who robbed him of his necklace and money.

Cruz ran home and, joined by a cousin, raced after the robbers to recover the chain, Maldonado said. The cousins soon caught up with the men.

The four men were arguing over the chain, Maldonado said, when a fifth man - Johnathan Santiago - fired a gun five times, hitting Cruz in the stomach. Police said Santiago was gunning for the robbers.

"He was just somebody who wanted to take matters into his own hands," Maldonado said. "Nobody asked him to bring a gun."

Maldonado arrived in time for the ambulance ride with her son to Temple University Hospital.

"He was still alive," she recalled. "He was gasping and trying to say something."

Cruz, who did not have a gun, died soon after reaching the hospital.

Santiago, of the 4900 block of Ormes Street, was charged with murder and firearms violations; he had no license. His trial has been scheduled for June 21.

The months since the death of her son have been unkind to Maldonado, who is a guard in federal buildings in Philadelphia. She has been unable to sleep and is afraid for her remaining four children, the youngest of whom is 2.

She called 911 recently when she heard gunfire near her home. A man had been shot to death after crashing his car in the 600 block of Wingohocking Street - just around the corner.

"People tell me I should move," she said. "But where will I go?"

Evans said legislation limiting pistol sales and stiffer sentences for firearms violations can help curb Philadelphia's gunslinging. He also wants the city to hire 500 new police officers to return the department to 1990s levels and tackle violence as a public-health issue, such as AIDS or alcoholism.

"We have campaigns against smoking cigarettes. Why not against violence?" he asked.

Bilal Qayyum, cofounder of Men United for a Better Philadelphia, said some killings seem to flow from violence-soaked music and "Stop Snitching" fashion.
But he also blames the larger community.

"If white kids were dying on the streets like black kids are dying on the streets, this city would come to a standstill," Qayyum said. "White people would not stand for it."

[troysig]

Don't mean to hijack your thread. But, does Pennsylvania allow concealed weapons?

[DolphinTattoos]

Murder Mysteries
By Tina Moore
Inquirer Staff Writer

"If white kids were dying on the streets like black kids are dying on the streets, this city would come to a standstill," Qayyum said. "White people would not stand for it."

"White people would not stand for it." - Ok, why do black people stand for it?

Shut your traps and do something about it - like stop killing each other.

This cannot possibly be blamed on race. It's common sense that ALL races have. You shoot a gun at someone, a bullet will most likely come out of said gun. Since it was aimed at someone, that bullet is most likely going to hit the person it was aimed at. The odds are very good the person that got hit will die. Bullets do not care what color the skin is before they enter. Bullets are not prejudice.

So, the fact that more black kids are dying than white kids should tell you that the white kids have a tad bit more common sense.

Maybe if the parents taught their children about guns and prisons there might be a few more black kids left in Philly.

[Kate]

"White people would not stand for it." - Ok, why do black people stand for it?

Because it's always easier to blame someone else, which is the way it has always been done in Philadelphia for years.

[woodyzj]

exactly....black kids are killing black kids....simple as that. near the end of the story was almost expecting a race card to be pulled....:(

[Valor55]

He and other antiviolence leaders are attacking the homicide problem with proposals to limit handgun purchases...

I'm glad they have the problem figured out. It always makes me nervous when I'm in the gun store standing in line behind a bunch of thugs and Tupac wannabes. :rolleyes: