As former President Trump and Vice President Harris prepare to face off in the first 2024 presidential debate in Philadelphia on Tuesday, critics of local Democratic Party leadership are bringing crime in the city to the forefront.
Harris, a former San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general who describes herself as a former top police officer, has been called the “patron saint of left-wing prosecutors” by Republicans who criticize policies that do not hold criminals accountable to the fullest extent of the law.
Murders so far this year have increased every year from 2019 to 2022, hitting a 16-year high in 2023 before declining again in 2024, according to city police statistics.
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Vice President Harris (Montinique Monroe/Getty Images/File)
Though Harris has not been directly involved in Philadelphia issues as vice president, critics say her career in California helped pave the way for progressive prosecutors who have taken jobs in big cities across the country.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner, himself a controversial left-leaning prosecutor, has shown that while official statistics show violent crime has declined in the past two years, murders have been higher in both years than when he took office in 2018. There were 353 murders that year. The number peaked at 562 in 2021, before falling to 514 in 2022 and again to 410 in 2023.
“The city must continue to address the root causes of violence,” Mayor Krasner wrote in a letter to The X newspaper last week, adding that “one contributing factor” is “the trauma that results from gun violence.” A spokesman for the mayor's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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While overall violent crime is down about 9.73% this year compared to last, brazen criminals continue to shock the city.
But local attorney and former prosecutor David Gelman said the statistics can be misleading.
“There can't be a decrease in homicides in the last two years. The only reason they say that is because they're not calling it a murder,” he told Fox News Digital. “You turn on the local news and there are shootings and murders happening all day long in the city. It's a war zone.”
Former President Trump (Bill Priano/Getty Images/File)
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At least six city police officers have been shot so far this year, up from three in all of 2023. Department website.
“Philadelphia is celebrating a victory because they got their murder numbers down to 410 last year,” said former NYPD Inspector Paul Mauro. “But if you extrapolate that to New York City on a per capita basis, it far exceeds the all-time high murder numbers recorded in New York City when the city was known as the 'Murder Capital of America.'”
Mauro argues that homicides aren't a good indicator of a city's crime problem, and that robberies should be the metric instead, which fell last year after spiking in 2022 and 2021.
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Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner (AP Photo/Matt Luke/File)
For Gelman, who lives just outside the city, the problem is clear.
“I'll put it this way, I used to go into town all the time for dinner and stuff,” he told Fox News Digital, “and now I can't even pay to go into town unless I have a doctor's appointment. Even in a nice neighborhood, it's dangerous.”
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In late August, police asked the public for help in identifying two young perpetrators, one of whom is believed to be around 10 years old, who robbed a car at gunpoint.
In July, police arrested a 28-year-old woman after she allegedly shot her 7-month-old baby in the leg and yelled, “Fuck your baby,” over the parents' $100 drug debt.
That same week, a shooting in West Philadelphia left three men dead and six injured at a block party.
But Harris has continued to portray herself as a former “cop” throughout her campaign, citing her previous work as a prosecutor even as she has publicly supported a bail fund that helps free criminal suspects, including at least two who have been charged with murder after being released from prison.
On June 8, 2020, then-Senator Kamala Harris, along with other House and Senate Democrats, held a moment of silence in memory of George Floyd at the U.S. Capitol Visitor's Center. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
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In 2020, she solicited donations from supporters to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, ostensibly to pay bail for Black Lives Matter protesters arrested during anti-police riots that erupted in the spring and summer of 2020 following the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minnesota.
Other suspects also received bail: George Howard, accused of domestic violence, was released after he allegedly shot and killed another man in a road rage fight; Shawn Michael Tillman A year later, he was released on bail with the help of a fund, after which he allegedly spotted a rival at a train station and fired six shots at him.
Harris' office did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the bail recipients.
